Ourhouse

Episodes 1, 2, and 4
Directed by Nathaniel Mellors, 2010

Art can be many things - but surely it’s not allowed to be funny…?

The ICA is currently showing the three existent episodes of Nathaniel Mellors’ Ourhouse video project. I saw episode one a while back, and have been wanting to return for the others since then, but only just got round to it. I’m going to avoid the tag of video art altogether though, as I’ve so many shite examples of it; it just brings to mind opaque noodlings thrashed out on home video cameras with little to no practical skill.

Instead, Ourhouse occupies a juncture between ‘video art’ and a narrative form much closer to television – certainly in production values (which are tip-top) – featuring actual actors, and even a plot! Admittedly an uncanny one, but not to the extent of complete impenetrability. That the characters are likeable (if odd) and the visuals often rather lovely, in a low-key way (lots of window light), goes a long way to making you actually bother follow what’s going on.

In a way, the episodic format isn’t done any favours by the ICA’s curation (with each part played in a different room), which makes people inclined to pop in and out as you might justifiably do with a more (traditionally) freeform video installation. It does the work a disservice though, as it would with any narrative form – like a TV series, the story that develops across the episodes demands to be watched in full.

Taking place in a dilapidated country house and following the bizarre and at times almost ritualistic behaviour of the occupying Maddox family, the story concerns the intervention of ‘the Object’ – a fat man in a white tracksuit who the family are incapable of identifying as human. The Object starts to eat the family’s library, page by page, with a resulting effect on the characters’ grasp of language (the ageing and slightly new-age father comes over all cor-blimey and takes to wearing an ‘I Eat Pussy Like A Fat Kid Eats Cake’ T-shirt).

It sounds a slender premise, but as with any art piece – and it is obviously capable of sustaining analysis on that level – it’s as interesting as you choose to make it: a meditation on language, knowledge, and power. What kind of fascinated me about it though was having the choice to simply watch it as a narrative (albeit an absurdist one).

As I say, I found the whole thing extremely funny – there’s a blackly comic streak alongside a deadpan take on the general irrationality – and it is novel experiencing something with moments of a genuinely comic sensibility in an art space. (Especially when you consider that humour is as valid a form of expression as any other, but one not often recognised as such in an art context.) In some ways, for me at least, the art tag though is almost disingenuous, as, outside of that context, I’d still find these pieces very enjoyable (which makes me wish it was online somewhere).

I particularly love one of the Maddox sons, shorts-and-vest-wearing “magic child”/“space monkey”/“cretin” Truson: a sort of slightly fey, slightly posh, slightly simple boy with soot (?) facepaint, who occupies a position somewhere between sensitivity and imbecility. Whether it’s the character as written, or something the actor David Birkin brings to it (nephew of Jane, tenuously-linked-actor fans!), he’s oddly compelling, whether taking photos of stuffed birds in a tree with a massive Polaroid camera, or finding a totemic earth-mother figure in a hedge. (He also provides an unexpectedly resonant moment of emotion at the end of the last episode.) 

Maybe because it has a kind of through-the-looking glass internal logic, it’s hard to know if I’m really explaining this well at all, but probably the most noticeable and, in a way, impressive thing about it is its lack of self-indulgent wankiness. Well, maybe that’s a matter of opinion. But a sense of humour counts for a lot. Also, I think having the patience to actually watch it in its entirety means it does make sense as a whole.

Perhaps the best way I can qualify it – and what distinguishes it from my experience of video art – is that, though initially opaque, it deals with conceptual ideas (corruption of language, etc) through traditional storytelling and televisual language, which makes it far more palatable than it might otherwise have been.

Iron by Woodkid

Not a film, but whatever. After about two listens I love almost everything about this: Japanese drums, horns, wolves, owls, slo-mo, Agyness, and not to mention a certain amount of grandeur and/or pretention. Lovely!

Smáfuglar / Two Birds

Directed by Rúnar Runarsson, 2008

Pretty but fairly disturbing Icelandic ketamine/date-rape short:

"Let their heads preach upon poles for the trespass of their tongues!"

EDWARD II

Directed by Derek Jarman, 1991

Derek Jarman’s adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s play may coincidentally be the kind of film lacking (among those I saw) at the LLGFF this year: one which combines an unapologetic depiction of homosexuality with an individualistic style and approach. Concerning the exile of the king’s conniving ‘favourite,’ Gaveston (read as: lover), and the subsequent political machinations of his court and queen, Jarman not only presents a late-eighties/early-nineties take on the material, but more specifically cranks the gayness up to the limit (to the extent of throwing in a cameo by Annie Lennox).

