Filmes de Interés Gay

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DV8 Physical Theater's production of
Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men was inspired by the grisly world of the notorious 80's serial killer Dennis Nilsen. He was responsible for 16 murders in London. The majority of his victims lived on the edge of society and were visitors at his home.
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"I was left with an endless search through the
soul-destroying pub scene and its resulting
one-night stands ...passing faces and bodies, the unfulfilled tokens of an empty life. A house is not a home and sex is not a relationship. We would only lend each other our bodies in a vain search for inner peace." ~ Dennis Nilson.


. . . Around these events, DV8 Physical Theater poses questions on desire and sensuality. Founded upon the conviction that societal homophobia is bound to result in tragic consequences, it gets to grips with the disturbing forces that drove Nilson to kill for company.

DV8's work for four men, explores through non-narrative dance theater the interwoven notions of loneliness, desire and trust. The men enact private rituals which become disturbing in their familiarity. When does the ordinary become extraordinary? Their actions push the boundary of naturalism to the extreme, the space becomes a landscape of loneliness where "nature makes no provision for emotional death" and men are left to resurrect their own lives.

Wild, cruisy sex, that staple of gay male identity, is not what it used to be. The added bonus issue of mortality has made it quirkier, riskier, and more enticingly forbidden. Its inherent dysfunction, however, has never seemed steamier than in this homoerotic, salaciously arty Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men. In this British television version of a dance/performance piece by the London-based DV8 Physical Theatre, anonymous sex is sweat-soaked, serious business with arousing, if somber, consequences. But, like the real thing, getting there is too delicious to do without.

Filmed in starkly lit, anguish- and muscle-enhancing black and white, Dead Dreams looks like a living George Platt Lynes photograph set in a fevered, prison like bar world, pulsating with wordless sexual narratives, twitchy erotic appetites and well-shorn, hunky men. DV8's extremely physical choreography, while at times almost acrobatic, is appropriately rooted in urban sexual realism. Seamlessly woven into the "dance" are universally recognizable cruising rituals, cigarette smoke, boot licking, S&M, jockey short fetishes, and not-so-dry humping.

In the anguished twilight between the meat market of gay clubland and brokenhearted bedsitter land, the fine line between sex and death is all but erased. Harrowing, and bleak, the fierce physical action that has become DV8's trademark is nevertheless shaped into a forceful plea for humanity in a dehumanizing world.

Easily transcending the stigmas of both dance and television with its use of angst-ridden sexual truth, Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men ultimately posits an unlikely, white hot link between performance art and performance anxiety.

"Sex, drugs & punk rock.
Add violence & time
travel & you have . .
. . Jubilee"

Derek Jarman's 'Jubilee' (1978) is a wildly beautiful film which strikes a precarious, and compelling, balance between sheer anarchy and genuine tenderness. Jubilee begins when Queen Elizabeth I (played with quiet power by Jenny Runacre, who also portrays Bod) has her court alchemist, the historical John Dee, summon Ariel. The sloe-eyed spirit with huge hands (whom Jarman describes as having "a glitter punk scintilla") transports all of them 400 years into the future – just beyond our own time – to a dystopic London, which has become a literal wasteland, overrun with violence and decay.

Let Jarman summarize Jubilee for you in his own words: "Law and order has finally been abolished and do-your-own-thing is the order of the day. The church is a strip club [and Buckingham Palace a recording studio].... Open war between all factions of society. A gang of bike girls centered at H.Q. in Southwark, rape and kill all adversaries, led by the Queen of Punk, Bod [Bodicea].... The music of groups like The Slits, Sex Pistols plays incessantly to rapturous reception. The film is anarchic and very beautiful."

"Leave the guy alone, he's better than a vibrator and he's bigger"

The film has misleadingly been called a "Punk movie." It is much more than that, although the then-nascent movement informs the film in many ways, from music to casting to tone. Punk's heyday was 1975–80, with its two key albums – The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks and The Clash's The Clash – both appearing in 1977, the year Jubilee was filmed (coinciding with Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee). Punk provided a clarion voice for alienated teenagers in its mix of hard-driving rock, socially aware but simple lyrics – that crystallized the mood of anger, powerlessness, and rebellion in the face of a severe economic recession – and a confrontational style which extended from the songs to the fashions of its devotees. 'Jubilee' provides a virtual catalog of the Punk Look, from Mad's (Toyah Willcox in a stunning performance) close-cropped hair dyed Day-Glo orange to angsty graffiti which covers almost every wall to the scrawled quotation from 'Psycho' which ends "...wouldn't even harm a fly" which fills the back of the jackets worn by the female biker gang. You may recall Hitchcock's final scene, when the strait-jacketed Norman Bates, "possessed" by his dead mother, tells us how harmless he now is, yeah, right. Even a small detail like this resonates, since the tangled connection between gender identity and violence is one of Jarman's key themes.

