End of 2022 Thoughts

I usually find myself in a reflective mood toward the end of any year. I recount highlights and favourite books or films. This year, though, I really could not think of any cultural products that stood out. Partly that is because I am still not going out, but also because what I did read, listen to or watch did not seem especially note-worthy. 

However, I did find some wonderful moments to recount for my end of year thoughts. I have already blogged about the astonishing late acclaim for "Running Up That Hill", which remains one of the highlights of 2022 for me. 

To this I will add the colossal win of England's Lionesses to take home the Euros trophy. I was cheering as loudly as I could. I am so, so pleased that this has led to a real breakthrough for women's sport in the UK, with opportunities opening up not just for more participation in sport but also commercial opportunities for the players, everything from appearing on soaps to receiving awards. It is long overdue. 

The Euros campaign is recounted in this online documentary.

I also very much enjoyed the odd Twitter storm, such as when Lizzo played Pres James Madison's crystal flute. This appealed to me on so many levels, being a former flute nerd as a kid. Nobody liked this instrument! It was played by turtleneck-wearing men! Now it's played by amazing all round performers and nothing is more bling than a crystal flute. Kudos to the Library of Congress for inviting Lizzo in to try it out, horrifying gammon everywhere.

And my final moment also loomed large on the Twittersphere recently, when Greta Thunberg took out a misogynist with some well placed words. Delightful!

I wish all a calm, peaceful, inspiring 2023. 

Remember My Name

 Farewell then singer and actress Irene Cara whose passing was announced today. I was immediately struck by youthful pangs of idolatry, recalling her singing not one but two immensely popular title tracks from musical films, Fame and Flashdance. By the time Flashdance came out, I was old enough to see the film and buy the soundtrack which I wore out on the family turntable. It was groundbreaking to see a woman welder who also danced and flirted confidently with her love interest. The dancing was out of this world. 

Fame, however, came out when I was too young to see it and I knew of it only from reputation for years. But as a kid growing up in NYC I was mesmerised by the clips I saw of teenagers dancing and singing in the streets of Manhattan, of taut, thrusting bodies in body-hugging gear and leg warmers. How we all obsessed over leg warmers in those days. It really was a thing. We all wanted to attend the School of Performing Arts, too. The closest I came was when our high school choir performed a medley from Fame. 

As an adult I finally saw the film and was struck by how intense it was, how it dealt with serious issues like family abuse, exploitation, and so forth. I don't know why I am so surprised that a musical can also be a serious film, even knowing how Dirty Dancing and Footloose also addressed contemporary issues. I found out only today that Irene Cara was from the Bronx, which gives added resonance as that is my hometown, too. 

Decades on from its release, I still get a thrill seeing those kids dance onto the street and walk over those cars. RIP Irene. 

London Film Festival Shorts for Free 2022

 Once again this year I was not able to attend LFF but I did catch their Shorts for Free that were available online, with today being the last day to view.

It was quite a variable selection in terms of theme and quality. I was surprised to learn Dropout (writer/ dir Ade Femzo) won the audience award for best film, as I found it pleasant but unremarkable, a boy hiding the news of his music career taking off from his mum who wants him to stay in uni. John Boyega had some behind the scenes involvement, so perhaps that connection gave the film a publicity boost. 

The Chinese film I Have No Legs, and I Must Run won the festival's best short award, which is more understandable. It is an unsettling, atmospheric watch steepd in homoeroticism , as two runners compete for a place on the team, forcing each other to greater and greater effort until one of them breaks down. Director Yue Li makes references to pigs in a cage as his two leads work under the beady eye of a demanding coach. 

The other standout for me was Transparent, dancer Siobhan Davies' autobiographical reflection on her motivations and themes, beautifully shot and imaginatively rendered. I also recognised some of the East London locations. 

Several of the films I found annoyingly pretentious, but there were a couple other queer ones I want to mention. An Avocado Pit (dir Ary Zara) brings together a sex worker and potential client for a roam around Lisbon. Very talky but prettily shot. 

