ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

LGBT

Disobedience – Community or Individual?

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Religious communities can be nurturing and fulfilling, providing people with spiritual meaning and a sense of belonging. But those same communities may also be stifling and destructive of individual freedom and self-esteem. Disobedience, set within an Orthodox Jewish community, is a tale of the search for love and freedom, but it carries the risk of losing one’s place in the world.

Ronit (Rachel Weisz) is a New York based photographer. When she gets word that her father has died, she returns to the London suburb where he was the prominent rabbi of the Jewish community. She is not warmly welcomed home. She fled the community and its strict lifestyle many years before. Even her family and closest friends keep her at arm’s length. She is now an outsider, even though this was home. Her father’s obituary says he had no children. Ronit has effectively been erased from the community. But she is determined to pay her respects to her father’s memory.

She is reunited with Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), her father’s younger protégé and heir apparent, with whom she spent time when they were young. She also reconnects with Esti (Rachel McAdams), who is now Dovid’s wife. The three were inseparable as young people but the years of separation make things a bit awkward—especially when her return kindles a romantic spark between Esti and Ronit. As the week of mourning progresses, the tensions of the community and within the three-person relationship grew to the point of breaking.

On one level, this film seems to speak to the repressive nature of religion. Certainly, that is what Ronit left behind her when she set out to live a different life and her return opens the possibility of another kind of life for Esti, who has suppressed her desires through the years. But the film also plays various tensions that exist in a more universal sense. Community and individual, desire and duty, morality and fulfillment, tradition and modernity. Many of these tensions are made evident in a pair of scenes: Esti and Dovid’s weekly time of having sex in contrast with the sensual explosion of Ronit and Esti’s encounter.

All three of these characters must struggle to come to grips with the changes represented by Ronit’s return to the community—even for a short time. Each must determine what there is of value that they can hold on to, and what they might have to give up to truly find happiness in which ever world they will live in.

 

Call Me by Your Name – Moving Past Innocence

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“To make yourself feel nothing so you don’t feel anything. What a waste.”

Coming-of-age stories are often about discovery as characters emerge from childhood. They often harken back to the story of Eden, as Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit and their eyes are opened to see and experience the world in new ways. In Call Me by Your Name, a young man spends his summer exploring new emotions and his sexuality. The process, like the Eden experience, is both painful and enlightening.

Elio (Timothée Chalamet) spends the summer with his family in their Northern Italian villa. It is a very intellectual family. His father (Michael Stuhlbarg) is a professor of Greco-Roman culture. His mother (Amira Cesar) is an interpreter who brings a variety of cultures into the home. Elio describes them as a mix of American, Italian, French, and Jewish. Elio is something of a musical prodigy, spends his days reading and exploring a relationship with Marzia (Esther Garrel).

Then Oliver (Armie Hammer), an American grad student, arrives to spend the summer with the family. As the summer progresses, their relationship evolves into friendship, but a sexual attraction also grows between them. Elio is unsure of how to approach his sexuality, which expresses itself in various ways. It’s not so much about forbidden fruit, but about being overwhelmed by the variety of possibilities before him, and finding the choice that will most fulfill him.

The Edenic association is enhanced by the sumptuous cinematography and lush settings of the film. (My wife thought each shot was like looking at a work of art.) The leisurely pacing of the story allows viewers to enjoy the beauty of the time and place. The locations are just as seductive as the relationships that Elio is developing.

I hesitate to say that this is a story about the loss of innocence. Even the story of Eden can be read not as about a fall and sin, but as a movement to a fuller life. That is closer to what Elio experiences in this summer romance. He is learning what it means to love. He may be unsure of how to express that love or even the relationship of love and his awakening sexuality, but he is discovering that essentially to love means to open oneself. He also discovers that in opening himself he is exposed to the possibility of being hurt and hurting others. That is very much like Eden—it is a two-edged sword that brings both joy and pain.

 

God’s Own Country – A Different Kind of Love Story

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God’s Own Country will no doubt be compared to Brokeback Mountain. The easy comparison crossed my mind as I watched the screener for this film. But the dynamics of this relationship bring an entirely different feel to this love story.

Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) is working on his family farm in Yorkshire. He is isolated. When most of his contemporaries have goon off to cities or university, he has remained. With his father’s health failing, Johnny must keep the farm going himself. He deals with his feelings by binge-drinking and casual sex—but not with any sense of pleasure. He is self-destructive, irresponsible, and unlikable.

When his family hires Gheorghe Ionescu (Alec Sacareaunu), a Romanian immigrant, to temporarily help on the farm, Johnny has to deal with new emotions in his life. At first Johnny is resentful of Gheorghe, but as they spend time isolated in the fields during lambing season, he begins to respect his work. Their relationship becomes sexual but there is an evolution to it. At first it all seems to be about domination, but as the two become closer emotionally, it takes on aspects to tenderness and affection. But what will happen when Gheorghe’s contract is over?

The landscape for this story is not a lush and verdant Eden, but a harsh, difficult terrain. That applies to the love story that unfolds in the film as well. It is a struggle for Johnny and Gheorghe to maneuver through the emotional landscape of their relationship. What starts off as resentment, anger, and competition slowly evolves into a complex relationship. As they become more comfortable with their relationship, they also become more vulnerable to the pain that love can bring as well.

Perhaps the thing we appreciate most about this growing relationship is the way it helps both Johnny and Gheorghe (but especially Johnny) grow into more caring men, but also men who we can care about. That kind of growth is a key factor in loving relationships, they allow us to become, through our loving, more than we have been alone.

Photos courtesy Samuel Goldwyn Films

3 Generations – Changing Lives

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“My whole life I searched my body for scars because I knew something was missing.”

It can be hard enough being a teenager, but for Ray it is complicated by being transgendered. At the beginning of the film he tells us his birthday wish each year is always the same: to have a boy’s body. 3 Generations is a sympathetic look at the obstacles that can be faced by transgendered people, even in very supportive families.

At 16, Ray (Elle Fanning) is anxious to begin receiving testosterone to being transitioning his body into the male he knows himself to be. He has been raised by his single mother Maggie (Naomi Watts), his lesbian grandmother Dolly (Susan Sarandon), and her longtime partner Frances (Linda Emond). When the time comes to sign the papers for the hormone therapy, Maggie, who has been supportive, begins to stall. They must also get the signature of her absent father (Tate Donovan) who doesn’t even know of Ray’s gender issues (and who now has another family).

Each of the characters has their own issues to deal with. Ray struggles to be accepted as a male. Even in his own family, Dolly wonders why he wouldn’t be just as happy as a lesbian (as she is). His mother’s reticence may be caused by her grief at the daughter she is losing. When his father comes into play, old issues and dynamics come to the surface.

The film is a look at some of the various forms of family that are playing out in society: single mother, same sex couple, multi-generational family in one house, traditional nuclear family. As Ray is seeking to transition his body, he must also try to understand his relationship in each of these settings and how that will also change as his body changes. So too, when we encounter all these various forms of family, we also find new ways that we understand ourselves vis à vis such family settings.

The house they live in is full of winding staircases. It is as if to tell us that there is not a straight line to be found. The twists and turns of life play out in this situation. In order to move to a solution to everyone’s issues will involve lots of changes in direction along the way. I think this is certainly true of the ways that society has been trying to deal with issues such as this. Even as we become more accepting of gays and lesbians (few would be offended by Dolly), transgender issues are something that are still much harder for many people to understand and accept. 3 Generations seeks to offer us a chance to encounter what it can mean for someone and their family to face the kind of life changing transition involved in moving from one gender to another, and in that encounter we may find ways to better understand the needs of those who face such changes.

Photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company

Moonlight: Best Picture Winner – Who Is You?

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“At some point you need to decide for yourself who you gonna be. Can’t let nobody make that decision.”

“Who is you?”

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Identity is a central focus of Moonlight, a story that follows an African American character (Alex Hibbert, Ashton Sanders, and Travonta Rhodes) through three stages in his life. Known variously as Little, Chiron, and Black (those names serve as the chapter titles of the three stages of his life) this character is struggling to know who he is and what his place is in the world. As a child Chiron (his real name) is being raised by a drug addicted mother (Naomie Harris) in a tough housing project in Miami. He’s tentative and uneasy with the other children whotorment and bully him. He is befriended by Juan (Mahershala Ali), a black Cuban American, and his girlfriend Teresa (Janelle Monáe), who become surrogate parents, especially Teresa.

