Parky at the Pictures (DVD 2/2/2012) (From The Oxford Times)

Parky at the Pictures (DVD 2/2/2012)

7:33am Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Cinema/TV By Parky at the Pictures

One of the gambits currently being employed by cinemas to lure potential patrons away from their television, computer or mobile phone screens is the live streaming of stage productions from prestigious venues around the world. This is an ironic reversal of the trend in the 1910s, when theatres and opera houses agreed to host special presentations of the earliest feature films, as they ran too long for audiences to sit on the hard benches in the neighbourhood nickelodeon. Although a few working-class viewers stumped up the extra cash to see pictures like Giovanni Pastrone's Cabiria (1914) and DW Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915) in luxurious surroundings, this was a calculated bid to entice the upper classes who had largely shunned the moving image as a proletarian novelty during its first decade and these living theatre experiences smack of the same snooty cynicism.

No matter how carefully planned the coverage of a stage show might be, a director is limited in their choice of camera placement and movement by the need to ensure the paying audience in the auditorium is not inconvenienced by the crew. There is still an ineffable value in recording opera for the screen, however, and two notable examples have recently been released on DVD.

Cinema was four years old when Giacomo Puccini premiered Tosca in Rome in January 1900. With a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, it was based on a play by Victorien Sardou that explored the battle for control of the Papal States between the Kingdom of Naples and the forces of Revolutinary France under Napoleon Bonaparte. In adapting the story for the screen, Benoît Jacquot has opted for opulent sets by Sylvain Chauvelot that achieve a measure of spectacle, while also allowing Romain Winding's camera to create a sense of intimacy that is not always possible in a theatrical setting. Jacquot also, less successfully, inserts monochrome cutaways to the studio where the soundtrack was recorded and includes views of the Eternal City to illuminate the longer orchestral passages. Thus, he manages to take the action beyond the proscenium without losing too much of the dramatic intensity or seeming too tricksily cinematic.

The scenario is well enough known. Radical artist Mario Cavaradossi (Roberto Alagna) hides political prisoner Cesare Angelotti (Maurizio Muraro) in the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle, where he is working on a fresco. However, police chief Vittelio Scarpia (Ruggero Raimondi) has the artist arrested and has his lover Floria Tosca (Angela Gheorghiu) brought to his quarters in the Palazzo Farnsese to dupe her into believing he will spare Cavaradossi if she surrenders herself to him. However, having coaxed Scarpia into signing a safe-conduct document, Tosca stabs him and rushes to Castel Sant'Angelo to deliver her beloved from a firing squad.

The denouement is undeniably melodramatic, but Jacquot makes a virtue of it to heighten the tragedy. He is ably served by the Franco-Romanian husband-and-wife team of Alagna and Gheorghiu, although they are somewhat upstaged by the splendidly malevolent Raimondi, who positively revels in the baron's villainy. The contribution of conductor Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House is equally accomplished and this is a much more thoughtful rendition than Paul Czinner's 1962 take on Richard Strauss's 1911 piece, Der Rosenkavalier.

This was one of the first operas to be filmed with sound, when Oskar Messter recorded one of its arias within a few months of the Dresden premiere of Max Reinhardt's production. Moreover, in 1925, Robert Wiene (who is better known for his 1920 Expressionist masterpiece, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari) produced a feature version that was accompanied by a live orchestra. But, even though he worked with multiple cameras, Czinner's three-hour Technicolor account of the production that inaugurated the Salzburg Festival's Grosses Festspielhaus in 1960 lacks cinematic ingenuity. What's more, the soundtrack dubbed in post-production has lip-synching issues that have not been addressed in this digital restoration. Thus, while opera buffs will relish the chance to see Teo Otto's acclaimed sets and witness soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and conductor Herbert von Karajan in action, this too often betrays the fact that its director made his debut in 1919 with an Expressionist interpretation of Dante's Inferno, which ironically, starred opera singer Erik Schmedes.