Checoslovaquia (dir Dennis Perinango), a Peruvian film, feels like the start of a longer work, as a mechanic-cum-taxi driver becomes entwined in the lives of the queer folk he spies on playing volleyball at the local river (as you do). His struggles with his own toxic masculinity play out over the course of the film and the title has something to do with a sport he watched as a youngster but this was not well rendered in the translated subtitles so I was left confused. The ending, too, feels rushed but it feels like the core of an excellent longer film is there. 

Fringe! Shorts: weird and wonderful

This year, as with the last, I am not able to attend Fringe! festival in person but the queer film festival is offering Fringe! From Home options which is welcome. 

So far I have viewed two shorts programmes and will extract the standouts for this post. 

The French long short Daughters of Destiny (dir. Valentin Noujaïm) is an absorbing atmospheric sci-fi tale of three young women being kidnapped by aliens who claim to have a paradise that looks a lot like a smoky queer night club. I found it quite imaginative and with resonances of Girlhood. It could also be expanded into a feature, should the filmmaker wish it. 

ELIZA (dir. Amy Pennington) is a comic mockumentary about lesser known poet Eliza Cook who wrote in the 19th century. I was slightly confused as to why the actor had a heavy Northern accent while claiming to be from London, but it was quite amusing to see the Victorian-clad poet wandering around present day Kent reminiscing about the last time she was there.

Another comedic short, How To Sex Your Cannabis (dir. Ryan Suits) uses facts about cannabis to make points about gender expression. A great example of using DIY techniques to create a world. 

Some films cross genres. A wild patience has taken me here (dir. Érica Sarmet) at first appears to be a documentary, as a Brazilian lesbian speaks to camera and then takes tea with her cat at home. Once she goes out, however, she meets up with four younger dykes and suddenly the film seems to be some kind of intergenerational fantasy in which everyone has sex and makes vlogs. Most odd. 

More sedate in tone is I was looking for you (dir. Georgia Helen Twigg) in which a woman bakes using a recipe from an older woman she realises recognised her as a kindred spirit. It poses the intriguing question as to whether people can see more in us than we do ourselves. Quietly affecting. 

Also bowing to queer elders is the futuristic comedy Don't Text Your Ex (dir. Jo Güstin) in which a filmmaker interviews an older couple who offer nuggets of wisdom and not a little swearing. The best bit is the end credits which read as text exchanges of the cast and crew. Quite clever. 

Vanishing Mysterious Cult Artist

I was struck by the language used in describing the career and death of Diane Luckey, whose nom de plume was Q Lazzarus. The singer, who died in July, had songs on four Jonathan Demme films, but never had a recording contract. She disappeared from public view after the release of Philadelphia, only re-emerging to connect with a filmmaker who is now making a documentary about her. 

Even Luckey's age was disputed, some publications noting it as 60 and some as 62. It's quite unusual in the digital age for any public figure, no matter how cult, to not have details of birth, death and everything in between on the record. Wikipedia has revealed many birth dates certain actors would rather not have publicised. 

For my part, I was ignorant of Q Lazzarus's music, even though it was featured on several films I have seen. I loved the Something Wild soundtrack but never noticed her song. 

Since her passing, I have made the acquaintance of her best known song, "Goodbye Horses", featured on not one but two Jonathan Demme film soundtracks. What a haunting piece it is! I don't know how I missed it. Or her. One hopes the upcoming documentary will fill in the gaps and offer an appreciation of her. 

Slow Burn

Happy 64th birthday to Ms. Kate Bush! Or Happy Katemas to those in the fandom. Surely this month must mark one of the most unexpected career boosts of any artist of this century, at least. All those young'uns cheering on Max fleeing Vecna in Stranger Things have helped get "Running Up That Hill" to number one in several countries. 

Those of us old enough to remember the original release can only marvel at its sudden ubiquity after 36 years. But, tortoise and hare and all that. 

