Glasgay! 2012: The Movies

While scanning the programme of flicks in the upcoming Glasgay! festival, two categories draw they eye: the high profile art-house darlings that have broken through the LGBT festival ghetto and look set for mainstream success; and the outrageous cult classics that make the movies of Russ Meyers look like sedate chamber pieces. There’s also a third category of films fighting for attention that are peddling more modest, but no less worthy, pleasures.

First, though, those festival breakouts.

It seems that every mention of a new film from Québécois actor/writer/director Xavier Dolan must be prefaced with seething jealousy – and who am I to break with tradition. By the age it takes most male mortals to gain the ability to grow a decent beard, Dolan, at 23, had received three standing ovations at the Cannes Film Festival. The most recent was for Laurence Anyways (27 Oct), which premiered on la Croisette in May. If you’re a fan of Dolan’s brand of good-looking people walking in super slow-motion to a seductive soundtrack you’ll enjoy this latest effort, which sees the title character (played by Time to Leave's Melvil Poupaud), a heterosexual man with a loving girlfriend, go on a decade long journey towards becoming a woman.

Ira Sachs’ latest feature also arrives in Glasgow on a wave of festival acclaim. Set over a turbulent nine-year relationship, Keep the Lights On (25 Oct) is the tale of a love that curdles in the balmy atmosphere of New York City at the turn of the millennium. Paul is a lawyer addicted to crack; Erik is Paul's idealistic lover who’s addicted to the idea that he can save him. It’s a deeply intimate stew of emotions and an acute depiction of the highs and lows of love founded on obsession. What’s so refreshing about the film is that the characters’ self destructive tendencies have nothing to do with their sexuality.

Yossi (16 Oct) is Eytan Fox’s sequel to his 2002 landmark drama Yossi and Jagger, a tragic love story about two Israeli soldiers. In the ten years since that adventure the surviving member of the couple, Yossi (Ohad Knoller reprising his earlier role), has become a doughy cardiologist who’s still very much in the closet. A road trip with three on-leave soldiers brings back memories of his time with Jagger and brings him out of his shell.

The Perfect Family (15 Oct), a measured familial drama about a devout Catholic housewife trying to cope with the bombshell that her daughter plans to marry her female roommate, is notable for the welcome return of Kathleen Turner's smoky timbre (it’s her first big screen role since 2008 stinker Marley & Me). But it’s also notable for its compassionate treatment of the Catholic church on matters of same-sex marriage. In a way, it's like a remake of John Walters’ Serial Mom if the titular leg-of-lamb wielding killer found God instead of mass murder.

Talking of Walters and his larger than life muses, they don’t get any bigger than the late, great Divine, who gives the performance of her rambunctious career in Female Trouble (2 Nov). The ballsy broad plays Dawn Davenport, and over 90 riotous minutes she goes from rebellious teen to fashion model to psycho killer. The ending is electrifying.

While on the subject of film divas, you’d be a wire coathanger-using loon not to catch 1981‘s Mommie Dearest (20 Oct). Some might describe this bonkers Joan Crawford bio-pic/horror film as so bad it’s good, but this is one guilty pleasure where you can leave your shame at the door. It’s based on the poison pen memoir by Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina, who depicts her mother as an abusive control freak. Faye Dunaway brings the crazy and chews the scenery in the title role, giving the kind of gloriously over-the-top performance that Crawford used to pull off in her '40s melodrama heyday. Christina Crawford may have intended this as a fuck you to her deceased mother, but Dunaway’s ripe turn makes it a fitting celebration of JC’s camp brilliance.

On a more serious note, Call Me Kuchu (23 Oct) is a potent reminder that the battle for LGBT rights has barely begun in some nations. It follows David Kato, an openly gay Ugandan whose life is threatened by his country’s fierce anti-gay front. Also included in Glasgay!’s fine lineup: Hit So Hard (21 Oct), a touching documentary following the highs and lows of Patty Schemel, the drummer with seminal 90s rockers Hole, and Show Me Love (18 Oct), a witty coming-of-age story from Lukas Moodysson, which details the tentative romance between two fourteen-year-old girls, set against the prosaic backdrop of small-town Sweden.