Adhering closely to Hugo von Hofmannsthal's libretto, the plot concerns the romantic dalliance pursued by a lonely marschallin (Schwarzkopf) while her Field Marshal husband is on a hunting expedition. However, the much younger Count Octavian Rofrano (Sena Jurinac) is distracted from their affair by the plight of Sophie (Anneliese Rothenberger), whose social-climbing father, Herr von Faninal (Erich Kunz), has agreed to marry her to the oafish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau (Otto Edelmann) in return for his help in securing a title. Determined to spare Sophie such a grim fate, Octavian conspires with Italian buddies Valzacchi and Annina (Renato Ercolani and Hilde Rossen-Majdan) and disguises himself as the Marschallin's maid, Mariandel, and lures Ochs into an assignation at a country inn.

The performances are admirable, with Schwarzkopf defying her haughty off-stage reputation to convey something of the older woman's melancholic vulnerability, while Rothenberger captures the trusting innocence of sheltered youth and Jurinac and Edelmann spar amusingly as the dashing hero and bovine villain. But, while Czinner cuts intelligently between different camera angles, the dearth of close-ups distances viewers and forces them to admire the artistry of the staging rather than lose themselves in the intricacies of the narrative. Nevertheless, Von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra rise to the occasion and, if the visuals aren't always entirely impressive, this always sounds magnificent.

The same accusation can't be levelled at Shinji Imaoka's pinku-eiga pastiche, Underwater Love: A Pink Musical, as the images created by ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle during a five-day shoot easily surpass the tunes concocted by the French indie outfit, Stereo Total. That said, the dance sequences look like they were choreographed on the spot and the kitschy craziness of this softcore fantasy is never quite as kooky or quaint as the makers seem to think.

At the centre of the eccentric storyline is Sawa Masaki, a world-weary thirtysomething who works at a fish factory and is about to marry her boss, Mutsuo Yoshioka. However, she is confronted by a kappa (a kind of Japanese water sprite) who turns out to be the reincarnation of her teenage boyfriend, Yoshirô Umezawa. He has spent the past 17 years mooning over his lost love and now he has taken human(ish) form to prevent her nuptials to a suitor seemingly obsessed by wedding paraphernalia.

With a beak in the middle of his mask-like face and a shell on his back, Umezawa is hardly the most prepossessing of creatures. Yet he manages to have a fling with Masaki's co-worker Ai Narita and, when he learns from the God of Death that Masaki only has a day to live, he throws himself into a series of tasks in a bid to earn a reprieve. However, while he tackles a sumo bout and a mountain run with relative ease, the indelicate insertion of a magical pearl proves far more challenging.

From the first appearance of Godzilla in 1954, Japanese film-makers have never been ashamed to ask audiences to suspend disbelief where men in rubber suits are concerned. But the costume and make-up sported by Umezawa here are risible in the extreme and only cult aficionados used to making allowances for Z-grade shortcomings will find them even faintly amusing. Imaoka lampoons the conventions of both the musical and the porn flick capably enough, but the absurdity often seems as calculated as the endless stream of self-satisfied references to pop culture. Consequently, while this might appeal to those enraptured by Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy, it will leave the majority struggling to raise a smile.

Sadly, the same is also true of Q. Allan Brocka's Eating Out: Drama Camp, the fourth in a series of outrageous comedies that started promisingly in 2006 and has since struggled to live upto its reputation as the gay equivalent of the American Pie franchise. Nonetheless, The Open Weekend has since been released alongside Sloppy Seconds and All You Can Eat to form a pentalogy may still have ambitions for further expansion.

As in the last mentioned, the focus falls on Chris Salvatore and Daniel Skelton, a couple whose relationship is going through a rocky patch, largely because Salvatore can't keep his eyes to himself. So, Skelton suggests they accompany aspiring director Garikayi Mutambirwa to a theatre workshop run by the irrepressibly bitchy Drew Droege, who has been celibate for seven years and expressly forbids any hanky panky. However, it doesn't take long for Salvatore to notice the waveringly straight Aaron Milo and Skelton to develop a crush on the hunky Ronnie Kroell. But, such is the atmosphere around the camp that even the defiantly non-gay Mutambirwa gets the hots for transsexual Harmony Santana.

Much of the comedy centres on Skelton and accomplice Lilach Mendelovich trying to prove to Salvatore that Milo is lying about his heterosexuality, while the melodrama turns around Mutambirwa and Santana trying to decide whether they are made for each other. However, the writing is not as sharp as in the earlier editions, while potentially interesting characters like Mink Stole's kindly aunt and Marikah Cunningham's mean girl are disappointingly marginalised to make way for all the chaste nudity and cheesy sex scenes.

