Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 12/4/2019)

Once more divided into three themed sections (Bodies, Hearts and Minds), the selection mixed recent releases like Lukas Dhont's Girl, Craig William Macneill's Lizzie and Marcelo Martinessi's The Heiresses and such new arrivals and sneak previews as Keith Behrman's Giant Little Ones, Marco Berger's The Blond One, Yann Gonzalez's Knife + Heart, Annabel Jankel's Tell It to the Bees, Jamie Patterson's Tucked  and Jeremiah Zagar's We the Animals. The sole oldie on view was Stephan Elliott's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. But it does seem peculiar that this was the only classic on offer, given the number of gems in the BFI Archive. 

The documentary strand went some way to making amends, however with such diverse offerings as Tomer Heymann's Jonathan Agassi Saved My Life, Jerry Tartaglia's Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith, Frédéric Tcheng's Halston, Robert Anderson Clift and Hillary Demmon's Making Montgomery Clift, Ondi Timoner's Mapplethorpe, Marlon T. Riggs's Tongue Untied, and Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle's Water Makes Us Wet. Following the death of pioneering lesbian film-makers Barbara Hammer, however, it was somewhat surprising that room wasn't found somewhere on the slate for one of her last screen appearances in Caroline Berler's excellent Dykes, Camera, Action! (2018). 

CARMEN & LOLA.
The debuting Arantxa Echevarría covers familiar ground in an unusual setting in Carmen and Lola. Yet, in depicting gitano culture in the suburbs of Madrid, she places so much emphasis on the repressive nature of the patriarchal system that she fails to create a single redeemable male character and, in the process, misses the blurred lines between subjugation and acquiescence. 

A keen graffiti artist, 16 year-old Lola (Zaira Romero) is determined to break out of her enclosed Roma community and defies her strict father, Paco (Moreno Borja), by going to school when he would rather she was working on the family market stall. She is supported in her aspirations by her mother, Flor (Rafaela León) and mentor Pacqui (Carolina Yuste), who encourages her Lola to be herself. However, she knows nothing about Lola's frequent visits to an internet café to browse lesbian websites and has her work cut out defending the girl when she falls for Carmen (Rosy Rodríguez), the brassy 17 year-old she first meets when she is betrothed to Lola's cousin in a traditional matchmaking ceremony. 

Although Echevarría initially keeps the pair apart by having Carmen react to Lola's tentative advances with disgust, she can't avoid the gradual drift into dangerous romance from feeling contrived, as the occasional cigarette breaks become recklessly snatched trysts that seem to arouse no suspicion whatsoever in family members whose inability to conceive of same-sex attraction seemingly renders them incapable of detecting it. Zaira Romero is splendidly spirited as the teenager wanting more out of life than marriage and motherhood, although Rosy Rodríguez struggles with the thinly written role of the glamorous material girl who suddenly discovers hidden depths. Along with Nina Aranda's thrillingly authentic music, Soledad Sensena's production design and Pilar Sanchez Diaz's camerawork are admirably vibrant. But this is too rooted in cliché to convince, as either cultural snapshot or taboo romance. 

GRETA.
Marking Brazilian Armando Praça's first feature after spending several years as an assistant director and location scout, Greta is not to be confused with Neil Jordan's thriller of the same name, in which widow Isabelle Huppert becomes creepily obsessed with Chloë Grace Moretz. Riffing on the notion that happiness isn't always fun, the action has been adapted from a stage play by Fernando Melo. But Praca resists the temptation to tinker with a claustrophobic scenario that contains vague echoes of compatriot Héctor Babenco's Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985).

Despite turning 70, Pedro (Marco Nanini) continues to work as a nurse in a hospital in the north-eastern city of Fortaleza. His transgender friend, Daniela (Denise Weinberg), is a cabaret singer in a sleazy bar who rents out her room to gay couples seeking privacy in a notoriously homophobic neighbourhood. Having already lost a kidney, however, Daniela is having health problems and Pedro pleads with her to seek treatment. The only bed he can find (after performing a sexual favour for its occupant) is on the men's ward. But, after a lifetime of struggling for recognition, Daniela refuses to stay there. Thus, when Jean (Demick Lopes) is admitted with stab wounds after trying to defend his cisgender partner, Meire (Gretta Star), Pedro agrees to help him escape and hide him in his apartment if Daniela can have his bed. 

Best known in his native Brazil as a comedy actor on television, Marco Nanini is superb as the devoted nurse who likes to be called by idol Greta Garbo's name during sex, while cisgender actress Daniela Weinberg confirms during her deeply moving (swan) song rendition why she was nominated for an International Emmy for the TV series, Psi. However, Demick Lopes is less accomplished as the scheming chancer who exploits much more than he is exploited and his lack of rapport with Nanini places a severe strain on the credibility of their burgeoning. That said, Praça's scripting in the latter stages is also somewhat slipshod, as Nanini is pursued by the police for aiding a murderous fugitive who inflicted 40 stab wounds on his victim. Nevertheless, with its restlessly intimate photography by Ivo Lopes Araujo, this is a study of age, gender and sexuality that also exposes the violence and prejudice inherent on the lower rungs of an often brutally macho society. 

