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film review

Tranny Fag (Dir. Kiko Goifman and Claudia Priscilla, 2018)

In the traditional Portuguese Tranny Fag translates as Bixa Travesty, a little less confrontational than the English but that’s just not the style of the documentary’s subject Linn da Quebrada – the self proclaimed “tranny fag”. Residing on the outskirts of São Paulo, she is marginalised economically before even considering the fact that she’s black and transgender, struggling to exist amid poverty and in a world that, for the most part, doesn’t comprehend her.

Rather than shy away from the public eye, Quebrada is taking the Brazilian funk scene by storm, alongside her partner-in-crime Jup do Bairro. Their songs – (performed throughout) providing a back story of sorts for the 27-year-old – contain abrasive coarse lyrics which pull no punches and berate society and the expectations it places on women, what it means to be a woman like her, and dismantling the patriarchy one bridge and chorus at a time. Her words are a weapon intent on holding the world accountable and paving a way of acceptance and understanding without inciting hatred.

As a subject, the singer-songwriter and spoken word artist is fascinating and inspiring. She’s pre-op and has yet to start hormones, consider breast implants or remove her facial hair because as far as she’s concerned she’d be pandering to society’s ideal of womanhood. Quebrada – who also co-wrote the script with directors Claudia Priscilla and Kiko Goifman – is a “black fag doll. Neither man or woman” embraces nudity, here and in her stage shows as an attempt to undermine, even recondition the collective mindset associating gender with genitalia and highlighting the façade of gender performance.

A real turning point in the documentary which jumps from talking head to music gig almost exclusively is the footage made during Quebrada’s treatment for testicular cancer, the physical effects and the profundity it had on the way she controlled her body. The scene which shows her literally pulling the lustrous locks of hair from her head, chemotherapy having ravaged her immune system is particularly powerful and in keeping with her persona, completely transgressive. This and the scenes with her mother offer a rare intimacy which is needed in an otherwise repetitive and prosaic documentary. The static camera and simplistic editing coupled with the pulsating combative stage performances start to feel isolating.

Tranny Fag is a LGBTQIA+ positive, important and transgressive, if slight, profile of a bold and beautiful artist who is unapologetically her confident self. She espouses her ideas and beliefs provocatively, is always interesting, and determined to not only stand out but belong in an accepting world.

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film review

Whitney: Can I Be Me (Dir. Nick Broomfield, 2017)

Can I Be Me‘s opening scenes take place on February 11th 2012 and we can hear the 911 dispatch call which was recorded on the night Whitney Houston, known as ‘Nippy’ to her family and friends, died alone aged 48. While there were dangerous levels of drugs found in her system, one of Whitney’s back-up singers tells us plainly, “She died of a broken heart.”

Whitney Elizabeth Houston was born in New Jersey on August 9th, 1963. Daughter of John and Cissy, and younger sister of Gary and Michael. Cissy would guide her, John would influence her and her brothers would provide the company when they did drugs together. Clive Davis would take her under his wing at 19 and create a pop icon – the best-selling black female vocalist since Aretha and Dionne (Warwick, who also happened to be a relative), and one who, according to Davis, would translate to a white audience.

Her debut album Whitney Houston sold 25 million copies. By 1988, the African American community felt she had sold out, her music had been ‘whitened’ and she was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards that same year (and the year after). Some say she never quite recovered from the rejection and she began seeing the “bad boy of R’n’B” Bobby Brown as, some have suggested, retaliation. They would later marry and the rest, as they say, is history. Well, not quite.

Footage takes us back to 1999 and the world tour Houston struggled to complete. The tour which would change the course of her career and, ultimately, her life. Combining home videos, archival footage and audio interviews,  Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal’s documentary is revealing without disrespect or exploitative intent; a frank portrait of a beloved and troubled artist. Nor does it shy away from the drug consumption, from teenage recreation, through the accidental overdoses, to the day it claimed her. This in itself addresses the level of apportioned blame aimed at Brown by the media.

Their relationship was tumultuous to say the least, however, home videos depict a happy, loving couple with a similar goofy sense of humour while reality suggests there were three people in they marriage; Bobby, Whitney and Robyn Crawford. Crawford was Houston’s best friend and rumoured lover – Brown confirmed his wife’s bisexuality in his memoir – and from the footage depicted in this documentary, Brown and Crawford loathed each other. He appeared to be emasculated by her while she watched their competitive marriage hinge itself on drugs and alcohol; and yet both vied for Whitney’s love and attention. The real tragedy would be Bobby Kristina (March 4th 1993 – July 26th 2015), and this film is scathing in her parents’ neglect. Poor kid.