The wit is a touch gentler and the romance considerably sweeter in David Lewis's Longhorns, a campus coming-of-age saga that makes up for its surfeit of caricatures and lack of surprises with some slick dialogue and a quirky chemistry between actors who were clearly cast more for their physiques than their thesping skills. Set in Texas in 1982, this also benefits from some shrewd pop pastiches by HP Mendoza, who also doubles as the movie's editor.

Jacob Newton is an average student at an Austin college where seemingly every red-blooded male has a love of football, beer and girls. The one exception is newcomer Derek Villanueva, who is so glad to be gay that he organises a `blue jeans' day to proclaim his sexuality and test that of his detractors. Despite occasionally taking advantage of a willing cheerleader, Newton is surprised by his interest in Villanueva and his readiness to defend him against the homophobic taunts of classmate Kevin Held.

Thus, after a flirtatious encounter gets out of hand, Newton is relieved when macho pals Dylan Vox and Stephen Matzke suggest a weekend in a remote cabin, with plenty of female company being lined up for the long, lonely nights. However, a storm leaves the trio alone with a crate of beer and a stack of porn and entrenched attitudes quickly come under attack as the alcohol diminishes inhibition and hesitant curiosity gives way to eager activity.

Serviceably staged and bullishly played, this may not make too many demands on the audience, but Lewis places more stress on emotion than many other gay directors without sacrificing the odd moment of boisterousness or sensuality. Newton and Villanueva make genial leads, with the former's narration adding some droll Lone Star wisdom to the briskly mischievous proceedings.

The idea is markedly more complex and the execution slightly more accomplished in JT Tepnapa's Judas Kiss. But this time-travelling dramedy isn't sure whether it's a study of regrets and second chances or a rather tasteless treatise on age-gap liaisons. Thus, despite David Berry's photography being strikingly lush, this makes for rather disconcerting viewing.

Thirtysomething Charlie David was once tipped for big things in Hollywood. But he partied his prospects away and emerges from the latest spell in rehab to be convinced by loyal and successful buddy Troy Fischnaller to return to his alma mater to judge the annual film-making contest. On arriving at Keystone Summit University, David falls into bed with ambitious wannabe Richard Harmon. The next morning, however, David realises that Harmon is his younger self and he is informed by ex-tutor Laura Kenny that he has been given an opportunity to change his destiny. But, in order to do so, he has to disqualify the film made by Harmon and his sidekick Julia Morizawa from the competition.

Had Tepnapa and co-scenarist Carlos Pedraza stuck to the core storyline, this might have been a moderate melodrama. However, they insist on pitching Harmon into the middle of a ménage involving arrogant rich kid Timo Descamps and earnest cineaste Sean Paul Lockhart (who will be better known to some under his gay porn moniker, Brent Corrigan). The resulting round of sombre conversations, sulky pouts and semi-naked posturing is eminently resistible, although it's less squirm-inducing than the clips from Harmon's eponymous arty atrocity) and the concept of someone going back in time and seducing their teenage self.

The notion of identity is also crucial to Caytha Jentis's feature debut, The One. But this is a much more sensible and sensitive picture that only misses its step in trying to pass from the peppy banter of the opening third to the weightier discussions leading to a poignant and well-judged denouement. Some may find the plot a touch soap operatic, but Jentis creates credible characters and is well served by a sincere cast.

When old college mates Jon Prescott and Ian Novick bump into each other in a sports bar, the conversation hinges on old times and future plans. But, even though the wealthy Prescott is about to marry Margaret Anne Florence, he can't resist the suave Novick's patter and the pair end up spending the night together.

They begin meeting up periodically for recreational trysts. Yet, while Prescott hopes they can continue their no-strings fling after his wedding, Novick begins to develop genuine feelings that he realises he has to keep under control, especially as he is becoming increasingly fond of the affable Florence. Eventually, he stage-manages a meeting that should end the affair once and for all. But it succeeds only in opening the trusting Florence's eyes and has unexpected repercussions for all concerned.