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As an adolescent, he’s struggling to understand his sexuality. He is still being bullied, but now because it is assumed he is gay. An old childhood friend, Kevin (also played by a variety of actors through the story), connects with him while all others shun him. Yet a betrayal leads Chiron into a very new phase of his life.

As an adult Chiron seems to have found his place in the world, but it is not the life we may have hoped for him. When he gets a call from someone in his past, he decides to go see where that may lead. Perhaps there is more to who Chiron has become than his outward life would imply.

In each stage, Chiron struggles to know who he is as opposed to who everyone else thinks he is. While this is touted as a study of the African American coming of age experience, it is far more universal than that description would suggest. At each stage in his life there are forces at work on him—some positive, others destructive, still others that have potential to be either. There are people he loves along the way, but those people are often the ones who disappoint him the most. He has to choose the roads he will travel—and the person he will be.

While we might look at Chiron’s life and see the various influences that pushed him, we know that in the end it is Chiron who is ultimately responsible for who he is and who he is yet to become. His struggle for identity is not settled at the end of the film. There may well be more to come than he has allowed himself to imagine.

Photos courtesy of A24

The Best Picture and Original Screenplay winning film comes with the audio commentary by director Barry Jenkins, a take on the making of the film, a focus on music, and the on-set filming in Miami. 

Kiki – Community for the Marginalized

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“When someone steps on to the ballroom floor, they’re not just competing in categories. They’re telling a story. Someone who walks says, ‘I am beautiful. This is who I am. I’m lovely no matter what you say, what you think. I’m beautiful.’”

The LGBT community is far more diverse than we may usually think. One subculture within that broader community is voguing, which combines expressive dance, elaborate costumes, and a ton of attitude. In New York City, young LGBT people of color may take part in the Kiki scene. This has been chronicled by Sara Jordenö in her Spirit Award nominated (for “Truer than Fiction”) documentary Kiki.

For those unfamiliar with voguing, you might want to think of it as “So You Think You Can Dance” through the lens of a Gay Pride parade. The film takes us into some of the Kiki balls, where various “houses” compete amidst a raucous revelry. The houses are in one sense teams, but they often serve as a kind of surrogate family. The heads of the houses are often called Mother and Father. This grows out of the marginalization that many LGBT people have had to deal with through their lives. Within these houses each person can find acceptance for who they are.

The diversity of the community is seen in the various people we meet. They each have their own story and find themselves on their own spot on the sexuality spectrum. We discover the labels we apply don’t always fit the way we think they should. (This is one of the reasons that Q [Queer] is often added on the LGBT. It signifies that the gender identification of some doesn’t quite fit the categories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender.) Some of those we meet have stories of rejection, others have been accepted by their families, but still feel like outsiders in the world at large.

The film also takes time to highlight stories that continue to be important in the LGBT community, even as acceptance has grown through the years. Homelessness, HIV, and sexual exploitation in term of sex workers continue to be some of the things young LGBT people face as they try to find their way in a world that is often hostile to them. The community that has grown up around the Kiki balls is for some a lifeboat in a stormy sea. The voguing scene is not just about providing expression to marginalized people. It also provides community action that seeks to address some of the issues being faced.

For many outside this community, the extremes of dress and sexualized behavior may be disconcerting and perhaps even repellant. But the community that has been formed in the process is one that provides nurture, safety, and stability for many.

Photos courtesy of IFC Films

 

The Handmaiden – A Delightfully Twisted Tale

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 The Handmaiden takes us on a twisting road of deceptions, double- (even triple-) crosses in a crime drama that straddles worlds. Inspired by a novel set in Victorian England, the story has been transferred to the colonial period in Korea, a time that is tied to the traditions of the past and the emergence of modernity. The house in which most of the story takes place is a blend of both Japanese and English styles. The characters come from the aristocratic world and the world of the streets. The film uses both Japanese and Korean (with different colored subtitles so we know which language is being spoken).

