Out Around the Town
This year's Outfest offerings move beyond stock themes
There's not a cowboy in sight among the films screening in this year's Outfest 2006: The 24th Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, taking place in venues from Santa Monica to downtown L.A. And that's reassuring: One shouldn't have to be a ranch hand living in Montana to be queer. However, in this post-Brokeback Mountain era, the selection of titles (at least those available for preview) suggests an overall attempt to push the envelope of what is acceptable to the mainstream.
Yes, the festival offers some of the traditional assortment of iconic themes beloved of gay filmmakers - the dewy-eyed coming-of-age tales, the coming-out stories, the bleak vignettes about the sadness of those who feed their souls with drugs or promiscuity, and the documentaries about prostitutes laboring in the Third World.
But mixed among the sometimes generic treatment of gay concerns are a few features demonstrating an unusual exuberance toward sexuality, suggesting a continental shift between queer generations. Many of the series' filmmakers have moved past those stock themes into telling stories that simply have gay characters, whose roles are perfectly integrated with the rest of the world.
With roughly 80 features, plus shorts, panels, and special events, the festival is clearly too diverse to be summed up in one page. Some of the best entries - including Another Gay Movie and Forgiving the Franklins - are scheduled for the second week and will be reviewed next issue. In the meanwhile, here's a rundown of some of the films screening during the first week (more in this issue's Latest Reviews section):
The Railroad All Stars (Estrellas De La Línea). Chema Rodríguez directed this compassionate, intimate documentary about a group of prostitutes working Guatemala's notorious La Línea slum, who form a soccer team to raise public awareness of the abuse experienced by the country's underclass. For this decidedly motley collection of downtrodden ladies of the night, the team becomes a way out, allowing them to escape the slums, if only for a few nights. The film offers wonderful character portraits, going far beyond the obvious "whore" stereotypes. Several are lesbians in committed relationships, but the most touching depiction is of the elderly, one-eyed, snaggle-toothed ex-prostitute whose job is to supply the group with condoms. As the team's fortunes rise, she positively blossoms with dignity and touchingly regains her humanity. Rodríguez fascinatingly depicts the desperate freedom that exists for those who inhabit the very dregs of society - but also eloquently communicates the idea that all people, even society's lowest, deserve dignity and respect. (Sat., Village at 2:30 p.m.)
Meth. If the previous gay generation was tragically defined by its experiences during the AIDS epidemic, this generation's great Grendel is crystal meth, a.k.a. Tina. Todd Ahlberg's remarkably effective documentary is about the seductive substance, which has cut its way through the gay community like a shark through chum, leaving behind a wasteland of zombified boys whose brains have all but melted out their ears. The film is essentially a series of talking-head interviews with longtime users and recovering addicts, all of whom recount depressingly similar narratives about lost jobs, sexual addictions, HIV infection, and weeping mothers. Even though it lacks cinematic bells and whistles, it still packs a decided wallop, thanks to the intensity of its subjects' anecdotal tales. Still, the piece goes on for far too long: After the first 20 minutes, the rest is overkill. (Sat., DGA at 1:30 p.m.)
The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros. In a Manila slum, effeminate 12-year-old Maxi is the youngest and most sensitive son in a family of scalawags. While Dad thrives as a numbers runner and the two oldest sons keep busy stealing cell phones, which Dad then fences, Maxi prefers spending his time watching soupy romances at the local movie theater and dressing in lavish gowns and costumes with his tranny buddies for mock beauty pageants. But when he develops a crush on a handsome police officer, his heart comes into direct conflict with the family business. Notwithstanding the gay romantic elements, which are staged to intentionally approach operatic scale, the attraction of director Audreus Solito's engrossing, gritty film is not only its powerfully realistic depiction of the abyss of Philippine slum life, but also the characters' unexpectedly broadminded attitude toward the lisping, sashaying, gender-bending Maxi. (Fri., DGA at 7 p.m.)
Camp Out. Codirectors Kirk Marcolina and Larry Grimaldi's documentary is about a group of kids attending a rural Minnesota summer camp for gay Christian youth. Surprisingly, the camp is not a brainwashing trap where religious right parents send their kids to get the queer beaten out of them: Instead, it's designed for teenagers to nurture both their gay and their Christian souls. The film focuses on several of the nicest kids you'd ever want to meet - and the camp is monitored by a squeaky-clean gay pastor, who himself has battled his church for his ordination. Yet, amid the guitar hymns and campfire chats about Jesus, there's still some downtime for mildly raunchy games of Truth or Dare. In the end, though, the work is so dewy-eyed and preachy that it's unconvincing. In an attempt to show that gay kids can be good Christians, Marcolina and Grimaldi bleach the film of anything that might rub Christian viewers the wrong way. (Sat., DGA at 4:30 p.m.)
Mom. Uptight marketing researcher Kelly (Emily A. Burton) dreams of being a news anchorwoman, but she spends her days traveling small towns, filming interviews with test subjects, working with laidback lesbian camerawoman Linda (Julie Goldman). When the two partners are delayed in a dreary Midwestern burg, Kelly starts to emotionally unravel, while the pleasure-loving Linda engages in a sultry affair with a local married woman. The plot of director Erin Greenwell's sleepy buddy comedy is too lackadaisical to ever draw us in. It limply drifts from one lackluster moment to the next, despite Goldman's appealing, larger-than-life turn. (Fri., Village at 9:30 p.m.)
Vacationland. Driven by a toxic brew of hormones, homosexuality, and rebelliousness, an angelic-looking high school senior (Brad Hallowell) in Bangor, Maine, spends his afternoons cruising the men's rooms at the local mall and joining his best buddy (Gregory J. Lucas) in shoplifting and buying beer. During a wild bash, the two wind up in each other's arms, and they both realize something about themselves. Director Todd Verow's attempts to depict the universal small-town gay experience is often quite affecting, but it's hampered by glaringly elemental faults in execution. The script is a downright mess, with a hard-to-penetrate, scattershot structure. The camerawork is murky, and some of the acting is achingly stiff. However, the peculiarly isolated setting and the actors' obvious limitations give the piece an unexpectedly strange and profound truthfulness, even while the fundamentally weak storytelling ultimately prevents us from being drawn in. (Mon., DGA at 9:30 p.m.)
Published: 07/06/2006
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