"Most people would hang up the phone,
she's hanging on for dear life."

Jarman's brilliance as an artist allows him to meld all of these eclectic sources, and more (including his two wildly diverse stated sources: Punk fan magazines of the day and Frances A. Yates's The Art of Memory (1966), a classic study of how people learned to retain vast stores of knowledge before the invention of the printed page), into a film of consummate originality and power.

He also brings beauty and emotional resonance to the film through his characters. He creates a resonance with these eccentric, and sometimes lethal, allegorical people. Jarman is well-known for including friends and lovers in his films. Not only does this provide a cost-effective approach to casting, it also brings a deeply personal connection to his films. Jarman not only published his autobiography in book form, throughout his life he also shot hundreds of hours of Super 8 footage. Some of those "home movies" found their way into his feature films, including the surreal "Jordan's Dance" and Jarman also re-edited and incorporated into Jubilee "Amyl's Dance,".

"I just love a man without its uniform."

Despite its Punk trappings, ultimately the film seems more about Punk than of it. How Jarman uses then-rising star Adam Ant reveals much about the film and filmmaker. When Crabs meets, and instantly tries to pick up, Kid (Adam Ant's character), she coos that he is "gorgeous." With his sweetly boyish persona – made just a bit wild by the black leather and painted-on lower sideburns – it is no wonder that Jarman, as reported by a friend on the DVD's documentary, fell "madly in love with him." But how Jarman uses Kid in the film may reveal at least as much about his sociopolitical insights as his romantic frustration. When Kid is asked what he does, he replies, "Nothing... Music." And throughout he is as passive offstage as he is frenzied onstage. His performance with his group, Adam and the Ants, is one of only two or three full musical numbers in the film; and it strikingly reveals Jarman's gifts as one of the originators of music videos.

But Kid is unable to connect with anyone, including Crabs. He seems content to lie on his stomach while Crabs pulls his t-shirt up and strokes his back, and that only because she has promised to introduce him to Borgia Ginz (played by "Orlando," aka Jack Birkett), the mogul who controls the entire world's media and hence political, and even religious, power structure. (Ginz shares a palatial mansion in Dorset with an aged Adolf Hitler.) Ginz is, of course, taken with Kid and signs him, immediately rechristening him "Scum." Claiming that's commercial. It's all they [the audience] deserve."

"It's like pornography; better than the real thing."

In the "triangle" between the two teasingly incestuous brothers, Sphinx and Angel (who utters the classic line, "I didn't know I was dead till I was fifteen."), and the artist Viv there was real connection and tenderness between all three of them, despite what many people would consider the highly "problematic" nature of their relationship. The brothers read as a gay couple and Jarman describes Viv as a "butch dyke." Yet they go to bed together; although the morning after Sphinx and Angel again seem more interested in each other than in Viv. What makes their relationship so poignant is that Jarman then goes on to show us their day together, which is the most genial sequence in the film. They also introduce us to the most hilarious character, Max – the Bingo king and former pimp, who now has a huge garden entirely of artificial flowers. (Max is played to the hilt by Neil Kennedy, who was a comparable character with the same name in Jarman's previous film, 'Sebastiane'.) You will not soon forget what happens when Max, horrified, spots a caterpillar on one of his plastic plants.

"Scum. That's commercial. It's all they [the audience] deserve."

Perhaps the most haunting, and disturbing, image of Kid is the close-up of Kid kissing his own image on TV and a moment later, he licks the screen lasciviously with his tongue, giving a decidedly postmodern twist to the myth of Narcissus. And on still another level, Jarman was showing his foresight into Punk's future. Just a few years after the release of Jubilee, as the filmmaker wrote in his memoir Dancing Ledge, "the film turned prophetic.... the streets burned in Brixton and Tosteth. Adam [Ant] was on Top of the Pops and signed up with Margaret Thatcher to sing at the Falklands Ball." Jarman concluded the passage by repeating the chilling words he gave Borgia Ginz at the end of 'Jubilee': "They all sign up in one way or another."