Although the dialogue is occasionally prolix and the exchanges between Novick and Prescott sometimes stilted, this offers decent insights into the sacrifices that often need to be made to ensure that loved ones are true to themselves. The story is too slight to accommodate the allusions to Dostoevsky and Sartre, but Jentis brings it to a plausible conclusion and coaxes a fine performance out of Margaret Anne Florence, a model-cum-singer who seems capable of better roles than she has thus far landed in such features as My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), The New Daughter (2009) and The Mighty Macs (2011).

If Jentis is perhaps a tad preoccupied with slotting plot pieces into place, Hungarian debutant Benjamin Cantu almost considers them an inconvenience in Harvest, as he seems less enamoured of the central romance than the daily ritual undertaken by the juvenile residents of a farm nestling in a picturesque Brandenburg valley. Indeed, he even seems willing to obfuscate much of the pivotal nocturnal action that takes place during a coming-of-age trip to Berlin by filming it in far from plentiful natural light, while he and cinematographer Alexander Gheorghiu positively revel in the rural vistas shot in overcast conditions that seem to reinforce their authenticity. However, Cantu also directs with a discretion that isn't always a priority of gay cinema.

Determined to prevent country boy Lukas Steltner from becoming another educational casualty from a broken home, teacher Karin Butsch enrols him in a study programme at a Nuthe-Urstromtal farm in the hope that he will gain the confidence to pass his imminent exams. But Steltner is far from convinced he wants to follow in the footsteps of his abusive father and finds it difficult to cope with his classmates teasing him about his fixation with organic produce and his refusal to drink alcohol. However, he find an unlikely friend in Kai Michael Müller, who has abandoned his training as a banker to try his hand at agriculture.

Unaccustomed to rustic ways, Müller also struggles to fit in and is so grateful for Steltner's friendship that he clumsily attempts to kiss him as they chat in an abandoned car on the edge of the property. The inexperienced Steltner is shocked and avoids Müller for a while. But he soon begins to miss him and he takes the plunge by agreeing to spend a night together in the capital.

Considering that, apart from the leads, the entire cast is non-professional, Cantu deserves great credit for producing such a naturalistic record of farm life. Besides the odd snatch of Keith Keniff's score, the soundtrack is reserved for the noises made by animals and machinery and even the dialogue is restricted to simple exchanges that reflect the almost documentary-like insistence on realistic detail. However, this observational approach keeps the audience at a distance from the protagonists, with the result that, despite the affecting performances of Müller and Steltner, the love story feels more like an afterthought than a concerted study of a slow-burning passion.

Finally, the scene shifts to Bristol for Buffering, the third film written and directed by Darren Flaxstone and Christian Martin, which follows Shank (2009) and Release (2010) in making solid use of the city setting, while struggling to tone down the more melodramatic aspects of the narrative. However, the duo merit unstinting praise for completing the picture on a minuscule budget, one only has to compare it to Pablo Berger's similarly themed Torremolinos 73 (2003) to realise how much the script would have benefited from another couple of rewrites and a little more imagination and care in its production.

Conner McKenzy can't bring himself to tell boyfriend Alex Anthony when he loses his job, as money is already tight and Britain is in the depths of a recession. However, with Anthony also struggling to attract new massage clients, McKenzy decides that the best way to make a few quid is to film their love-making sessions and charge people to view them online. Naturally, he doesn't tell Anthony what he's up to and he is more than a little surprised when his lover consents to continue webcasting their escapades when he realises how lucrative they are.

Local shopkeeper Bernie Hodges offers to promote the shows to his customers and the pair accept the offer of ex-roommate Jessica Matthews (who is, apparently, a gay man trapped inside a woman's body) to take over camera duties so their couplings can become ever more up close and personal. However, when Matthews suggests they could make even more cash by shooting a threesome, the lovers begin to drift apart as they search for a suitable candidate and then begin having lustful feelings for next-door neighbour Oliver Park, a drama student who insists he is straight and is willing to be cast to broaden his acting experience.

Littering the screenplay with throwaway one-liners and devoting far more time and effort to plot than character, Flaxstone and Martin raise numerous intriguing issues (such as Matthew's sexual orientation) only to dispense with them almost immediately. Yet they also succeed in making a fitfully funny and often sexy movie for a mere £30,000. Moreover, they also lampoon the business of Internet voyeurism and DIY smut with markedly less smugness than Kevin Smith in Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008).