I’m not familiar with Edward II, but I love Shakespeare, which seems a close enough comparison for this Elizabethan play to not feel alien. In fact, the language is notably less florid by comparison to Shakespeare, with the dialogue feeling a lot easier to take in line by line. I can’t speak for how much must have been cut, but as the film clock in at a trim hour and a half, that probably helps. More importantly, the whole thing’s peppered with quite delicious lines, for example, of the king: “Is it not queer that he is so bewitched?”  

I’ve seen numerous stage productions which utilise a similar style as adopted here: plain, in this case, stony walls (like something from the BBC’s Gormenghast), with a mix of lone, incongruous props (a Christmas tree, a hanging carcass, or a parliamentary meeting table), and predominantly modern dress (suits and riot gear). It’s an obvious staging device to occupy an ambiguous non-time, to emphasise the content’s universality, but it’s no less effective for it. (Although an incomparably larger production, even Julie Taymor’s Titus – which I love, for its ridiculous ostentatiousness – shares this trait, combining both Roman and twentieth century iconography, costumes, and vehicles; Rupert Goold’s recent filmed version of his own Macbeth production has a similar timeless, pseudo-industrial backdrop.)

Plays on film can inevitably be problematic, often falling between two stools – maybe it’s an unfair example, as I don’t remember it that well, aside from the fascist-Britain setting, but something like the Ian McKellan-starring Richard III strikes me as being neither entirely theatrical nor cinematic. (There’s definitely an argument for using the source material as a jumping-off point for a story tailored to what is an entirely different medium – stand up Throne of Blood, ‘the ultimate cinematic Shakespeare adaptation’.)  Jarman’s take on filming a sixteenth century play works for me by entirely embracing its staginess; it’s all studio-shot, with spotlighting and expressionistic shadows, but the simplicity of these elements means the director has a very tight control over the aesthetic of the film. Also, there are unavoidably still elements of the punk sensibility of Jarman’s earlier films, like Jubilee, in the violence and audaciousness of his imagery, which comes out in scenes like one where a corridor of priests spit in turn at the departing Gaveston. No less provocatively, the king’s supporters are explicitly portrayed as placard-bearing gay-rights activists and there’s copious male nudity, including a torch-lit naked rugby scrum which has a kind of Chris Cunningham-like grotesqueness.

If it all sounds a bit, uh, wanky – a provocative, Stonewall-era take on Tudor court intrigues – well… I guess it is. A ‘filmed play’ of an Elizabethan play might be a hard sell, but, on top of its compacted running time there’s sex, violence, betrayal – and all without pandering to mainstream conventions of what a film has to be like. Huzzah! Again by comparison to Shakespeare, it does feel quite constrained and contained – although again this may be down to its edits or even the minimalist and claustrophobic staging – but that’s to the advantage; it doesn’t meander and has a kind of lethal trajectory, perhaps most seen in the development of Tilda Swinton’s impeccably elegant queen. I love Tilda, and appearing in a range of stunning outfits, she’s quite magnificent, managing to somehow progress from cuckolded wife to icy Lady Macbeth-alike without seemingly moderating a characteristically controlled, understated performance.

To be honest, le Swint tearing out someone’s throat with her teeth is reason enough to see any film, so, nuff said.

LLGFF: ‘Expectations’ & ‘Made in the USA’ shorts programmes

So, my time at the BFI’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival has officially come to an end, already, which is a massive shame since, as the cliché goes, I’ve had a great time and met some brilliant people. The last screenings we saw were two programmes of shorts, the gay-themed Expectations and the sapphic Made in the USA.

I have no real experience of watching shorts, so I fear I’m not the person to bring a particularly balanced perspective to those which were screened. I’m not a fan of short stories, and in the same way there’s just something about that short-form thing which really turns me off. Despite appreciating the idea of narratives which are pared down to the very bare bones, in practise I found those that did this mainly frustrating, while those with more fully-realised narratives – ie, the shorts which felt more like short feature films rather than self-contained vignettes – did more for me.