But today is also The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever, as thousands flock to perform the iconic dance that accompanied Bush's debut single in 1978. I have seen videos from Australia but had not realised it happens in other places, as well. Why not London? Next year, definitely. 

Also, happy birthday to Emily Brontë who started it all in 1818. 

Whitstable Biennale

 It was great to get back to this event after six years, but the date I chose was the hottest day of the year, so my memories are slightly blurred by heat exhaustion. Beautiful sea and sky and absolute crowds on the beach made getting inside to exhibits quite the feat. 

First up was old reliable Horsebridge Arts Centre which had two exhibits. Downstairs was Savinder Bual's Fade + High and Low, two water-powered works requiring topping up by human beings, which I thought was novel, if labour intensive. 

Upstairs was a viewing room to see two films by Sonya Dyer. I caught The Betsey Drake Equation, which juxtaposed two white male scientists discussing cosmology with a black female dancer interrupting the discourse. I am told cosmology is quite in right now. 

Jennet Thomas's The Great Curdling was a baffling, bonkers film screened in The Old Bank which had me guffawing out loud. A bit sci-fi, a bit high school musical, it featured characters in the future lamenting the loss of the sea through recitals and songs and dodging low fi special effects. I missed the accompanying live performance. 

This film and several exhibits had to be moved from The Cockle Shed owing to a fire and I never found the new location for Sarah Craske's An Eco-Hauntology, which I was looking forward to seeing.  

I did stumble on Chromatic Agency's Ephemeral Evidence while wandering down a side street. Two versions of the film play out on a screen while a giant lump of clay is available to mark. The film details Southern Water's release of raw sewage into the sea and asks who speaks for the sea? 

My final visit was a long trek to the library to view Alicia Radage's installation MOTHER BENT, which took up a whole room upstairs in the lecture hall. The floor was covered in dirt which had screens and sculptures of body parts pointing upward. Sounds came through speakers while headphones offered additional sounds. I spent quite a lot of time here and allowed myself to really get immersed. I did not see the additional works in the adjacent library. 

What was surprising this year was the lack of a Biennale HQ to offer a gathering place for visitors. Venues did not seem to know about events at other spaces. It would have been good to feel more of a connection with other visitors to the festival. But a day out in Whitstable offers its own connections, to the sea and shore and of course the gorgeous sky. 

Creating Change

Farewell then to the tireless activist Urvashi Vaid whose passing was announced last week. I met her in the early 1990s while strolling down Castro Street in San Francisco, stopped her for a chat and ended up exchanging details with her to set up an interview. All this while her partner, the comedian Kate Clinton, waited patiently by her side. 

Just before we parted, Vaid reached into her trouser pocket, pulled out a rather crumpled object and told me to listen to it. It was Clinton's latest album. I left impressed by them both. 

Eventually, we did speak and I wrote up the interview for Deneuve magazine. I saw her speak at several events including Creating Change West in 1991 and the March on Washington in 1993 and she was always forceful, charismatic and on point. 

I lost touch once I moved to the UK, but I always found Urv an inspiring figure and a much-needed leader in many overlapping communities. My deepest sympathies to Kate Clinton. 

Here is an interview with Vaid and Clinton from 2014. 

BFI Flare: Unsaid

So, this really will be my final post for this year's Flare. My last feature is The Sound of Scars, a doc on the rock band Life of Agony. Knowing nothing of their story, I was pleased to learn they were from Brooklyn. Always good to hear some authentic NYC accents. Singer Mina Caputo had transitioned some years back, in between band break-ups, and this was one stream of the film, another being that several members of the band had suffered traumatic childhoods. A lot of footage showed young boys in various states of rough and tumble. I had rather expected Mina Caputo to reflect on the lasting scars of toxic masculinity in the scene, but this theme was notable by its absence. 