The situation reached breaking point when Houston’s bodyguard David Roberts compiled several reports on the singer’s habits and addictions, and his fears. He asked for help; an intervention but these pleas fell largely on deaf ears. How can you save somebody who doesn’t want to be saved? He maintains that all are responsible for Houston’s premature death. There are so many what-ifs offered up: if she had grown up in a less fiercely religious household… had she never touched drugs in the first place… had her father not claimed she owed him and sued her for $100 million. The biggest caveat of all is had she been able to live and love Robyn as she wanted, would she still be alive? Bobby Brown seems to think so but we are only offered this quote via an intertitle. He, Cissy, and Robyn are never interviewed by the filmmakers and thus it, along with Houston’s bisexuality, remains conjecture. 

Can I Be Me is a candid, fascinating and heart-breaking documentary detailing – albeit within a very small window of time – the true toxic tragedy of fame and the toll of addiction, as is often the case of the truly gifted. Perhaps all of those around Whitney were in some way complicit in her destructive downfall but she was an addict, trapped within a brilliant, beautiful and troubled singer who only ever wanted to be herself, and sing. ‘Nippy’ changed the music industry and while some may have made their disapproval known once upon a time, she paved the way for the Mariahs, Beyoncés, Rihannas, and Leonas of this world, and a whole host of artists besides.

Where do broken hearts go – can they find their way home? In the case of this one, let’s hope so.

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film review

Thelma (Dir. Joachim Trier, 2016)

Thelma opens with a picturesque long shot as a young girl and, presumably, her father walk across an ice-covered lake to the deep blanket of – audibly underfoot crunching – snow where father and daughter head into the woods to go hunting. The man stops and lifts his rifle, taking aim at an approaching deer only to turn it onto the back of the head of the small child dressed in red. It immediately calls to mind Snow White and her trip with the Huntsman and even a little Red Riding Hood.

Fade to black – signifying a time lapse – and an aerial shot slowly zooms in and follows a young woman (also wearing a red tone) as she walks across campus and into a biology lecture. So sets the scene of Joachim Trier’s fourth feature. Once again he partners with screenwriter Eskil Vogt to bring something a little different yet equally as beautiful and resonant as Reprise, and Oslo, August 31st, if far more supernatural and allegorical in tone.

Thelma (Eili Harboe) is a shy loner, has stiflingly over-protective and controlling parents (Blind’s Ellen Dorrit Peterson and Henrik Rafaelsen) and begins to experience seizures, seemingly triggered by her meeting Anya (Kaya Wilkins). Slowly, she begins to integrate herself into a social circle, her Christian upbringing a source of fascination for some of her new friends. Torn between fulfilling her parents’ expectations, self-acceptance and suppressing everything else – including her attraction to Any – Thelma’s psychogenic seizures begin to debilitate until she seeks medical help and the truth about her condition is revealed.

While a coming-of-age with supernatural elements is nothing new, Trier’s evocative, moody and visually arresting love story manages to sustain its mystery for the 116-minute runtime. Some may be reminded of Carrie but this has more in common with Let the Right One in (2009) and When Animals Dream (2014) riffing on the Female Gothic, Nordic-style, via horror tropes/themes offering a melancholic and deliberately paced affecting drama. True to Trier form, there is the signature neutral colour palette of greys, blues and muted tones punctuated with the occasional burst of colour, the slightly voyeuristic camera courtesy of Jakob Ihre’s cinematography, along with the jarring soundtrack (that occasionally diminishes into deafening silence) by composer Ola Fløttum.

Okay, so the Freudian/religious imagery is a little on the nose but for a modern day gothic fairy tale-come-teen-drama, Thelma deals beautifully with the ambiguity of growing-up, trauma, and the end of oppressive patriarchal control, as well as the need for autonomy, self-love and acceptance.

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film review

Jigsaw (Dir. Michael and Peter Spierig, 2017)

Remember the first time John Kramer (Tobin Bell) uttered those menacing words “I want to play a game”? It was ten years ago before he succumbed to brain cancer in Saw IV. Not that death stopped him, mind you, he merely continued to torment from beyond the grave and yes, you’ve guessed it, he came back for yet another film outing.

Jigsaw wastes no time throwing us right into the action of a high speed car chase with lots of heavy breathing as cops pursue on foot. The Game has already started unbeknownst to Detective Halloran (Callum Keith Rennie) and his partner Detective Keith Hunt (Clé Bennett). Following the discovery of a decapitated corpse hanging from a foot bridge, and after the autopsy provides a USB drive, and a DNA link to the long-dead Jigsaw Killer, Halloran and Hunt join forces with ME, Logan Nelson (Matt Passmore, think an Aussie Thomas Jane) and his assistant Eleanor Bonneville (Hannah Emily Anderson). All are determined to get to the bottom of the case before more bodies pile up.