A lot of the discussion I’ve had with the other young reporters at the festival – both as part of our brief and in general – has centred around the future of ‘queer’ cinema and its relationship to both alternative and mainstream filmmaking. That both should be viable and welcome platforms for LGBT content, albeit in different ways, should be self-evident. But, also, none of us were particularly comfortable with the idea of ghettoising homosexual (etc, etc) content through marketing to that specific demographic. Equally, in a discussion with festivalgoers, the idea that all cinema with gay content is somehow inherently relevant or worthwhile to LGBT people was put forward (albeit by one person…) - which is patently ridiculous. Creating some mandatory canon of cinema that everyone with slightly leftfield urges ‘should’ watch is absurd and doesn’t help anyone, not least because of the amount of total shit they’d have to wade through. A notable amount of films that I enjoy have some sort of alternate sexual content, but though that is relevant to my enjoyment (as someone who does enjoy picking up twigs in the springtime, and other Dylan Moran euphemisms), it’s also a kind of shit for it to be the be-all and end-all of why you like something. So, first and foremost, what’s important is whether the work in question is worthwhile in and of itself. Fuck sexuality.

These series of shorts couldn’t really have emphasised my view on that any more; the gay section, Expectations, was especially generic, each short featuring, a), an attractive young man, of, b), varying degrees of sadness, and, c), dealing with coming out, in some fashion. Okay, okay, these programmes are obviously curated so that the component parts are sympathetic to one another – but, though I’m not knocking hot gay boys on film, that these sort of stories are prevalent enough to warrant an entire programme of shorts is rather worrying. For Christ’s sake, is that the extent of ‘the gay experience’? Although it may be representative of a certain amount of the gay audience’s experiences, surely things could be moved out of this rut of picturesque miserabilism.

Fortunately, the lesbian section, Made in the USA, though lacking the former collection’s multiculturalism (France, Brazil, Portugal… and the Isle of Wight) had a broader range of subjects than exclusively young people coming to terms with their sexuality, as well as a certain amount of humour. Having said that, I’m not sure whether the quality per se was any greater, with some, like the cloyingly twee and splitscreen-ridden The Archivist (dir. Katie Scoones, 2010) just beggaring belief that they could ever be shown at a sold-out screening in NFT1.

Though there was a lightness of touch and genuine humour to the final three shorts in the Made in the USA strand, there still wasn’t a great deal of depth. Not having a massive experience of shorts, I can’t really say if this is simply a drawback of the format – though, really, I don’t see why it need be – or maybe it just means that gay/lesbian filmmakers are hamstrung by trying too hard to appeal to a given audience.

The most successful of the shorts from each strands were, tellingly, those which not only expanded their focus most (rather than purely being about sexuality itself), but also those which attempted to encapsulate a fuller, more feature film-like narrative. Miika Leskinen’s Small-Time Revolutionary, though still focusing on a gay teen’s coming out, transcended the limitations made to seem built into the format by the other films in the Expectations strand, and was suitably revolutionary (ahaha) in being the only one to utilise a period setting (well, Thatcher-dominated England – THERE’S THE WHOLE OF HISTORY TO CHOOSE FROM, PEOPLE!), and expanded the focus to include the lead’s (albeit somewhat boxticking) group of friends, and his authoritarian mother and henpecked, stamp-collecting father. Actually, that makes it sound all rather hackneyed, but it was punchy enough to work – though, given that Ian McKellan had an audio cameo, we’re obviously dealing with a slightly more moneyed production than its rivals, but… ehh.

In Hens & Chicks (dir. Becky Lane, 2010), though not an equivalently professional production, the focus fell on a little girl and her friend, rather than her lesbian mums, which was something of a relief; to see gay themes as part of a narrative rather than dominating it.

At the risk of sounding too harsh, there were some rather lovely films in these two programmes – it’s just that none of them were entirely successful overall. For example, though ponderous, Wild Horses (dir. André Santos & Marco Leão, 2010) was pretty and atmospheric - but unfortunately almost entirely pointless (hipster wanking over his boyfriend showering; some quite beautiful but ‘so what’ shots of horse-stroking). I just wish there had been at least one fully satisfying short that could have combined successful acting and visual and narrative elements. Obviously these ten or eleven shorts can’t be taken as representative of short film as a format, or of gay shorts specifically, but this selection did made me wish for something with the idiosyncratic aesthetics of something like James Bidgood’s Pink Narcissus – or, even just something with a bit more energy. Looking even to the scores alone, there’s only so much wishy-washy whimsy-folk that you can take; I was left hankering for some electrothrash or something, to shake up the complacency.