" . . and cries and cries, clutching herself, rolling . . "

The film's most overwhelming moment comes from an unlikely source: Mad. At one point, she and Amyl go off on a vendetta against two of the fascistic police officers. They find one, alone, taking a pee. Mad whips out her knife, as she and Amyl jump him, wrestle him to the ground, kicking and screaming. Then Mad, in a frenzy, castrates him. Although this is not Jubilee's only scene of "ultra violence," the result is unprecedented. Mad breaks down – the only time any character does this in the film – and cries and cries, clutching herself, rolling. Shockingly, this moment feels absolutely real. Significantly for the film, as actress Toyah Willcox (Mad) notes in the documentary on the DVD, Jarman shot a huge amount of film for this project. But this was the only instance where he included the "extended" footage. By implication, Jarman forces us to confront the full human toll taken by life in a completely anarchic world, without any order or social restraint. Although much of the film has depicted an ebullient, even enticing, picture of life in this near-future wasteland, this scene stops us cold. It forces us to reconsider the price of absolute "freedom" – and the deeply complex connections between anarchy and beauty – even as it humanizes the most dehumanized character in the film. It's an extraordinary, raw, literally visceral scene, and one which most will not soon forget.

No one can live in such a world, even in its ultimately commercialized form as 1970s Punk, with mass-produced albums and Punk boutiques. But Jarman ends his film on a much more subtly problematic note. In a hauntingly beautiful coda, we see our Elizabethan time travelers back in their own "Golden Age," as they walk along a placidly beautiful sea coast. But Elizabeth longs for a still earlier, and more pure, time, when she asks, "Oh, John Dee, do you remember those days? The whispered secrets at Oxford, like the sweet sea breeze? Codes and counter-codes." The 'doubleness' of her "codes" remark reminds us of the complexity of her reign: Does Jarman expect us not to know about the Machiavellian (or Borgian) intrigues, and murders, which marked the historical Elizabeth's court? As Mad remarks near the film's beginning, "There are no heroes." – yet Jarman acknowledges how we long for them, for a leader like Elizabeth, whom he describes (in his notes on Jubilee) as "The Virgin Queen, distant yet sympathetic, the paradigm of royalty." And what about John Dee, with his multiple nature, as another possible "hero"? He was a man half in the superstitious past (as an alchemist and magician) and half in the modern world (as one of the first scientists). The film nicely, and again - ironically, circles in on itself. Happiness is swept away with hope to be replaced by despair, all at the doing of the punks who are only acting out of what they feel is justice. Self destruction reigns supreme.
Again, Jarman gives us no clear, or simple guides for our own lives. ~ J. Clark

FILM INFORMATION: 'Jubilee'

Web: Cast, Bios and Additional Details at IMDb
Director: Derek Jarman
Writer: Derek Jarman
Cast, Crew & Credits: Full Cast, Crew & Credits
Genre: Drama | Music
Awards: 5 wins & 1 nomination
Runtime: 90 min
Spoken Language: English

FILM CLIP: 'Jubilee'



DOWNLOAD FILM FILES: 'Jubilee'
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A moral & sexual
dilemma. Whom
do they deny?
Themselves or G-d? . . .

"I was trying to
understand what it
means to come out
and to come home.
I wanted to see if
there was gay life
in this world I had
grown up in."
~ director Sandi Simcha DuBowski

With ''Trembling Before G-d,'' the director Sandi Simcha DuBowski latches on to a provocative subject and invests it with a compelling tenderness. This documentary is essentially about merging the Old World and the New, but with a twist that is shocking: it concerns the heartfelt desire of homosexuals to find a place for themselves in Orthodox Judaism, where they are shunned and repudiated. When does compassion supplant dogma, or can it? These are the deceptively innocent questions raised by ''Trembling'.

The director knows it would be wrong to take the easy way out and castigate the rabbi who tries to understand the sexual choice of David, a Jew who wants to be a part of the flock and cannot see a way out of his lifestyle. The rabbi does feel that things have changed since the Talmud -- which says homosexuality is punishable by death, ''an abomination,'' according to the Torah quote from Leviticus that opens the film -- but that has nothing to do with the demands of pure Orthodoxy. For the rabbi, David's path is simple, though for David, agonizingly so: stop his homosexual behavior or be condemned.