Meanwhile, five – who quickly become four – unsuspecting (although, as time will tell, not wholly innocent) strangers: Anna (Laura Vandervoort), Mitch (Mandela Van Peebles), Ryan (Paul Braunstein) and Carly (Brittany Allan) come-to in a room, each attached – by heavy chains around their necks – to the wall in front of them. A voice declares that “the truth will set [them] free”, mentions the denial of culpability…blood sacrifice… well, most will get the gist by now. However, this time, this lot actually listen to instruction and agree to work together in order to survive and come out of the game relatively unscathed.

Taking the reigns of the eight instalment are the Spierig Brothers. The German-born Australian identical twins, Michael and Peter, are no strangers to darker sci-fi/horror genre pieces at their filmography can attest: 2009’s Daybreakers, Predestination (2014) and, most recently the Jason Clarke and Helen Mirren-starrer Winchester. They certainly make Jigsaw (or Saw VIII if you will) their own which is no easy feat given the notoriety of the already established series.

Bringing their regular DoP Ben Nott along for the ride makes a huge difference to the visual look of the film; scenes are brighter with some scenes even taking place outside. The narrative is simplified, more logical and feels more like a police procedural thriller, there’s far less gore and “torture porn” than one has come to expect from these films and it’s all the better for it – that said the film does provide some excellent prosthetics and Special FX. It’s stylishly done, largely unpredictable and definitely plays more with the idea of sin and confession than previous films with Kramer painted as a God – to listen to producers in some of the extras, Tobin Bell is one – he has been resurrected more times than Lazarus and here to cleanse the soul.

Any fan of these films need not worry, while there are refreshing flourishes, this has more in common with the very first (and vastly superior) chapter and while it does manage to stand alone in its own right, make no mistake, it’s a Saw movie. Jigsaw would make the ideal end to a storyline – John’s epitaph – which some may argue ran out of steam long ago. However, with the general populace continually screwing each other over, maybe humanity needs Kramer (and his dulcet tones) to be our cinematic moral compass and continue to deliver penitence for a few more years to come.

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film review

Almost Heaven (Dir. Carol Salter, 2017)

Nominated for Best Documentary at the 67th Berlin Film Festival, Carol Salter’s feature debut welcomes us with an intertitle. “In China, job opportunities are limited for teenagers.” This is then followed with multiple shots of vast, wide open corridors, silent doorways and car parks before being interrupted by an interaction between two extremely young co-workers discussing mosquito bites. It is then that we realise that these stiflingly quiet and desolate surroundings belong to a funeral home.

17-year-old Ying Ling works at the Ming Yang Mountain Funeral Home, far from home, at which cadavers arrive and depart via a hydraulic lift in the car park. In order to pass her exams and progress within the company, she must learn how to prep and cleanse a body before it can be viewed by a grieving family. One could argue a harrowing prospect for a such a sweet and young girl, one who is afraid of ghosts, made all the more understandable given the nature of the job and the eerie labyrinthine place of work.

Juxtaposing these expanses of space with tight close-ups of the frequently worried expression on her subject’s face, Salter elicits a shared social and psychological space. We watch as this kid – who observes everything, works 24-hour shifts, and whose cruel mother refuses to let her return home even for winter clothes – as she advances in her career whereby one day she is charged with keeping the plant life alive, before death becomes her one and only daily job. Refreshingly, these teenagers don’t see their future in the dead and yet by the documentary’s denouement, this is exactly where Ying Ling’s colleague Jin Hua finds his business.

Their friendship is an uplifting aspect of an otherwise uneasy watch, although humour does punctuate the documentary throughout. It needs to. Ying Ling and Jin Hua do everything together – live, eat, laugh, share days off, prepare the dead, and the affection between them is sweetly endearing; it rivals siblinghood yet teeters on something more. Jin Hia is Ying Ling’s beacon, her little piece of heaven amid the depressing, mosquito-pestered mortuary.

As for the funeral home itself, it’s ran as mostly highly efficient businesses are; preoccupied with making money, receiving cash and occasionally berating its staff. There’s a coldness to it, perpetuated by the long takes and the silence, and while respect is paid to the dearly departed, the same can’t be said for the living as money disputes rear their ugly heads during the most unfortunate moments.

What follows the second half is a number of harrowing scenes in which blood violently stains some sheets and shrouds and we, along with, Ying Ling, are confronted with the visceral horror of death and the wailing sorrow and melancholy of grief. While Salter’s camera stays on the periphery of those scenes, and can never be accused of being disrespectful, it nevertheless feels intrusive. Grief and mourning is such a private experience, having a camera record these moments feels almost voyeuristic in their candidness.

That said, it never strays into being overtly maudlin. Almost Heaven is an observational coming-of-age documentary where childhood is slowly diminished (in 75 short minutes) by approaching adulthood, and life and death is played out quite literally between takes. It is a gentile rumination on migratory workers, a reflection of life, death, and all the things in between.