Pride: Review

I finally managed to watch Pride yesterday. For everyone who completely missed out on Facebook, Twitter and every relevant magazine, here's the trailer:

I was naturally curious to see it, since it's set in South Wales (where I happen to live), it's about the gay and lesbian community (which I happen to support), and it's about the struggle of the Welsh miners in that capitalist catastrophe better known as the Thatcher era. Produced by the BBC and starring a whole bunch of top actors, the film had its big debut in Cannes, and from thereon set out to conquer our hearts. 

It's a cheery little gem, this film. It just does everything right that is needed in order to give the audience a bloody good time. There are the outsiders and the oppressed, lots of fairly complex yet not overbearing characters to sympathise with. There are cleverly-written, cunning, funny lines, and there's the notorious scene highlight that includes a group of innocent women, some of them elderly, and a dildo. There's the lovely underlying message, quite a few prejudices from all sides taken on with good humour, there's the link to the real events of 1984/1985, and a heart-lifting climax. There's Dominic West and Andrew Scott as a loving couple - how can you not love them?!

It's a simple formula, I guess. Yet it works. It is such a feel-good film, it should be taught in film class at every college as the best example of the feel-good film. I can't quite put my finger on what makes Pride so special. It might be that everyone involved in making this movie really seemed to care. Or maybe it is just Dominic West and Andrew Scott, or that adorable Welsh accent. Maybe y'all should go watch the film and find out for yourselves.

(Warning: You'll find yourselves with a very possessive tune stuck in your head, and a sudden urge to show solidarity to anything around you. That's not a bad thing, mind you.)

Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi: Suddenly, Last Winter

Suddenly, Last Winter is a documentary film made in 2007, when the Italian journalists and long-time couple Gustav Hofer and Luca Ragazzi found themselves confronted with a violent wave of homophobia. The violence flared when civil partnerships for homosexuals were firstly proposed to the Italian parliament, and while Gustav and Luca were understandably excited about the development, Christian and conservative parties and movements braced themselves against it, leaving the country politically unstable and its people in fear and anger.

The premise is a simple one: On Gustav's initiative, the couple hits the streets, attends protests and endures numerous, endless conferences of the senate to understand the dispute. They try to interview as many people as possible, politicians, civil movement leaders and seemingly innocent passer-bys. And they never shy away from directing the camera at themselves: their disappointed faces, the fear in Luca's voice after being threatened by fascist demonstrators. By continually asking the right questions in the right moments, they subtly deconstruct the arguments of the self-called "defenders of the family and traditional values" and reveal their weak spots. When talking to politicians, more often than not, hypocrisy and a dangerous entanglement between the purportedly secular state and clerical influences come to light. When interviewing the religious, they find unreasonable fear, ignorance and hate. "I don't know what you're afraid of!", Gustav shouts in one particularly intense debate. "They say the same things, like broken records, the poor things", Luca will reply soon, exhausted by the empty phrases.

Luca and Gustav watching the news.

What makes the film so successful is not its immediacy - the hand-held camera in midst of the demonstration - or its makers' perseverance. Suddenly, Last Winter is a very personal film, and that's what makes it special. Luca and Gustav open their doors and their lives to the viewer, thereby making visible what their political opponents would love to hide forever. "We were never good at hiding", they admit at the beginning of the film, and they are right. They've staged scenes with themselves watching or reading the news, recapping their legal situation in bed and cycling past posters advertising the highly contrived "Family Day 2007". With a wink they'll comment on their own bad acting - after all, this is how they are, it's a film about what they feel. Sometimes it's subtle self-deprecation, sometimes honest outrage and fear, and the mixture makes Suddenly, Last Winter a worthwhile watch.

Stephen Reiss: Home

There's been some heated discussion in Germany recently after a columnist of the newspaper Die Welt called same-sex couples "deficient" and deemed them unable to raise children. One of the most powerful and poignant answers to this outrageous ignorance can be found in the work of photojournalist Stephen Reiss and his Home project.
Home is a beautiful, tender long-time observation made in the Bronx, NYC home of Eshey Scarborough and Paris Harris, a lesbian couple who have raised twenty foster kids in ten years - and there will be more. Reiss started the project as a student and soon found himself entangled in the extended family, carefully documenting the life in the family and the individual lives after foster care.
"We believe the service we give is the rent we pay to stay on the planet", states Eshey Scarborough in the New York Times. Many of her foster girls identify as LGBT, live with disabilities or are scarred by abuse, and would probably have never had a perspective in life, if it hadn't been for Scarborough and Harris. The pictures show the family eating together, praying, playing, celebrating birthdays. They also show the sad and lonely times: a girl crying, fears of death and isolation captured in a diary.
But when one strips away the knowledge of the unusual materialisation of this family, the Home project becomes a very 'normal' portrait of a family - including all the ups and downs, children growing up and moving on, children returning to the nurturing arms of their parents, cuddly toys, pets, huge cooking pans. There is nothing deficient about this family, on the contrary: Reiss has captured a family as wholesome as one can wish for - with a few more children than one would expect, perhaps.