In the eyes of some Orthodox believers, death from AIDS becomes a hand striking down the blasphemers who dare to lead lives of open defiance, and ''Trembling'' doesn't overemphasize the opinion of many Orthodox Jews who think the problems that gays face are justified.

''Trembling Before G-d,'' a stark and appropriate title, tells several stories, profiling a number of people. Mr. DuBowski knows that the film would shatter if his viewpoint were rendered in hysterical terms or even condescending ones. The film is more interested in dealing with the intrinsic drama in these situations, like that of the gay Jews who decide to divorce themselves from their faith with the same forcefulness used against them.

The position taken by some of the gays and lesbians interviewed for the film is that this resistance gives purpose to their lives and provides a kind of reverse passion. What the picture needs is a little of what keeps them going -- the release offered by walking away from the strictures of the faith and from the harsh rejection they suffer from their families.

But that's not to say that ''Trembling'' is one-sided or simple-minded. Mr. DuBowski's camera subjects constitute a worldwide sampling taking up both sides of the argument; this kind of raw debate isn't limited to the United States or Israel.

The film's true sadness comes when a therapist, Shlomo Ashkinazy, explains the separatism that has kept such an anti-homosexual stance alive in Orthodox Judaism, even more than the dictum that men and women are to couple primarily to procreate. And after hearing the views of many fundamentalist Christians, it's obvious that strong views against homosexuals are not limited to Orthodox Judaism.

The fine and powerful ''Trembling Before G-d'' has gained a whole new urgency and purpose since its screening at the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2001. The subtlety of the pressure on David -- the advice given, implying that the necessity to change is easy -- is what adds a much deeper undercurrent of tragedy to this unforgettable picture. ~ Elvis Mitchell

Film Information: ' Trembling Before G-d'

Web: Cast, Bios and Additional Details at IMDb
Director: Sandi Simcha Dubowski
Cast, Crew & Credits: Full Cast, Crew & Credits
Genre: Documentary
Awards: 8 wins & 3 nomination
Runtime: 80 min
Spoken Language: English | Yiddish | Hebrew

Film Clip: 'Trembling Before G-d'



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'Finally Finding a Mate,
in Working-Class London' . .
. . An Urban Fairytale

Don't be alarmed if during the opening moments of ''Beautiful Thing,'' you have the dislocating sense of being catapulted back three decades to the mad, mod world of ''Georgy Girl.''

That's because the cheery voice on the soundtrack belongs to none other than Mama Cass Elliot belting ''It's Getting Better,'' a late-60's hit whose jangly folk-pop sound echoes the theme song from the movie that made Lynn Redgrave a star. So what in heaven's name is Mama Cass's music doing in a 90's drama about two gay teen-age boys in southeast London who fall in love and come out together? We shall soon see.

'Beautiful Thing' is a heartwarming story of two young men coming to grips with their sexuality and the effect it has on the people in their lives.''Beautiful Thing' focuses on three neighbors, Jamie (Glen Berry), Ste (Scott Neal) and Leah (Tameka Empson) on Thamesmead Estate in south-east London.

In the middle flat, Jamie lives with his pub manager mom, Sandra (Linda Henry). Jamie is going through a few problems at school, much to the chagrin of his gutsy mother who is too busy trying to hold down a relationship with a dippy younger man, Tony (Ben Daniels). Next door lives Ste, sporty and good looking, a quiet boy who stoically endures regular beatings by his father, a drunken former boxer with a chip on his shoulder and his brother who also beats on him. The atmosphere is tense at the best of times. On the other side live Leah and her mom. Leah has been kicked out of school and passes her time listening to old records. Kooky Leah has an unaccountable obsession with the singer Mama Cass Elliott, who died in 1974 and whose records she enjoys playing full blast at 2 in the morning, to the fury of neighbors.

This doggedly uplifting music plays a crucial role in setting the tone of the film whose mixture of working-class realism and feel-good fantasy resurrects the spirit of 1960's movies set in swinging England. ''Georgy Girl,'' you may recall, was a Cinderella story about a gawky Plain Jane who wins Prince Charming. ''Beautiful Thing'' is a Cinderella story about two gawky Plain Joes who win each other.

Life drifts along until one night Ste is beaten up by his brother and is taken into the safety of Sandra's flat. Sleeping embarrassed head-to-toe, Jamie realizes that he is in love with Ste. As the bullying continues, Ste spends more and more time with Jamie. With Jamie, Ste finds a tenderness he has so far missed out on in life. He finds himself drawn more and more to Jamie.