Reflecting back on 1990s hardcore, I remember it was this very strain that alienated so many girls and women from attending gigs, let alone joining bands. What a missed opportunity. Anyway, the band have a new drummer and album and seem to be putting things back together. 

The short Borekas is largely a two-hander of a father and son leaving much unsaid as the latter prepares to fly back from his homeland to his life in Munich. The fumbling of the father and the angst of the sun are well played and the final awkward pat on the back is poignant. 

Syed Family...

And for a final heart-warming family comedy, there is The Syed Family Xmas Eve Game Night, a mouthful to say and replete with cringey moments of recognition, as little sister brings her girlfriend home for the titular event. Actor turned director Fawzia Mirza brings order to chaos, wringing out every last drop of tension and humour from the making of a pot of chai. Coquitos all around!

BFI Flare: Making Space

 I am coming to the end of my Flare viewing and have a trio of films to explore, all of which deal with repression, tradition and making space when it is not offered. 

Terence Davies' drama Benediction is a languid depiction of the life and loves of Siegfried Sassoon, best know as a First World War poet. Davies uses a lot of archive footage from the front, as well as having actor Jack Lowden, who plays Sassoon, voice his poems, but this really unbalances the film. I found the poems to be the least affecting aspect of the drama and was more interested in Sassoon's relationships with his peers. Later in life he married a woman, despite being gay and the film also has disconcerting flashes forward to him as an older man converting to Catholicism and arguing with his son. The whole thing dragged badly and I wished Davies had trimmed the film down. 

Camila Comes Out Tonight is an Argentine drama about a teenager finding life in Buenos Aires to be somewhat out of her comfort zone. Dragged their by her mother as her grandmother lies dying in hospital, Camila meets a boy, then a girl and finds herself negotiating her sexuality as her relationship with her mum becomes strained. The first hour is absolutely tedious but the last act is incredible, with secrets aired and revenge enacted in a way I found delightful. It's rare for a film to depict intergenerational family relationships in a way that is fair to all and it is also refreshing to see the street protests in Argentina given air time. Seeing girls chanting My Body, My Business was a fist-pumping moment for me. 

Gateways Grind

And finally, Gateways Grind is a TV show masquerading as a film that is littered with delightful anecdotes and archival footage as Sandi Toksvig rides around London in a cab offering a history of the historic lesbian nightspot The Gateways Club which closed in 1985. There is a lot of dish, especially around the filming of The Killing of Sister George, but also about the staff and patrons of the club. I was utterly fascinated by the story of proprietor Gina Ware, who was married to the owner but had a close relationship with bar woman Smithy, as told by Ware's daughter. They deserve their own film. A wonderful watch. 

BFI Flare: Under Pressure

Though the festival has finished, I am slowly working my way through titles I did not have access to while it was on. Today I am looking at films that feature characters in sticky situations. 

The Divide opens with a woman frantically texting her sleeping partner who is in bed next to her snoring. Great opening and from there the film wends its way, equal parts humour and trauma, as various characters find themselves at a local hospital as the gilets jaunes protests take place in Paris. Not having paid that much attention to French politics, I was not entirely clear what the sides where in this dispute, but writer-director Catherine Corsini uses this particular divide to map out a complex range of positions, loyalties and identities. The lesbian couple, Raf and Julie, were breaking up before they arrived at the hospital and as tensions rise, the strains on everyone show. At one point, someone shouts, "The hospital is falling apart!" and I thought of our dear NHS, so badly treated by successive governments. Special shout-out to nurse Kim who holds it all together. A brilliant piece of work. 

In Invisible: Gay Women in Southern Music, the pressures are caused by bigotry, tradition and homophobia. We meet a range of queer women who work or have worked in the field of country music. Awesome to think how many hits were written by lesbians. But, as the film shows, Nashville is not nearly so understanding of queer women performers and some of those on show, such as Dianne Davidson, lost their careers as performers when they came out. But the film is a bit meandering and director-screenwriter TJ Parsell could easily lose 20 minutes or so to make it more punchy and impactful. I was also annoyed at how Chely Wright is introduced about 65 minutes in as a cautionary tale and then just left hanging. I googled and found she is still making music and has become an activist. So, why not tell us that? There are also a couple of shocks, as veteran performers turn up and don't quite look as we remembered.... 

