In the past, members of the LGBT+ community have often been left begging for table scraps when it comes to cinema. But with Moonlight winning Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards, has LGBT+ cinema finally come into its own?
Mainstream Hollywood offers us the same old shit, time and time again. It’s either ‘queer as stereotype’, ‘queer as tragedy figure’ or ‘queer so fleeting you barely notice them’. That hasn’t really changed a great deal – it’s still very rare to see accurate portrayals of LGBT+ relationships on screen. Beauty and the Beast promised so much and failed to deliver anything but the briefest glimpse of queerness and Wonder Woman – comic lore’s queerest icon – completely dodged the issue.
Queer films have always been there but they struggle to get funding, struggle to get distribution and struggle to reach the audience. Since the success of Carol in 2015 that has been getting easier and Moonlight’s well-deserved Oscars have clearly helped a lot too.
So, based on UK release dates, here are my picks from 2017’s gay cinematic buffet.
Moonlight – It won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (Mahershala Ali) and Best Adapted Screenplay out of its 8 nominations, and deservedly so. The tale is told in three acts from the life of Little/Chiron/Black growing up in Miami and struggling with his sexual identity, his family and his friends. The acting is outstanding all round, the direction is beautiful and the score underpins the whole thing perfectly. What’s more, it’s currently included free for Amazon Prime Video subscribers.
God’s Own Country – Comparisons to Brokeback Mountain are inevitable in a movie about masculine gays struggling with their feelings in a remote setting but for me God’s Own Country is a far better film than Brokeback Mountain. The acting is superb from both leads and it shows exactly how difficult it can be growing up in a remote farming community in Yorkshire and, on top, how that’s even worse if you have struggles with your own sexuality and internalised homophobia. Post-Oscars, this would be my LGBT+ film of the year. It’ll be out on DVD/BD later this month.
Call Me By Your Name – Ah yes, the joys of long bicycle rides, sweaty underwear and fresh peaches in the glorious Italian summertime. We’ve all been there, to some extent, but if we haven’t then Luca Guadagnino has us covered, inviting us into a world where coming of age meets already of age in a tantalising seduction. Timothée Chalamet plays confident teenager Elio and Armie Hammer plays Oliver, the twenty-something object of his affections. The film plays out pretty much exactly as you’d expect it to but the glimpse inside the journey is magnificent. I expect it to be popular during the forthcoming awards season.
Battle of The Sexes – Remember back in the 70s when women weren’t paid the same as men and men did all they could to keep it that way? Oh how far we haven’t really come. Battle of the Sexes tells the true story, though with some embellishments and timeline alterations for narrative expedience, of Billie Jean King – the number one women’s tennis player of the 1960s and 70s – and what led her to agreeing a match against Bobby Riggs – a male ex-pro who wanted to ‘put the show back in chauvinism’ and offered a huge cash prize for ‘any woman who can beat me at tennis’. You can guess the outcome but the joy is in the journey both to the game and through the pitfalls in life as a lesbian married to a man.
Atomic Blonde – More of an honourable mention, this was a fairly average film overall but one thing it did manage was to portray a lesbian fling without too much ‘straight-bait’ giving us a reasonable LGBT+ storyline in a fairly mainstream film. There’s also a great soundtrack (though sadly no Atomic by Blondie – they missed a trick!) and a fantastic one-take stairwell scene. There are many problems with the film overall but it deserves a bit of credit. Not too much…but a bit.
One of the problems that queer cinema still has is in finding screens to show films. Multiplexes are mostly interested in films that will make them money leaving niche films to the ever-dwindling arthouse scene. As a result, I missed the following films in 2017 and am hoping to find some way to watch them in the coming year.
Beach Rats – The story of a Brooklyn teenager who dabbles in drugs and gangs by day but by night searches gay apps for older men – anyone who won’t be anywhere near his circle of friends – for hook-ups.
Tom of Finland – If you’ve never seen a Tom of Finland drawing, I’ll be surprised. In post-war Helsinki, Touko Laaksonen – the titular Tom of Finland – produced thousands of illegal illustrations of homoerotic scenes, mostly concerned with muscular and leather fetishes. These famous images went on to influence musicians such as Freddy Mercury and the Village People in their presentation.
Thelma – From acclaimed Norwegian director Joachim Trier, this story of a repressed religious girl with telekinetic powers sounds bonkers and looks, from the trailer at least, pretty amazing.
Professor Marston and the Wonder Women – Psychologist William Marston and his wife enter into a polyamorous relationship with a woman who would inspire him to create everyone’s favourite superhero, Wonder Woman.
Then there are three films that I couldn’t see at all as they received no non-festival release in the UK at all.
Princess Cyd – A young high-school student, eager to escape her home life, visits her aunt in Chicago one summer. There she falls for a girl in the neighbourhood and as their relationship blossoms she also helps her aunt get back in touch with her own sexuality.
Women Who Kill – A pair of exes who produce a podcast focussing on female murderers find their world turned upside down when one of them starts a relationship with the mysterious Simone, who may or may not be a murderer!
The Misandrists – Love them or loathe them, there’s no doubting that Bruce La Bruce’s films are provocative, hilarious and focussed on the very deepest recesses of queer society. The Misandrists is no exception. When a young man, stumbling through the forest with an injured leg, whilst being pursued by the police, happens upon two young women they agree to hide him from the police. They also have to hide him from the other members of their ‘school’ which is, in fact, a front for the terrorist organisation the Female Liberation Army which has one aim. To smash the patriarchy through lesbian porn propaganda.
Then we have a couple of films coming up in 2018 that were released elsewhere last year. With a bit of luck I’ll manage to catch these this year…if they get released anywhere near me!
BPM (120 Battements par Minute) – In early-90s Paris, ACT UP, a group of HIV activists, will go via any means necessary to further the cause of HIV prevention education and increased availability of the drugs required to tackle the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
A Fantastic Woman – A Chilean film about a trans-woman whose partner dies might not sound like your cup of tea but with an excellent pedigree, some stellar performances and a story involving brutality and oppression from both her partner’s family and the authorities, this is one I’m definitely looking to see as soon as possible.
Finally, a bit of credit should go to Netflix who have a relatively large back catalogue of LGBT+ films. In 2017 I watched the delightful American film Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party, the beautiful Dutch film Boys, the incredibly compelling French film Eastern Boys (sadly no longer available on Netflix) and Britain’s own The Pass with Russell Tovey and Arinzé Kene in fine form as a pair of young footballers trying to deal with the complications of gayness in professional football.
The world of LGBT+ cinema is deep, complex and worth checking out. Hopefully I’ve given you a few titles to look out for.
(Throughout I use LGBT+. I understand that this is imperfect but other acronyms such as LGBTTQQIAAP are also imperfect.)
Cinematophile 