But it is not as straightforward as that. How can you be gay on this tough estate? As Ste and Jamie are sorting things out in their heads, Sandra discovers the truth. She knows she cannot kick Jamie out. Her love for him is too strong, and she decides to try and understand. Sandra, who is poorly educated and thinks she knows more than she does, solemnly tries to reassure her son, there is a place where gay people can go and live without fear of harassment: ''It's an island in the Mediterranean called Lesbian.''It is clear now that things will forever be different for Jamie and his mother, but Ste can never tell his family the truth.

The film ends on an optimistic note with Jamie and Ste unashamedly slow dancing in the sunshine in the courtyard of their apartment complex with the 'world' watching. Sandra may be a feisty and meddlesome mom (she spies on her son and follows the lovers to a gay bar), but when everyone's cards are finally out on the table, she proves militantly supportive and she and Leah usually at each others throats, reconcile their differences and she takes Leah's hand and they join Jamie and Ste and slow dance along side of them.

They are dancing to Mama Cass Elliot singing "Dream A Little Dream of Me''

" . . at once spiritual,
sadomasochistic, homoerotic,
and heartrendingly
tender . . "

Derek Jarman and Paul Humfress created a remarkably authentic historical film, and a landmark of gay cinema, about the martyred fourth century Roman soldier, who was later both canonized as Saint Sebastian and revered as an enduring gay icon. The film strikingly balances a cinéma vérité depiction of the everyday life of common soldiers, in a remote desert outpost of the Roman Empire, and a visionary exploration of one man's defiant growth in faith, even as it subtly questions the nature of that experience.

Sebastiane works brilliantly on many levels – cinematic, psychological, spiritual, aesthetic, even political – but what may strike you first is the vividness of the ancient world it depicts, captured with an authenticity matched by few films.

From stills, you might think that Sebastiane's cast was chosen for their sculpted bodies. But each of these actors, even those in supporting roles, fully inhabits their characters and brings them to life. Leonardo Treviglio (seen most recently in Julie Taymor's 1999 film, Titus) gives an intensely restrained, brilliantly nuanced performance in the title role. Neil Kennedy as Max (a year later he played another memorable character with that same name in Jarman's Jubilee) brings a twisted comic energy to his role as the troublemaker extraordinaire. And Barney James, whose only other film role was as the policeman in Jubilee, creates a genuinely complex antagonist in his Captain Severus, smitten with Sebastian and torn between lust, duty, and love.

Shot on location in Sardinia, every well-worn costume and dusty prop seems genuine. The dialogue is in the rough "street Latin" of its day (with English subtitles), but rather than feeling gimmicky it helps capture the texture of these nine banished soldiers' daily life. Its realism is in striking contrast to big-budget "sword and sandal" epics, from the Silent Era to the recent Gladiator, which always look too manufactured. In fact, its stylistic roots are more in the hyper-real mythic films of Pasolini, like Oedipus Rex and Medea.

" . .a society where gay and bisexual people were part of the accepted norm . ."

These nine exiled soldiers speak the earthy "dog Latin" of that time with total believability (there are English subtitles; classics scholar Jack Welch translated Jarman and Humfress's original script). Rather than a gimmick, this ancient "street talk" helps capture the texture of their rough daily life in some godforsaken outpost of the Empire. We see just the kind of loose camaraderie you would expect under the circumstances – merciless ribbing of each other, some literally painful practical jokes, constant questioning of each other's manhood (although somewhat different from today, since this was historically a society where gay and bisexual people were part of the accepted norm), flaring tempers; yet all is forgiven by the next day. This constant roughhousing gives the film not only verisimilitude, but energy and unpretentiousness.

That latter quality is especially important, because Jarman and Humfress deal with some dauntingly complex themes, as important now as seventeen hundred years ago, including the meaning of spirituality, the place of sexuality in life, and the contradictory nature of reality. The film's wild streak of humor, and its sometimes breathtaking visual design, help keep this profoundly serious work from overdosing on what some people call "heaviosity."