JOSÉ.
Born in China and semi-based in the United States, Li Cheng follows Joshua Tree (2014) with José, a neo-realist romance that won the Queer Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Partly inspired by Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Boys From Fengkuei (1983), the action has been based on interviews that Li and producer and co-scenarist George F. Roberson conducted with young gay men in 20 cities across the Latin American countries of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, El Salvador, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Honduras and Guatemala. 

The latter's capital provides the setting for the story, which centres on José (Enrique Salanic), who lives with the religious mother (Ana Cecilia Mota) who ekes out a living by selling sandwiches without a vending licence in the local market. José works at a nearby restaurant, where his duties involve steering passing traffic into parking spaces in an effort to persuade their occupants to dine. He envies the close relationship between straight colleagues Monica (Jhakelyn Waleska Gonzalez) and Carlos (Esteban Lopez Ramirez), as he has to make do with casual hook-ups through dating apps. However, his assignation at a seedy sex motel with Izabal construction worker Luis (Manolo Herrera) leads to romance. But Luis plans to move on when his contract expires and José has to decide whether to follow his heart or remain loyal to his unsuspecting mother. 

Although a motorcycle ride into the country to make love in a bamboo field stands out alongside the closing sequence at a ruined Mayan temple, this is a downtown drama that viscerally captures the throb of daily life and the relentless grind of the poverty that entombs José and his mom. Paolo Giron's clings close to the characters, while rooting them in their environment. Yet Li refuses to elicit sympathy for the lovers, who are played with affecting naturalism by non-professionals Enrique Salanic and Manolo Herrera, as they risk censure from the combined forces of Catholicism and machismo. However, sentiment does creep in at the last, as José visits his grandmother (Alba Irene Lemus) and is persuaded to track down his beloved she muses on widowed isolation.

RAFIKI.
It's often been the case in the history of LGBTQ+ cinema that a film's existence is more significant than its quality. This is certainly true in the case of Wanuri Kahiu's second feature, which she has adapted with South African Jenna Bass from `Jambula Tree', an award-winning short story by the Ugandan writer, Monica Arac de Nyeko. As homosexuality is outlawed in Kenya, it comes as no surprise that Rafiki (which translates ad `friend') was banned by the national board of classification. But, while this tale of forbidden first love may hold few surprises for UK audiences, its irrepressible sense of optimism far outweighs any dramatic and stylistic shortcomings.

Tomboy Kena (Samantha Mugatsia) resides in the Slopes district of Nairobi and revels in the bustling nature of daily life. When not skateboarding or playing football with best mate Blacksta (Neville Masati), Kena dreams of becoming a nurse to help the community that her shopkeeper father, John (Jimmy Gathu), is hoping to represent after the upcoming election. However, his liberal views are muscularly opposed by businessman rival Peter (Dennis Musyoka) and his snooty wife (Patricia Amira), and viewed with deep suspicion by kiosk owner  Mama Atim (Muthoni Gathecha), whose surly daughter Nduta (Nice Githinju) notices the burgeoning friendship between Kena and Peter's pink-braided daughter, Ziki (Sheila Munyiva).

Keeping the romantic sequences chaste to avoid baiting the censor in order to get her message across, Kahiu allows Kena and Ziki to spend a lot of time talking about their feelings and desires. But, while the same sex element is crucial, Kahiu is also keen to explore macho notions of normalcy, church-inspired homophobia and the status of women in Kenyan society, with Kena's relationship with her schoolteacher mother, Mercy (Nini Wacera), proves particularly intriguing because she despises her ex-husband after their acrimonious break-up. Samantha Mugatsia and Sheila Munyiva make a genial couple, but there's an air of inevitability about their situation that is exacerbated by the excess of contrivance. However, Kahiu and cinematographer Christopher Wessels ably convey the local atmosphere in demonstrating that, when it comes to advocatorial cinema, commitment tends to matter more than sophistication. 

SPLINTERS.
The curse of the lauded debut has haunted film-makers for decades and Thom Fitzgerald continues to struggle to emerge from the shadow of The Hanging Garden (1997). He had been devoting his energies to television after teaming Brenda Fricker and Olympia Dukakis in Cloudburst (20110). But he returns to the big screen with Splinters, an adaptation of a stage play by Lee-Anne Poole that explores the conservatism at the heart of rustic domesticity and the extent to which parents and children never really know each other. 

Having left the family apple farm in Annapolis Valley under something of a cloud, Belle (Sofia Banzhaf) has been reluctant to return. When her father dies, however, she travels to Nova Scotia for a mournful reunion with her disapproving mother Nancy (Shelley Thompson) and her teasing younger brother, Greg (Bailey Maughan). Keen to avoid confrontation with Nancy, Belle tries to keep to herself. However, following a passionate tryst with an old flame, she has to deal with the fact that she has been followed from the city by Rob (Callum Dunphy), her boyfriend of the past two years who seems intent on using this sad occasion to propose marriage. 