BFI Flare: Boulevard!

It seems appropriate as the stars gather in Hollywood tonight to celebrate their successes at the Academy Awards that we consider the queer art of failure. Boulevard! A Hollywood Story does just that, charting the quite incredible but true story of Gloria Swanson's attempt to turn her cinematic triumph Sunset Boulevard into a Broadway musical in the 1950s.

As camp as Sunset Boulevard is and especially the character of Norma Desmond, a faded star who launched a thousand drag numbers, the queer interest in this documentary is found in the two young men who wrote the musical, Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley, who were a romantic as well as professional couple. 

As the three attempt to make the show work, the collaboration falls apart when Swanson falls for Stapley and the two men break up and go their separate ways. And it gets stranger. 

Hughes, Swanson and Stapley at work

As the documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz makes calls and unearths dusty boxes of ephemera, the truth unfolds in a way scarcely credible. Stapley had a film and TV career as actor Richard Wyler, while Hughes played piano for Marianne Williamson. 

Swanson of course continued on her merry way being a star, long after the roles dried up. All three found the later years difficult, mirroring Ms. Desmond. A Sunset Boulevard curse or the unforgiving nature of Hollywood? 

BFI Flare: Melodrama Queens

 I approached Fragrance of the First Flower with great interest. Lauded as Taiwan's first GL, it features a great meet cute that proves to be a meet again cute as two women who knew each other in high school get reacquainted. But how well did they know each other before? And how close will they get? The problem with the film is it is not really a film but a web series that has been stitched together, which creates problems with pacing and story-telling. At only 99 minutes, it still felt quite drawn out to me and by the end I was losing interest owing to the lurch into melodrama. Would it be too much if a story involving two women could be a bit more upbeat? Apparently, a second series is in the works. Probably best watched in episodes online. 

Similarly, the short Fever sets up a good premise as an inter-racial couple head to one guy's house for his mother's birthday party, before underlying issues in their relationship come to the fore. The explosive finale plays out as rather am-dram and totally undercuts the build-up of tension that precedes it. Quite disappointing.  

BFI Flare: Queering the Archive

 Almost a week into the festival and I have finally completed a feature! And what a film! Ultraviolette and the Blood Spitters Gang is a French art doc with an extraordinary backstory. Director Robin Hunzinger collaborated with his mother Claudie to tell the story of Emma and Marcelle, two young women who met in 1923 and had a love affair which played out in the latter stages in letters sent by Marcelle to Emma (Robin's grandmother and Claudie's mother). After Emma's death, the two descendants found the letters and have used them to narrate this beautifully realised, affecting story of persistent desire. 

It took me awhile to realise most of the images were not of the two lovers but from found footage also also from art films. I recognised scenes from Meshes of the Afternoon and Mädchen in Uniform but the credits revealed work by Leger, Dulac and Moholy-Nagy as well. It's a bold move to drop those into such a personal story. I also admired the strong use of archive footage, the queering of images of women in the countryside, women dancing, women on bicycles, women wearing ties. This was truly a queering of the archive. 

Separated by work and academic commitments, Marcelle writes passionately about her feelings for Emma but also about her own life philosophy, stating she has "le goût de la vie". Diagnosed with tuberculosis, she finds herself confined to a sanatorium, where she meets three other rebellious young women and the four of them form a gang. A very queer gang. Marcelle, despite her love for Emma, is quite happy to play the seducer and even brags about it in her letters. Who knew a sanatorium could be such a pick-up joint, especially in 1928?