The thematic core, as expected in a work about a man on the road to sainthood, is spirituality; and few films, including self-styled "religious movies," let one feel so deeply the growing importance of faith to an individual. Even some of the translated dialogue is beautiful, as when Sebastian, gazing at his and the sky's reflection in a pool of water, says that divinity is "That beauty that made all colors different.... The heavens and earth are united in gold." But while that vision of faith is powerful, it also has many layers, some of which are provocatively ambiguous. For some viewers, a central question will be: Is Sebastian a true Christian or is he a syncretist grafting his personal version of the new religion onto much older, Greco-Roman roots? The film offers different possible answers, not as a dodge, but because the film realizes how multi-faceted religious experience is, growing out of social, personal and spiritual contexts.

"I love him. He is beautiful. More beautiful than Adonis"

The film shows us Sebastian becoming ever more removed from his fellow soldiers, an outsider among outsiders, as he feels himself drawn closer to his deity. While Sebastian is being tortured (the first time) for his intransigence – stripped and staked to the ground – he talks with the sweet-natured Justin (Richard Warwick, who was Antonio in Jarman's The Tempest), who is in love with him (perhaps more for his beauty than his faith). At the climax of this scene, Sebastian cries out, referring to the personification of his growing spirituality, "I love him. He is beautiful. More beautiful than Adonis." The subtext – at once spiritual, sadomasochistic, homoerotic, and heartrendingly tender – is made apparent when Sebastian, oblivious to Justin's feelings, says, "He takes me in his arms and caresses my bleeding body." When Justin shields Sebastian from the sun, he jerks his head away; for Sebastian, only God can give him solace.

The full nature of Sebastian's ecstatic faith is subtly questioned. In his delirium, he has mistaken the character referred to in the credits as the Leopard Boy, presumably a member of a local tribe, for a manifestation of a god or God. Since we see the Leopard Boy before Sebastian does – soon after the latter's arrival in this remote outpost – it is assumed that he is a real character and neither a figment of Sebastian's imagination nor a literalistic manifestation of deity. So, does this self-delusion lessen the importance of Sebastian's growing faith?

One of the most remarkable aspects of the film is that it can be seen as either spiritual or secular; perhaps its deep strain of humanism is the common link. Sebastiane is spiritual in that we feel the deep importance of faith to Sebastian, more so than in most self-styled religious movies. But this film also offers a rational, secular reason for that – Sebastian's world is harsh (betrayed by his beloved Diocletian) and his life is hard (he lives in a literal and metaphorical wasteland); it also shows Sebastian's confusion (misinterpreting the Leopard Boy as a deity, not to mention one which may be simultaneously, to him, Greco-Roman and/or Christian). Whether or not Sebastian's faith is based on layers of confusion, we can fully understand why it is so essential, and nourishing, to him under the circumstances of his life.

On the other hand, if Sebastiane is seen as a straightforwardly spiritual film – and some people consider it so – then there are few other pictures which depict, in such profoundly real and moving terms, the slow but unshakeable process of one person embracing a faith fully, to the extent that he would sacrifice his life for its principles. When Sebastian, a former commander to the emperor, early on refuses to engage in mock combat because, as he says in all sincerity, "Christians don't fight," we know that he is paving the way for his own destruction, which the film depicts step by inexorable step.

Aesthetically Sebastiane is an extremely well-made film – dramatically, visually, and musically – despite its constricted budget. The screenplay is deftly structured, with each scene finding the right length to delineate its characters and expose the necessary information. This film knows how to balance its oppositions, both dramatic, from soldierly raunch to spiritual awakening and visual, finding beauty in the mysterious depths of water and the serenity of the fatal desert.

The cinematography by Peter Middleton (who also shot Jarman's next two films) is exceptional, especially considering that these powerful images were originally shot in 16mm (before being blown up to 35mm for theatrical release). The editing by co-writer/director Paul Humfress is crisp. And Brian Eno's superb minimalist score (his first work for film) provides both haunting atmosphere and, in its electronic modernness, just a bit of distance from the realism of the ancient setting.

There is also beauty in the English of Jarman and Humfress' subtitles. In radiant contrast to the soldiers' tart slang is Sebastian's mystically beautiful hymns of praise to his deity and its world. "That beauty that made all colors different.... The heavens and earth are united in gold." Sebastiane achieves genuine cinematic poetry, uniting word, image, and sound, which adds not only another rich texture to a many-layered film, but still more depth to Sebastian's evolving character.

This film is no mere exercise in historical recreation. It is a work of flesh and blood, which in its depiction of the collision course of Sebastian's religious fervor and Severus's uncontrollable desire cuts through the disastrously tangled knot of desire and power. Here, the theme is explored from the dual perspective of spirituality and gay life.

