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....
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