Perhaps that’s true of all these films. There was a sense of complacency to them; they all seemed to fit too neatly into some pre-prescribed box. I think what I was waiting for was something with an unapologetic take on alternate sexuality, but which could still be about more than just sexuality alone… I didn’t get to see it in the festival, but, though there’s a case for it being all style and no substance, the stylistically sure hand and total lack of whinging introspection or even acknowledgment of its characters’ sexuality in Xavier Dolan’s Heartbeats/Les Amours imaginaires - where were those things in these shorts?!

LLGFF: Becoming Chaz

BECOMING CHAZ

Directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, 2011

The second film which I've seen as part of the young reporter programme at the BFI's Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Becoming Chaz, documents the process of female to male gender reassignment in Chastity/Chaz Bono (the child of Sonny and Cher). 

Though the documentary frames Chaz's personal journey in terms of his vicarious fame, as a member of a self-declared 'public family', the negotiation of the extra challenges this poses - particularly hateful paparazzi, and mommie dearest appearing on Letterman - is little more than an extra hook to draw in audiences, with the focus falling almost entirely on Chaz. As such, it's personal elements of his life during the year the film covers which are given most weight - his relationship with his airheaded/insane partner or the operation to remove his breast tissue. 

Occasional talking-head interjections with the immobile drag queen Barbie otherwise known as Cher are used somewhat cruelly to highlight her perhaps surprisingly conservative viewpoint on her daughter's transition (given her 'iconic' status within the gay community you can't help thinking she might want to brush up on her PR). Though she doesn't exactly help herself, coming across as fairly ignorant about the whole process, the lack of impartiality on the part of the directors is representative of their approach in general. There's something didactic to the whole film, which essentially amounts to transgender propaganda - which is fine, but there's a lack of engagement with other sides of the coin, so at times the film feels like it's preaching to the converted, to the extent that i wonder how well it will play outside of festivals such as this. (Despite its faults, it would be inforttunate if it only attracts attention as a some kind of celebrity expose-curio.)

To an extent the film's saving grace is Chaz himself. In terms of presentation, the film is everything you'd expect from a glossy televisual year-in-the-life (and would almost certainly play better on the small screen): black and white interiew footage and frequent rummages through the family photo albums are all present and correct. There is in fact a sense of the film's format being rather rote, although a last minute, post-credits reunion between Chaz and his mother (who, ironically, looks more like a man of the two) is a brief and fairly uncomfortable affair, rather than a final tearjerking moment. Chaz himself is almost ridiculously normal - somewhat browbeaten by his lesbian partner, then increasingly irritable as the testosterone kicks in - but though this might not be especially cinematic, his ordinariness (all the more impressive not only given his trans status, superstar parents, and childhood lived on camera) humanises a situation that perhaps still doesn't have a great deal of visibility.

Ultimately, maybe because documentary's generally not my bag anyway, Becoming Chaz disappoints - there's a undeniable sense of judicious editing which removes much trust in the filmmakers and damages the ability to engage with the subject, perfectly likeable though he is in himself. I'd certainly also prefer to have seen slightly more engagement with the issues surrounding gender reassignment (eg, the psychological, societal and medical repercussions). The film is little more than a soufflé, and while perhaps that's laudable in relation to a somewhat overlooked minority (and unsurprising for a feature that's been picked up for Oprah's documentary channel), I can't help but wish it had been tackled by someone with a more tangible opinion or angle on the subject. Maybe if Herzog could be persuaded to shift his focus from the natural world...?

LLGFF: Kaboom

KABOOM
Directed by Gregg Araki, 2010

Writing this whilst feeling like I’m dying - or possibly passed away in the night - gives some indication of how enjoyable the BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival gala night party was. Free wine… Boys… Drag-queen nuns… What more could anyone ask for? Shame then that Araki’s Kaboom, the gala screening, was diabolical.

To clarify, I won a place as a ‘young reporter’ at the festival - and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to flash my cupcake-emblazoned pass around and generally act as if I owned the place. As for the festival itself, I’m not really a team player when it comes to the LGBT community, but, at the risk of sounding completely like the festival’s butt-boy, there was a palpable sense of, well, community at the screening – in fact, all night. There was a welcoming, inclusive atmosphere and it was rather lovely. Double shame then that Kaboom was diabolical.

I suppose I should clarify that… I’m all for the idea of wanton nonsense, big bright trashy fun, but, for me, nothing sat quite right enough in this ‘teen sex/end of the world/murder mystery comedy’ for the film to work on those terms. I’m not sure how comparable it is (especially not on budgetary terms) but Kaboom doesn’t have a fraction of the demented, madcap energy of, say, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (a film which when it comes to pop-cultural nonsense is going to be a high-benchmark for the foreseeable). Even Tarantino’s Death Proof, though a deeply ridiculous film, traffics in the same sort of knowing-wink-to-the-audience pulp trash as this, but has a control which is almost entirely lacking here. Overall I can’t shake the impression of a filmmaker attempting to return to his glory days, but with considerably diminishing returns.