Sara Davidmann: Ken. To be destroyed

Visual artist and photographer Sara Davidmann has been an outspoken ally for the queer and transgendered in the UK for a long time - starting in 1999, and publishing her book Crossing The Line in 2003. Although I know the book pretty well, she disappeared off my radar for a while, until yesterday, when the Guardian published a piece on her latest project, Ken. To be destroyed, in which she carefully tells the life of her transgender uncle Ken. I took the opportunity and checked out her website. I was surprised by the extent to which she had dived into the subject matter, and the variety her work encompassed. She has certainly come a long way since Crossing The Line.
Davidmann has always had the best intentions. "I quickly realised that generally accepted ideas of cross-dressers are drastically inadequate", she writes in Crossing The Line before embarking upon a tour de force through cross-dressing, drag and male-to-female transgender. One of her main assets is definitely her close collaboration, which includes using a smaller, unobtrusive camera and editing the pictures with her subjects (as she recently told Coventry photography students). After the book, she would go on to explore gender, sex and sexuality in all directions, unbiasedly and with a natural curiosity; many of her projects express important thoughts about the ambiguity of gender, or about power relations between photographer and subject, or as in the case of her project view point, the viewer and the subject.
However, I always felt that her good intentions not necessarily do her photography a favour. Many of the pictures in Crossing The Line felt intrusive, slightly voyeuristic, and were in no way aesthetically pleasant - I thought her bystander's POV in the images dominated the book and unfortunately undermined her honest words and sensitively conducted interviews. Her later projects - visible on her website, unlike the images from Crossing The Line - look a lot better, are nicely lit and carefully framed. Yet they feel somewhat overthought, the brilliant texts under the pictures too ambitious for the images. Davidmann is an outstanding thinker, and an important ally, publishing, exhibiting and giving talks a lot; her commitment to make the invisible visible and open the public's eyes to the whole spectrum between 'male' and 'female' can only be applauded. I am just not sure whether her photography is living up to it.
Having said this, I am left to wish her the best for Ken. To be destroyed. The story in the Guardian about the family secret around her transgender uncle is thorough, deep and promising. Handled carefully, it can become beautiful and touching - and without wanting to be mean, I think it is a good thing that Davidmann is working with archive pictures this time.

If you have seen Ken. To be destroyed in Liverpool, let me know what you think!

Jennie Livingston: Paris Is Burning

Pepper Labeija in Paris Is Burning (Screenshot)

Paris Is Burning is a documentary film, directed by Jennie Livingston and published in 1990. It deals with New York's Ball culture in the late 1980s. The balls were, and are to the present day, large events where everyone, but mainly gays, lesbians, transgender, transvestites, and queer people of Afro-American and Latino origin, could have a great time "being fabulous", performing in drag or presenting extravagant dance styles.

The balls are extravagant, something for the eye to feast, giant parties, serving as well-needed upbeat moments in the film. They are so exciting, and the viewer immediately gets why the protagonists spend most of their days stealing clothes, planning outfits and performances, and organising more balls. It makes you want to go back to the wild New York of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And then there are the quieter, pensive moments of the film. The excessive balls serve as a distraction from the often miserable life of the characters: Many of them deal with poverty, violence, homophobia and transphobia on a daily basis, prostitute themselves to make a living, or are ill with AIDS. To Livingston, they open up their dreams of gender reassignment surgery, or becoming a successful model, but also of security, wealth, a home, steady relationships - and it is these moments when you really start to relate to the protagonists.

Paris Is Burning also shows an alternative to the traditional nuclear family - many of the ball participants live in Houses, substitute families founded by and named after Ball legends which function as "mother" or "father". There are the Houses of Labeija, Xtragavanza, Ninja - united in their competition. It is heart-warming to see the love and care shared by the House members, and Livingston approaches this environment very sensitively to document the protagonists in private moments, off their outspoken Ball personas. The making of Paris Is Burning took seven years - and it is palpable. Livingston came really close to her subjects and achieved a honest insight into their lives, by conducting excellent interviews and mixing them with observed moments.