The notion of a lesbian having to come out as a bisexual to a homophobic parent who has all-but disowned her prickles with potential. But, while it might have felt unbearably intense within the confines of a theatre proscenium, the scenario loses much by being opened out for the big screen. Luc Montpellier's photography is often lovely, while Ryan Vessey's production design ensures the farmhouse (compete with an irksome motion sensor device) is as forbiddingly cosy as the folk songs that are dotted throughout the action. However, the characterisation is sketchy and one never gets the impression that Sofia Banzhaf and Callum Dunphy have been a couple for so long. Moreover, the script's sexual politics are fuzzy at best and would benefit from more wry humour than hand-wringing melodramatics. 

SUNBURN.
Imagine Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Oscar-winning A Letter to Three Wives (1949) being reworked along the poolside lines of Toby Tobias's Blood Orange (2016) or Eric Styles's That Good Night (2017) and you have a fair idea of Vicente Alves do Ó's fourth feature, Sunburn. For many, Portuguese queer cinema means João Pedro Rodrigues outings like O Fantasma (2000), To Die Like a Man (2009) and The Ornithologist (2016). But, following on from Quinze Pontas na Alma (2011), Florbela (2012) and the gay-themed biopic, Al Berto (2017), this simmering saga suggests that Alves do Ó could provide some serious competition. 

Thirtysomething Francisco (Nuno Pardal) is hosting a weekend party at his villa in the south of Portugal for his three closest friends. Simão (Ricardo Barbosa) is hoping to get some peace to work on his latest (and furtively autobiographical) screenplay, while Vasco (Ricardo Pereira) is frustrated at being away from home (and some privacy) so soon after embarking upon a new relationship with somebody he met online. The sole female in the group, Joana (Oceana Basilio), is spending time with Francisco prior to fulfilling an agreement to bear his child. As they drink and dance on a balmy evening, all seems idyllic. But a phone call out of the blue puts everyone on edge, as no one has heard from David (Carlos Oliveira) in a decade and each person has a reason to dread his unexpected return. 

From the opening patio dance to the strains of Brazilian samba-rocker Johnny Hooker, the action is strewn with deceptions and secrets, as the three men wonder if David is coming to rekindle a dormant romance, while Joana frets that he is going to scupper her hopes of having a baby. With the temperature rising and smoke billowing from a forest fire in the near distance and Vivaldi's Psalm 127-inspired `Nisi Dominus Cum Dederit' accompanying the dramatic high points, this isn't always as subtle as it might be. Moreover, the characterisation is too thin for the stakes to rise particularly high. But the performances are assured, while Mia Lourenço's art direction and Luís Branquinho's photography help sustain the unsettling mood of helpless anticipation until the prodigal arrives for the unseen showdown. 

TWO IN THE BUSH: A LOVE STORY.
Editor Laura Madalinski makes the transition to directing with Two in the Bush: A Love Story, a romantic drama about sex work and polyamory that seems to go out of its way to alight upon the quirkiest of plot points and show the audience why they are, in fact, quite normal. Made in just 10 days on the ridiculously small budget of $50,000, this is a minor movie miracle that reflects Madalinksi's faith in film to provide insight and solace. 

Eager to make documentaries, bisexual Chicagoan Emily (Sarah Mitchell) puts up with the egotistical foibles of her boss, Kenneth (Daniel McEvilly). But, when he abandons her to film an expedition to Latin America, she takes his goldfish, Archimedes, and moves in with her best friend, Rosa (Melissa DuPrey), after catching her boyfriend in bed with another woman. She tries to move on by throwing herself into online dating, only for each date to be worse than the last. Amused by Emily's plight, but supportive in a gossipily gleeful kind of way, Rosa finds her a job as an assistant to Nikki (Caitlin Aase), a dominatrix with her very own dungeon. While Emily is attracted to Nikki, however, she is also taken by African-American artist Ben (Travis Delgado). But it's only after she's succumbed to their advances that she discovers they are a couple. 

It would be easy to dismiss this as a box-ticking rattlebag of hot button issues, as Madalinksi seeks to reach out to communities that are usually marginalised or completely overlooked by mainstream cinema. But this is much more than an exercise in cornball inclusivity. On occasion, the inexperienced cast struggles to convey the messages contained in the awkward dialogue concocted by Madalinski and partner Kelly Haas. But, if the sparky Sarah Marshall is seen to better advantage bantering with the scene-stealing Melissa DuPrey than she is canoodling with the genially caricatured Travis Delgado and the willing, but stiff Caitlin Aase, the laudably non-judgemental scenario couldn't have its heart any more in the right place. It's just a shame that the happy ending is so rushed and unpersuasive.