Filmes de Interés Gay

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"Raw, Intense,
Innovative and
Unflinchingly
honest . ."

'The Hanging Garden' is a powerful drama of an urbane gay man returning to the provinces to confront the ghosts of his troubled youth and veers wildly between harrowing kitchen-sink realism and surreal fantasy with enough bizarre touches (including the naming of its characters after various herbs and flowers) that this version of the prodigal son parable reinvents the formula.

The film probes the duality of life and death and the way seemingly very different choices in life can lead to similar outcomes while examining incest, parental abuse, suicide, hetero/bi/homo-sexuality, alcoholism, prostitution and the enabling power to keep it all going by not discussing it!

This impressive first feature for Thom Fitzgerald was the 1997 Canadian Film Winner at Toronto. It is one very tight script and one imaginative and raw look at family dynamics with an innovative piece of story telling that blends past and present with incredible ease and expertise.

One unsettling message conveyed by the Canadian film is that no matter how drastically you may overhaul your physical image, beneath your bright and shiny new shell, a wounded, frightened child still lurks. All you have to do to find him is go home again. As the movie skips around in time and shows its grown-up characters observing their younger selves, it suggests that as we grow up we become like redwood trees: all the layers of our lives down to our very cores exist at the same time.

When the film's main character, Sweet William (Chris Leavins), visits his Nova Scotia family for the first time in 10 years, this formerly obese teen-ager is so svelte as to be hardly recognizable. No sooner has he returned for the wedding of his older sister Rosemary (Kerry Fox) than he begins seeing younger versions of himself, including the suicidally inclined 350-pound teenager (played with a sullen poker-faced dignity by Troy Veinotte) that he used to be.

The home to which William returns is a rats' nest of bitterness, illness and domestic violence and the wedding itself a chaotic, drunken affair. The bride, on her way to the ceremony, mutters a stream of angry curses. After the wedding, the groom (Joel S. Keller) on whom the teen-age William had a serious crush, makes a pass at the man who once adored him.

''The Hanging Garden'' is powerfully acted. The wedding is staged as a black comic farce and other scenes drift in a fantasy like the scene in which the teen-age William hangs himself in the backyard. There are many moments when the lines between fantasy and realism, between farce and drama are sublimely hazy.

''The Hanging Garden'' suggests that what's called the bosom of the family is rarely a soft and comforting home in which to nestle. It's much more likely to be a bitter cul de sac in which the best defense is a timely escape.

FILM INFORMATION: 'The Hanging Garden'

Web: Cast, Bios and Additional Details at IMDb
Director: Thom Fitzgerald
Writer: Thom Fitzgerald
Cast, Crew & Credits: Full Cast, Crew & Credits
Genre: Drama | Romance
Web: 20 wins & 10 nominations
Runtime: 96 min
Spoken Language: English

FILM CLIP: 'The Hanging Garden'



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