The ball culture exists still, but most of the protagonists of Paris Are Burning are gone. They died of AIDS or were murdered - Venus Xtravanza's death is one of the shock moments in the film. In this context, Paris Is Burning becomes kind of a memorial, mourning times and people long gone. But the way it celebrates life, diversity and self-expression is exemplary and highly enjoyable; a fundamental documentary to watch when you are interested in LGBTQ history.

Zanele Muholi: Being & Faces and Phases

Zinzi and Tozama II

Long overdue, the European Court of Justice recently ruled that homosexual Africans are now entitled to asylum is EU countries, given a persecution in their home country. In Mauritania and Sudan as well as in parts of Nigeria and Somalia, gays face the death penalty; in 27 countries homosexuality is punished with imprisonment of up to 14 years. Homosexuals face discrimination every day, are fearing for their partners, their families, and their lives - the harassment starts with open insult and ends with rape and murder. South Africa is one of the few countries where they are legally protected, but even there, 'corrective rape' and murder of lesbians is the daily fare.

Zanele Muholi is a photographer and activist based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her photography is a strong statement against the discrimination, giving black LGBTQI a face and a voice. She was awarded the Index on Censorship arts award 2013 for her work on gender and sexuality in South Africa. Her work is beautiful and powerful - particularly her candid look on South African lesbian couples from the series Being. Her style is straight forward in (or despite) its versatility, including classic portraits, changing between colour and black and white, staged and observed. It feels very honest - her work shows what normally stays hidden, it is a brave testimony of love, and of existence.

Katlego Mashiloane and Nosipho Lavuta, Ext. 2, Lakeside, Johannesburg 2007

Ayanda Magozola, Kwanele South, Katlehong, Johannesburg, 2012

The last picture is from another award-winning series by Muholi, Faces and Phases, which is literally giving South African LGBTQI a face (or faces). These are the simplest portraits one can imagine - and in their simplicity they are powerful, they are poignant, they are fearless: Just look at those fierce eyes! The pictures are impressively confident. Zanele Muholi, her subjects, and her pictures stand up to threat and violence. Visibility changes awareness. These pictures visibly have the power to bring change.

Brassaï, Lulu and the punctum

Lulu, at Le Monocle, c. 1932

The picture above was taken by the Hungarian photographer Brassaï in an underground club in Paris in the 1930s. I came across it earlier while researching black and white night photography, and in a seminar today we've had quite an interesting discussion about it.

We talked about Lulu when we discussed Roland Barthes' theory of the punctum. The punctum, according to Barthes, is - very roughly and generally - the one element in a picture that sparks your interest and, more importantly, an emotional response; it's the one bit that really hooks you to the picture. The punctum can be a very personal thing, e.g. if you have a habit of drinking Lanson Brut champagne, the bottle in the picture above might be the one thing you will respond to immediately.

Now, what I realised today is that not only is the punctum a personal matter and your emotional response might be different from someone else's, but it can also influence your interpretation of a picture majorly. Maybe it was because I am dealing with gender in photography on a daily basis, but when I saw the picture for the first time I wasn't too fussed with the fact that Lulu presents herself in a really masculine way. My punctum was her eyes: the quite sad, introvert look into the distance. This picture makes me feel loneliness in the first place - particularly when you take the sole place setting, the single glass, the unshared bottle of champagne into consideration, too. 

However, my seminar group disagreed with me on that point. Someone took the eyes as a punctum as well, but connected their longing gaze then to Lulu's masculine appearance and the scenery of an Parisian lesbian underground club, and said that the picture was talking about sexual desire and frustration. Someone else was drawn to the mural behind Lulu - which is unfortunately not visible in this slightly cropped version, but the original version shows a part of it, and you can see female legs and high heels. All of the sudden the contrast between the female characteristics in the painting and Lulu's appearance made the picture tell of gender difference, gender expression, self identity - a pretty superficial, but nevertheless valid point, in my eyes.

I think it's pretty cool how details can change the perception of a single picture in completely opposite directions. Also I like the way it shows how personal experience feeds into your interpretation - if I wasn't used so much to seeing crossdressers and drag and genderbending, maybe my initial response wouldn't have gone beyond the gender tension in Brassaï's picture, either.