There are resonances for current day concerns: young women lying in beds in close proximity, attended by doctors, none of them wearing masks. Young women facing death from a communicable illness. Marcelle writes of her friends facing death, which she refuses. She wonders if a lost friend will return to visit. She has the most brilliant way with words, and one wonders if she went on to become a writer, as one of her friends did. 

Needless to say, there can be no really happy ending, not with fatal illness and impending world war. I felt shaken at the end and thrilled to have made the acquaintance of such vibrant beings from another time.

BFI Flare: Shortsighted

 By now I would have hoped to have seen several films and be mulling over themes arising in ye olde fest. But, owing to technical problems, I have not seen any features and only a handful of shorts, all of them available online for free. 

Among this year's crop of Five Films for Freedom is the evocative Frozen Out (dir Hao Zhou), an arty exploration of dislocation through a series of gorgeous static shots of a man marching through snowy settings while a voiceover asks searching questions like "Where am I?". All five films are available to view until 27 March.

Among the shorts available on the BFI player is Do This For Me (dir Marnie Baxter), which unfolds as a bit of a mystery as five women gather in someone's home and record a series of videos addressed to a missing member of their group. This felt a bit like a web series to me and the ending is a bit abrupt, but the women's gossipy interplay is quite well done. 

Reflections

 Here we are in the shortest month of the year and I have been reminded of several anniversaries. It's natural to offer some reflection on days gone by. 

For example, I was startled to note that the last week marked the birthdays of both Audre Lorde and Kurt Cobain. And what would those two have made of each other? I remember their deaths in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and was immensely saddened by both events. While one was much older than me and the other was a peer, I had enough distance to not mourn personally, but from a distance, wondering what else would they have done?

That has often been a question I have posed myself in hard times: what else might I do? It always spurs me on, thinking about things I might yet accomplish. 

Which brings me to a rather more personal anniversary, as it was seven years ago this week I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Seven years, three diagnoses, three treatment regimes, the works. Still here. Still curious. Still wondering what more is there? Loads more, I think. 

The Stuff of Nightmares: Cats

So, I finally got round to watching Cats last night. It had never made much impression on me, thought it was a big hit on Broadway in the 1980s when I lived in New York and I have liked some other Lloyd Webber shows. 

And then the film came out in 2019. Oh, my. Savage reviews, memes, parodies. But, you know, people like to exaggerate. How bad could it be? Cover me. I'm going in. 

So, it is possible to watch things simultaneously on streaming services with certain apps. My friend L. and I arranged to have a "Netflix Party" to watch Cats in our separate abodes. I pressed Play and off we went. First thing popping up on my screen: the subtitle "Thrilling music". Well, No. It was bang average scene-setting. 

And then the cats appeared, first a timid cat, then street cats. And they were standing on all fours, with hands sticking out and twitchy ears and bits of whiskers and I mean: WTF? Who designed this madness? Are they cat-like humanoids? Humans in cat costumes? What is the concept here? 

And then they started singing in posh English accents. So, they're English cats? In what time period? Hard to tell, as the set design was some kind of weird steampunk vaguely Victorian looking but not really. 

Idris Elba popped up with yellow eyes. Dame Judi Dench popped up with a long fur coat. Rebel Wilson had zippable skin. Poor Jennifer Hudson, the best thing by far in this monstrosity, had an entirely human face with some sad whiskers. She got the only decent song, Memory. Poor Taylor Swift--she had a great entrance, being lowered on a crescent and then had to effect an English accent for her one song. 

By this point my friend and I were openly speculating what drugs the creators of this spectacle were on. She thought LSD and I suggested absinthe. Actually, Lloyd Webber was on coke when he wrote the score. But Tom Hooper, the director, what the hell was his excuse? 

I amused myself during the duller parts by googling who was who and came upon the intriguing notion that cat buttholes were digitally removed in the lengthy post-production. This cheered me up enormously during the 110 minute running time. Finally, it was over. "We did it!" L. typed. Really, we should get medals. 

Someone ran with the butthole concept and here is the evidence. Enjoy. Don't have nightmares.