Perfectly queer

The Image+Nation Film Fest unleashes its screenings of bent dissent

One of the greatest highlights of this year’s Image+Nation Film Fest is undoubtedly Making the Boys, Crayton Robey’s thoughtful feature-length meditation on Mart Crowley’s landmark play and film, The Boys in the Band. The documentary joins a spate of recent amazing docs—including Stonewall Uprising, Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work and Budrus—that show us how powerful non-fiction filmmaking can be.

What’s fascinating is the way Robey shows us the story behind this bit of pop culture, and then puts it in context, illustrating how it was/is a reflection of the times, how the play came out just before Stonewall and the film was released just after. As he did in Stonewall Uprising, Ed Koch makes an appearance, talking about the influence Boys had—he appears to be coming out via fleet­ing documentary cameos. But perhaps most amazing is the testimony of Edward Albee, who regrets passing on producing the original production, and concedes he complained when the play first ran that the timing was off—this is not the moment, he suggested, for such negative images.

Given all the talk about how actors must maintain the appearance of being straight, the film version was noteworthy as well. When the Hollywood studio suggested they get an all-star cast, Crowley(and director William Friedkin) stood by the stage cast, so a group of relative unknowns took the parts. Some have maintained the film was not entirely negative in its image of gay men, in that no one commits suicide at the end (they all just look like they’re about to, though). This defence ultimately became a cruel irony, given that most of the cast ended up succumbing to AIDS. For theatre and film buffs, for anyone interested in queer culture and history, Making the Boys is essential viewing.

Other highlights include Undertow, a Peruvian film by Javier Fuentes-Leon (which opens the fest tonight), about a strange love triangle that forms in the wake of a devastating accident.Some have called this Ghost crossed with Brokeback Mountain, and we’re still trying to decide if that’s a good omen. Doc filmmaker Christopher Hines returns to examine the gay male psy­che with The Adonis Factor, a sequel of sorts to last year’s The Butch Factor. Here, he delves into the gay obsession with body perfection, and what it says about damaged, fragile egos.

In Hello My Name is Lesbian, Danish filmmakers Iben Haahr Andersen and Minna Grooss do for dyke Danes what Forbidden Love did for Canadian lesbians 15 years ago. From teenagers to octogenarians, this film shows us Danish lesbian culture across several generations. There’s more doc her story in The Heretics, Joan Braderman’s look at the Lower Manhattan art collec­tive that provides the title of the film, and proved the launch pad for the careers of some extraordinary visionaries, including Alice Walker and Barbara Ehrenreich.

In the unusual romance department, Brazil’s Marcelo Laffitte brings us Elvis & Madona, about the passionate love between a trans Madonna impersonator and a lesbian Elvis imperson­ator. A strange melodrama and romcom that promises not to be arriving at a multiplex near you soon. And Toronto-based Bruce LaBruce presents his latest bit of inspired punk-porn lunacy with L.A. Zombie, in which some of the biggest names in porn have sex with each other while dressed up in Halloween gear. ■

THE IMAGE+NATION FILM FESTIVAL RUNS TILL NOV. 7. FOR INFO, SEE IMAGE-NATION.ORG

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