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Is He Or Isn't He?

Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Still from Where We Began

A large part of the festival this year as in previous years has been the inclusion of short films. The festival programmers usually seek out collections of short films that share similar thematic concerns and then screen them back to back in order to draw out these themes for the audience. It is one of these features, Is He Or Isn't He that exemplifies just how successful the festival programmers are in bringing powerful and engaging short films to an audience not necessarily expecting to be cinematically challenged. Is He or Isn't He as the festival guide details is characterised by films exploring the dangers of desire and the lengths we go to in order to find the man of our dreams, lengths that perhaps do not prepare us for what we may find.

The six films offered are all wildly different in visual style and character focus. However, all meditate on the power of desire in all its guises and how it blinds our senses, potentially enlightening, sometimes dangerous. All the films, some not in English share a concern of the power of the visual over spoken language. It seems that the filmmakers share a tendency to explore desire through visual narrative. Whether that be the almost luminous blue of the engorged worms in Bugcrush or the contrast between warm and cold memories of love eroded by addiction in Where We Began, all the films seek to pull the spectator into their visual discourse.

Still from First Flush

The two most successful films in terms of exploring the true dangers of desire are certainly First Flush and the before mentioned Bugcrush, both examine how a seemingly innocent inquisition into sexuality can lead to unforeseen dangers and ultimately life changing conclusions. First Flush directed by Mikkel Much-Fals is set in

Denmark

and follows the experiences of three teenagers exposed to an explicit world of pornography and left to their own devices one summer. Stumbling across a local gay cruising spot the teenagers spy on the middle aged men with families as they solicit for sex. Recording one in particular on his mobile phone one of the teenagers aims to blackmail one of the men for 500 kroner or at least a few beers and the teenagers follow him back to his home. However, once inside the house his fortunes are reversed and the older man turns on the boy ultimately providing him with his first gay experience. Here then is a film that lures its audience into the innocence of its protagonists, seeking to establish a scene of idle adolescence and uneventful summers only to shatter this with what is essentially rape in the final moments of the film. This is a forced coming to terms with sexuality, a story of 'a young man's first flush of gay desire [that] propels him into unexpected arms'. The film is well made with artful camera work and powerful performances from its young actors who communicate beautifully just how sexuality can come to be dangerously awakened.

Still from Bugcrush

Bugcrush certainly is the most uncomfortable film to watch with a truly visceral visual style that left me squirming in my seat towards the end of the narrative. The film similarly looks into how sexuality is awakened when an American high school kid pursues the object of his affection, a dangerous outsider who keeps on disappearing into the trees outside school with two other boys. However, his curiosity leads him to an isolated house at night where he is encouraged to sample the ecstasy of letting a large tapeworm like bug to suck his blood whilst masturbating. The concept of the film seems surreal, unrealistic and just a tad weird and I would be lying if I said that visually the film is any different. However, what director Carter Smith manages to communicate is the inherent danger in letting your desires lead you astray. The gritty, documentary style to the visuals adds to the general eeriness of the narrative tone and left me uncomfortable when watching the film's protagonist be raped whilst totally unaware of what was going on around him. Here is a film that takes adolescence and then gay adolescence and sets it to a heavy metal soundtrack, a film that tries and succeeds to explore a dangerous world of alternative drugs and their dangers.

Still from Bugcrush

The other four films of the feature vary tremendously from those just mentioned, lighter in both their visuals and narrative there is a greater focus on alternate storytelling, the exploration of possibilities. Both Two Nights and Where We Began look at the formation and then the disintegration of relationships and especially with the former, how two one night stands force a social outsider to decide his relationship future. The concluding film is also perhaps the more intriguing and perhaps also the weakest of all the films screened; First Date is a brave piece of cinema cast with all non actors and shot in a documentary style but with a fictional narrative. Mixing humour with brutality and ultimately leaving the narrative unresolved, director Gary Huggins is, it seems, hoping to shed some light on the dangers of internet dating and asks the question how do we trust those that we desire in cyberspace, when placed in a car with them in the real world?

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Comments (9)

28-06-2007 15:22

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columbus_boy13

25-06-2007 01:30

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jason

16-06-2007 05:34

Hmmm, definitely some peculiar films there. The bugcrush one sounds SORT OF interesting...plus the guys on the stills are HOT.

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spiratical555

03-04-2007 14:11

theres a book called is he or isnt he...are they the same?

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drs0043

02-04-2007 14:50

Theses short films seem intersting maybe i can catch sometime. Thanx for sharing ur thoughts about them

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Psychotic one

30-03-2007 18:36

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DINA

30-03-2007 15:18

A lot of these films were screened at all of the major film festivals over the past year and some of them have their own websites with screening details.

Being short films though I am unaware of how to get hold of them. Definitely check out the website for bugcush though, it gives a good indication of the tone of the film!

www.bugcrush.net

Rob
Editor
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robo

30-03-2007 14:55

where would i be able to watch these movies?

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paddy

28-03-2007 05:18

I can't wait to see these short films I gotta see them somehow the only thing I've seen is the logo channel, sad really lol

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Lonleyfloridaboy

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 27 March 2007 )

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