Trailer for the film Minyan // YouTube 2. Neither will startle or shock, but they’re likely to move you, and show how this style of story should be told. Although this is centuries and cultures apart from the Orthodox Jewish Russian-American New York of Eric Steel’s Minyan, both films share a quiet intimacy that distinguishes them from the more Oscar-baiting takes on this template. The latest film by Francis Lee (his previous being the less artsy but also less artful God’s Own Country), Ammonite, tells the story of a young woman and an older paleontologist (played by Saoirse Ronan and Kate Winslet respectively) falling in love by the 1840s English seaside. In addition, they favor intimacy and authenticity over trumpeting self-importance. They have a specificity in their environments and leads that make their worlds feel whole and lived in.
Identity becomes totalizing.Īs such, neither Ammonite (which technically came out at the very end of 2020 but still) and Minyan are innovative, but they stand out by their subtly and surprising, so often missing, vitality. Protagonists are defined by their sexless gayness and robbed of all other personhood just as their uncomfortable friends, co-workers, and relatives are reduced down to their homophobia. They’re easy to do and highly relatable, thus ironically resulting in a deluge of generic mediocrity. ‘Self-discovery’ and social ostracism are the most over-done and emphasized themes within gay media. The self-discovery drama: Ammonite and Minyan So, as the piteous awards season begins, and millionaire celebrities praise themselves while their medium burns, let’s celebrate some of the great gay films they’ll ignore that came out in 2021. They’re more mature, sexy, and distinctly Western, and often more artful too.
Because of that, they simply can’t be reduced to the neutered mean. These are stories about real experiences, vivid sex, the fear of death, and, yes, being gay. If you love film, it’s been pretty bleak and the plague only made things worse.ĭespite this – or perhaps because of it – independent gay cinema has managed to produce a few gems each year, – notably Weekend (2012), Stranger by the Lake (2013), Pride (2014), Paris 05:59: Théo & Hugo and The Handmaiden (2016) Saturday Church (2018), and Straight Up (2019). The last 20 years have seen mid-budget movies disappear, increased fealty to China, and studios focusing on entertaining children and childish men. There were highlights – namely, Pig, Wrath of Man, The Card Counter, Dune, The Last Duel, and The French Dispatch – but this second year of the virus underlined and heightened an ongoing crisis in cinema, America’s defining artform and the greatest populist entertainment on the planet. Compare Squid Game to Star Trek: Discovery and it’s clear why adult audiences, looking for quality entertainment and art, flocked to the Korean production.Ģ021 was the second year of the pandemic, with most films delayed and the few cinematic releases rarely worth the price of entry. Perhaps this is why the best of international cinema and television, disconnected from Hollywood and its inanities, have topped charts. John Cena and Lebron James set the new moral framework: point fingers in the West, bow knees in the East, and produce crap for both. “Disney promises to increase diversity among executive ranks,” the Hollywood press praises, as though the gender diversity of millionaire executives helps aspiring girls and working women.īut guys, just remember that Chinese audiences don’t like gays or blacks, so don’t make them kiss, and when you market Black Panther, let’s keep the helmets on, kay? Nothing can be provocative the beautiful is archaic, religion anachronistic, and the blandly ugly is ‘bold’ and ‘inspiring.’ And then the press endorses companies pandering to our tempers, as though they wouldn’t drown your grandma if it got them your wallet. It’s verboten to write or play characters of another background or identity – we must speak in our ‘own voices,’ informed by our ‘lived experiences’ – but also, all ‘content’ must resemble a Benetton ad, with a suitably diverse pallet of gender, race, and sexuality, all of whom must behave and believe exactly as instructed. We have a deeply confused, corporatized culture.