I’m not a massive fan of Araki anyway, I concede, though I do absolutely love Mysterious Skin, which I think is a highly impressive and mature work – all the more so for being by the director of Totally Fucked Up, The Doom Generation, and Nowhere. Though sharing some of Mysterious Skin’s atmospherics, Kaboom totally fails to capitalise on the control and poise of Araki’s command of the material there. Though this is a very different kettle of fish – a deliberately outré college romp-cum-thriller (I use the word ‘cum’ advisedly) versus Mysterious Skin’s psychologically delicate story of two damaged, abused boys – there’s no reason why the precision he brought to that previous film should be mutually exclusive with the content in this one.

(Oh, apparently, directly before this, he made one about “a young woman who has a series of misadventures after eating a large number of cupcakes laced with cannabis”. Dear god. At least no-one must’ve seen that one - but the chances of Araki becoming some kind of elder statesman of queer cinema is looking more and more unlikely.)

In regressing to the punkish style of his earlier films – but with considerably less energy and DIY brio – Araki risks sliding into middle-aged irrelevance, not unlike John Waters’ mid-career slump into a kind of mainstream and thoroughly sanded-down version of his own initial style. To be honest, the aforementioned ‘Teenage Apocalypse Trilogy’ – to which this is very definitely an adjunct (hammered home by the presence of those films’ star, James Duval) – were pretty shit to begin with, as far as I’m concerned. The only one I particularly recall any of is The Doom Generation, with its tinfoil-covered bar, penis tattooed with Jesus, and climactic amputation of Duval’s character’s (Jesus-less) cock.

Before the screening, the director (who seems very nice - so, you know… sorry) said something to the effect of wanting Kaboom to be an equivalent of those earlier films for the current generation of teenagers – but I can’t help wondering if they’d just find it cringeworthy. Some half-baked horror clichés combined with what’s essentially a below-par episode of Skins – well, put that way, maybe it will find an audience (though whether it’d be the one depicted in the film is questionable). The take on promiscuous teen sex here smacks you in the face with the fact that the film’s creator hasn’t been a teenager for a very long time, and, worst of all, simply feels pointless. (Larry Clark might still be peddling teen ‘relations’ in his late sixties, but at least he’s never made anything this cringy.)

Then there’s the contrived bitchy insults which Rose McGowan somehow made work in The Doom Generation, but which fall horribly flat coming from the mouth of Haley Bennett. There’s a similar line in sexual innuendoes, though supposedly candidly direct lines of the ‘I just want to make you come’ variety are possibly more painful.  Almost without exception the cast are pretty but dull, with the badly fake-tanned lead coming across as a kind of twinkified Jason Schwartzman. With awful hair.

Oh, my – the litany continues: the scene transitions. Christ, the scene transitions, which utilise every effect short of star-wipes. I’m not even 100% about Kurosawa’s hard-edged wipes, but is this even allowed?! Even with heavy irony. Actually, especially not when irony is involved. These sort of elements would lead to the spoof reading which some of my illustrious colleagues on the Young Reporter programme were leaning towards, but I don’t buy it. Even if that was the intention, the conspiracy elements were played relatively straight, but maybe needed to be more heightened… or less, I can’t tell, too hungover.

In the interests of some spurious balance, I will say that – perhaps strangely, considering it was the opening feature at a gay film festival – Araki’s approach to fluidity in sexuality was quite laudable and welcome (I certainly wouldn’t categorise this as an out-and-out gay film), though it did also smack a little of a Torchwood-style EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IS SEXUALLY AMBIGUOUS setup. That’s particularly interesting as the discussion we’ve been having in relation to the festival has centred on the continued relevance of festivals of this kind (they still are, yes), and whether mainstream or alternative films are better vehicles for homosexual content (they’re not mutually exclusive), so a film that breaks down a lot of those boundaries, and without making much of a fuss about it, is quite apposite.

But, really, you know a film’s got problems when its whole plot needs to be explained with a massive infodump - and that’s before you get to the perfunctory and wannabe-nihilistic (insert lacklustre spoiler warning here) destruction of the earth ending.

Anyhoo - I’ll be reviewing all the films we get to see at the festival, so watch this space, innit.