Paradoxically, much of the film's power as a specifically gay-themed work comes from the fact that the homoeroticism is not only unselfconscious but in the background. It is just another aspect of these men's lives, and one which their larger society takes for granted. They reveal, through their jibes, that a man may just as likely be attracted to a woman as to another man. This is a place where guys can taunt each other about their interest in both Vestal Virgins and popular female whores and equally, about their interest in members of the same sex. This is still one of the only films to present a world which is both credible and completely accepting of same-sex relationships; where sexual orientation is a non-issue. That vision must have been extraordinarily gratifying to gay audiences a mere quarter of a century ago (which also explains Sebastiane's great success at the box office, which surprised many people), at a time when movies and books offered only the most hopeless depiction of trapped, doomed homosexual existence (which, on one level, the Sebastian/Severus plot strand reflects).

Sebastiane also contains some of the most genuinely tender and loving moments of any gay-themed film up to that time, especially in the budding relationship of the minor characters Adrian, whom the other men tease about being a virgin, and Anthony. Their scene together in the water, shot in slow motion, may look like some soft-core fantasy – with the camera lingering over almost every inch of their sculpted bodies – but the emotional connection between them seems every bit as real as their physical desire. Early in the film there is a comparably overt scene, consisting of Sebastian pouring water over his nude body and rubbing himself clean. What makes these scenes of central importance is that they highlight one of the film's most interesting layers. They are both clearly from the point of view of Severus, the repressed but passionate captain of these outcast soldiers. In other words, these sensual, beautiful and moving images are all from the antagonist's point of view.

But then, Severus is much more than a traditional villain. In a comparable story of this type he would be the closeted 'homosexual heavy,' like the diabolical Claggart in Melville's 1891 final novella, Billy Budd, or the officer in Carson McCullers' 1941 novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye. Severus is more complex than that, both psychologically and in his key role in the narrative structure. Severus has such resonance because of the depth of Jarman and Humfress's film making, as well as Barney James engrossing performance in the roll.

"Sebastiane, love me."

Severus seems to be equally divided between raw lust and genuine love for Sebastian. But Sebastian is no simple martyr in this film. He is portrayed simultaneously as a young man with the beauty of a Greek god but with the fierce piety of a saint-in-training, yet one who is not adverse to teasingly close physical contact with his friend Justin. And it is all too clear how he contributes to the monumental frustration of Severus, which ultimately leads to the visceral climax. Before that, and the final seduction attempt by Severus, there is an intimate moment with him. This scene, with Severus drunk, alone in his narrow quarters and going mad with desire for Sebastian, is so powerful in part because the voyeuristic interest in his "private life" is being fulfilled. Even more, Jarman and Humfress provide a fascinating, subtle visual gloss on the action and emotion. They shoot the scene from overhead – perhaps from the ironic perspective of, say, a low-flying god – which makes the claustrophobia of Severus's space, and life, all the more vivid. You can see the duality of Severus which stands at the center of a film filled with dualities yoked together in the climactic rape scene with Sebastian where Sebastian is dark, even a bit menacing, with the underlighting and the "devilish" beard; while Severus – hair ringed with golden light – looks like a Renaissance image of a Greek god, Apollo or Adonis, the very deities which not-quite-fully-Christian Sebastian longed for. The complex and contradictory role of Severus becomes even more intriguing when you realize that he implicates the viewer in his voyeuristic and disturbing, yet undeniably beautiful, gazing at radiant young men.

Perhaps an even more subtle influence on the film's tone is its rich connections to art, as well as gay, history. Jarman, of course, was already both an acclaimed painter and impassioned gay rights advocate before becoming a filmmaker. Historically, Saint Sebastian with his muscular physique, tied to a pillar, drilled with arrows, the embodiment of intense but safely-bound desire and soulful eyes, became not only one of the most frequently-painted subjects in Renaissance art but an enduring, albeit sadomasochistic, gay icon.

Saint Sebastian has had a revival in the time of AIDS, perhaps because of his dual role as icon of tortured male beauty and as the patron saint of – even more than soldiers, athletes, and archers – sufferers of the plague.

Jarman and Humfress's visionary film is a fascinating, aesthetically and emotionally complex addition to the long tradition of works about Saint Sebastian. For some, its matter-of-fact depiction of a world, although ancient, free of homophobia is compelling. ~ (excerpted review) J. Clark