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Knight at the Movies: Undertow; Strange Powers; Taylor tribute
by Richard Knight, Jr., for Windy City Times
2011-03-30

This article shared 5112 times since Wed Mar 30, 2011
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When it rains it pours: This week in Chicago there are so many queer-tinged movies opening that your cranky queer film critic is silenced for once about the usual paucity of LGBT movie choices. What's even better: the embarrassment of riches includes seemingly something for every kind of queer movie fan. (See listings below.)

First up is my favorite of the lot—the sensual romantic drama Undertow (Contracorriente). Two years after making the rounds of film festivals here and abroad (the movie was the closing-night feature at Reeling last fall) this compelling 2009 Peruvian film (Peru's official submission for this year's Oscars) is finally getting a theatrical run in Chicago, opening this Friday at the Music Box. The movie, which marks the feature debut of out writer-director Javier Fuentes-Leon (who also produced) is an elegiac, lyrical old-fashioned weepy that combines the supernatural aspects of Ghost; Truly, Madly, Deeply; and dozens of other similar Hollywood dramas with the traditional wife-verus-mistress triangle. It's Back Street with a gay update: The mistress is a man.

The story takes places in a conservative seaside village in Peru. There, the incredibly hot, hot, hot Miguel (Christian Mercado), a fisherman who has an easygoing manner with his fellow workers and his neighbors, is eagerly awaiting the imminent birth of his first child along with his lovely wife, Mariela (Tatiana Astengo). However, Miguel also has a secret: a male lover, the painter and photographer Santiago (Manolo Cardona) who he meets on the down- low for leisurely love-making sessions and who has, unbeknownst to him, made a series of nude paintings of him. When Santiago accidentally drowns he haunts Miguel, not wanting to leave the love of his life and not able to rest until Miguel can come to terms with what it truly means "to be a man."

At first Miguel is delighted with the situation: He can continue the secret affair without a chance of being discovered, as Santiago isn't one of those Patrick Swayze, ectoplasmic spirits. Miguel can touch him, caress him and—in one of the film's most emotionally exhilarating scenes—walk down the street in his tiny village holding his hand guilt-free (because his fellow villagers can't see Santiago). This tiny triumph begins Miguel's emotional transformation—a transformation that is escalated when the nude paintings are found by his gossipy, homophobic neighbors.

Fuentes-Leon strips down the familiar template to its emotional core and adds interesting emotional curves throughout. (Mariella, for instance, isn't the shrill, stereotypical, unsympathetic harpy.) The result—gorgeously filmed, and assuredly paced and acted by its fetching cast—is nothing less than a Peruvian variation on Brokeback Mountain.

Of related interest: The 27th Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival, which first screened Undertow last year, returns April 1-14 with a whopping line-up that includes more than 100 films (in virtually every genre) from Latin America, Spain and the United States with special segments dedicated to women, Latino films made in this country and LGBT-themed movies. The line-up for the latter includes eight titles that promise to illuminate the queer experience on film—titles include The Elevator, So Hard to Forget, Christmas, Old House, Blattangelus, Cuchillo de Palo 108, Born to Suffer and I Am the Queen. (The latter, from local filmmakers Henrique Cirne Lima and Josue Pellot, looks especially intriguing. It follows three members of the Puerto Rican transgender community in Humboldt Park as they participate in Cacique Pageant—Humboldt Park's first-ever transgender pageant. The film (along with the short subject, A Doctor's Job) screens at the Instituto Cervantes, 31 W. Ohio, on Friday, April 1, at 8 p.m. Tickets are available one hour prior to screening (cash only). Complete information on festival screening titles, screening venues, and special events connected with the fest at www.chicagolatinfilmfestival.org .

Also, read reviews of Blattangelus and I Am the Queen online at www.WindyCityMediaGroup.com .

Other LGBT screenings this week:

—Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields: It won't take long for the uninitiated in director Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara's documentary to figure out why such disparate talents as Peter Gabriel, Sarah Silverman and Neal Gaiman are such big fans of the openly gay, famously contrarian Merritt, one of indie music's most eclectic singer-songwriters, and leader of the offbeat band of the title. Not surprisingly, Merritt—whose complex songs, dyspeptic opinions and artsy quirks have made him a media fave, too—is the drawing card for this fly-on-the-wall documentary inside his world, as the band records a couple of albums and performs for its devoted fans.

However, it's the relationship between Merritt and his collaborator—the band's sometime manager and best friend, Claudia Gonson, in a relationship dating back to the duo's college goth-rock days—that is the most illuminating. This intimate portrait of the twosome's complicated friendship (in true classical gay-culture fashion) and bickering musical partnership will be familiar—funny and heartwarming—to generations of gay men and their best gal pals. The film is returning to the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, by popular demand beginning Friday, April 1. See www.siskelfilmcenter.org .

—JoJo Baby is the 2010 documentary portrait of local legendary nightclub performer (20 years and counting at Boom Boom Room) and artist of the same name by filmmakers Mark Danforth and Dana Buning (executive-produced by Clive Barker). The film, subtitled "a portrait of an artist's pain and beauty" (it is) will have a rare screening Wed., March 30, at 6:30 p.m. as the third selection in the free, LGBT-themed film series Cinema Q at the Chicago Cultural Center, 78 E. Washington, in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. Jo Jo, and several of his doll sculptures, will be on hand before and after the screening. Two videos by out filmmaker Peter Neville of the Joans, the local rock-n-roll band "dedicated to Joan Crawford" and headed by Hell in a Handbag's artistic director David Cerda, are also on the bill. Windy City Times is one of the series' media sponsors. See www.queerfilmsociety.org .