Sookie (Kim Tae-ri) is a young woman chosen to be the new handmaiden for Lady Hideko (Kim Min-hee), a beautiful young heiress who has lived most of her life in Korea as the ward of her uncle, Master Kouzuki (Cho Jin-woong). When Sookie arrives she is in awe of the opulence of the home. But things are not as they seem. There are limits to where Sookie is allowed to go. The basement is especially off limits. There is a kind of dark feeling to this house despite the richness of the surroundings.

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The twists begin when we learn that Sookie is not really a servant, but a thief who has been recruited by The Count (Ha Jung-woo), a slick conman posing as nobility, to befriend Lady Kideko and help The Count woo her. The plan is for The Count and Lady Kideko to elope, claim Lady Kideko’s wealth in Japan, then have her committed and steal her money. But as the story unfolds there are far more twists, with secrets coming to light all along the way—including a love story. The less said about the surprises, the better. After all, that’s what makes this kind of movie so enjoyable—the way we keep feeling off-balance until the end.

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As with most crime films, The Handmaiden touches lightly on some of the darker side of life: crime, physical and emotional abuse, soft porn and the lasciviousness that feeds on it. But it does so in a way that avoids explicit portrayals. This is a story that spends a lot of time on the sinful nature of people, yet there is a small bit of the virtuousness of love that offers redemption from the depravity. That too is a way the film tries to balance very different worlds that clash in the story—by providing the chance for love to defeat all the plots of those who seek to do harm.

Photos courtesy of Amazon Studios/Magnolia Pictures

Thursday at Newport Beach Film Festival

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As the Newport Beach Film Festival comes to an end, I need to give kudos to the staff and volunteers for their wonderful work in making the festival a outstanding event.

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While it has an interesting premise, I had problems with Love Is All You Need? The premise of the film is to create a world in which same-sex relationships are the norm and heterosexual relationships are viewed as deviant and perverted. It is something like what was done with race in the 1995 film White Man’s Burden. When a star quarterback on the college football team (a woman, by the way) falls in love with a male reporter, it sets up a scandal in the town. Meanwhile, a junior high girl is struggling with her sexual identity and is harassed and bullied by others because of their perception of who she is. The film was designed to be a way of talking about bullying and gay bashing—serious problems that LGBT people deal with. However, the film uses the church as a foil, and a very disingenuous portrayal of the church. It is modeled on Westboro Baptist Church, which is an aberration within Christianity. I understand that the church as a whole has a lot to answer for regarding its treatment of LGBT people. (See the notes below on An Act of Love.) But there is venom in the film towards the church which is not much less toxic than the venom that the church in the film aims at the deviant heterosexuals. Probably the film I was most disappointed in at the festival.

 

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In The Great and the Small, a young man on probation for petty crime is living on the street. He gets a job working for a boss who is trying to lead him into bigger crime. He reconnects with an old girlfriend, but mostly for the sex. He also seeks out the woman who adopted the child that his girlfriend had a few years before. She is deeply in grief over the child’s death. As he tries to negotiate his way among the relationships and seeks to find some sense of security in his life, he is also being pursued by a detective looking into his boss’ crimes. The timeline for the film is a bit problematic at times. About half way through it goes back to an earlier scene, but I’m not sure that helps us understand the convergence of storylines. The relationships he has with the two women are something that leads to mutual growth for them all.

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In 2013 Rev. Frank Schaefer was put on trial within the United Methodist Church because he performed a same sex marriage for his son and partner. An Act of Love is a documentary that uses the trial and Rev. Schaefer’s story to look at the struggle within the UMC (and by extension many other denominations) over LGBT issues. It does a very good job of tracing the issue back to the church’s 1972 General Conference that adopted language that both recognized that LGBT people are loved by God and should be welcomed in the church, and that homosexuality was “inconsistent” with Christianity. Within the UMC there continues to be a great struggle between those who wish to fully accept LGBT people into the life and ministry of the church and those who seek to maintain a more traditional (and in their minds, biblical) position. The trial and the national coverage it received put this issue into the broader national discussion about sexuality. In the Q&A with director Scott Sheppard (whose father was a United Methodist pastor) and Rev. Schaefer, it was noted that the church’s quadrennial General Conference will be meeting very soon. Copies of the film have been sent to all delegates to the Conference that will be considering possible changes to the way the denomination relates to the issue. This is an excellent film for those who want to think about this issue in the life of the church.