—An Affirmative Act, a courtroom drama from writer-producer Kenneth DelVecchio (and one-time judge) and director Jana Mattioli that focuses on the legalization of gay marriage will screen exclusively in Chicago at the Kerasotes Showplace ICON, 150 W. Roosevelt, beginning Friday, April 1. (The press release cites this as the first film dramatization of the issue.) The story follows a New Jersey couple—a law professor and an architect—arrested for falsely obtaining a marriage license because they're actually lesbians. There's a lot of other behind-the-scenes political shenanigans that dog the couple as they struggle for equality in this indie drama that features a cameo appearance by actor Charles Durning. See www.anaffirmativeact.com .

—The Black Swan Experience is a one-night-only midnight movie screening on Saturday, April 2, of director Darren Aronofsky's twisted, intense psychological thriller that features Natalie Portman's Oscar-winning performance and that much-talked-about smooch between her and co-star Mila Kunis. The screening will be held at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark, and will be hosted by local drag-queen celebs Frida Lay and Mercedes. Patrons are encouraged to "come as your favorite swan queen," and giveaways and surprises are promised. Tickets are complimentary and available on a first-come, first-served basis at www.iwasperfect.com . (For those wishing to recreate the experience in the privacy of their own home, the DVD has just arrived in stores.)

"The last movie star is dead" the headlines screamed when word of Elizabeth Taylor's passing at 79 spread like wildfire around the world last week. In the days that followed media pundits weighed in; talk-show hosts and callers waxed enthusiastic; social networkers opined with a surprising minimum of snark; film critics like myself wrestled with the importance of Taylor's somewhat tricky movie career; and the world truly seemed to pause in mourning for the death of the Legend with the violet eyes. No one paused more than the gay community, where even those not familiar with our history seemed to have an awareness of Taylor's special place in our collective hearts. It was because here, after all, was the celebrity who almost single-handedly brought the scourge that AIDS was wreaking on Our People into the mainstream consciousness in the mid-'80s. While our say-nothing, do-nothing, maddeningly silent leaders ignored the plague, feisty Taylor, decked out in diamonds, stood up and said, "This won't do. Attention must be paid. Enough is enough."

In speaking out, Taylor found the role that defined the last quarter of her life (not to mention launching a foundation that has raised millions of dollars and counting). In championing this desperately important cause the public came to understand what insiders had known all along: that this—the world's most famous movie star; dogged by scandal and illness, past her acting freshness date and well into her camp years by 1985 (cue the Joan Rivers fat jokes)—was made up of much more than the sum of her myriad parts. There was a lot more to this girl-woman of a million moviegoer dreams than her dazzling yet vacuous life story had suggested.

In that last act—as a passionate AIDS activist who brooked no excuses—Taylor morphed from a much-married, excessive movie star with a plethora of off-screen gay friends to the woman who spoke loudest and most eloquently for Our People. The close friendships that Taylor shared with dozens of gay men—from Montgomery Clift to Roddy McDowall to Rock Hudson (whose death in 1985 spurred her into action) and many more—was well-known within Hollywood circles, as were Taylor's loyalty and devotion to these men. This devotion, based on true understanding and compassion, started early: It's less well-known that her father and Michael Wilding, her second husband, were, if not gay, then bisexual.

The eulogies have included many accounts of Taylor's many film collaborations with gay men—some of her best. But there hasn't been much note taken about her attraction to films with either overt or covert gay themes. This latter category, I think, is especially important to be singled out as, like Taylor's pioneering celebrity activism on behalf of AIDS, it found her at the forefront of the culture. I think it's interesting that both times Taylor stepped up to the plate publicly for Our People, she did so in the face of overriding cultural conservatism.

The first time was in the late '50s, just as the vise grip of the bland decade was finally loosening. Taylor was then at the height of her beauty and box-office appeal; after the big box office and critical plaudits for 1956's Giant (in which she appears, ironically, as the onscreen love interest for two closeted gay men—James Dean and Rock Hudson), Taylor was spreading her wings creatively. She took the lead in the 1958 film version of gay writer Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Taylor was rewarded for her brave, full-blooded portrayal with an Oscar nomination; encouraged, she went out on the limb again the following year in an even more overtly coded Williams property—Suddenly, Last Summer, scripted by gay writer Gore Vidal. Vidal hilariously describes the country's horrified, vicarious thrill at this outrageous homage to homosexuality and cannibalism in the seminal documentary The Celluloid Closet. The film, a big hit, brought Taylor another Oscar nod.

Taylor would make other queer-tinged projects (with 1967's Reflections in a Golden Eye the most notable) and certainly plenty of more work with gay filmmakers but it wasn't until she once again defied convention to become an AIDS activist in the stultifying climate of the Reagan-Bush '80s that the actress once again reminded the world that she was in our corner, not just in her private life or in her movies but in all aspects of her life. The world has indeed lost a one-of-a-kind treasure—reason enough to mourn. However, Our People have also lost a hero who flew in the face of convention on our behalf in a lot more ways than perhaps many of us have recognized—so … another moment of silence for Dame Elizabeth, please.

Check out my archived reviews at www.windycitymediagroup.com or www.knightatthemovies.com . Readers can leave feedback at the latter website.


This article shared 5112 times since Wed Mar 30, 2011
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