I recently watched another gay themed film that was really quite good, its called Eighteen, directed by Richard Bell. In terms of plot, it’s a really good film, I mean most gay films depend on a hot sex scene, or really hot actors to make the show remotely good. This show on the other hand… had a good plot and a terrific theme.
The show tells the story about an adolescent boy that has ran away from home. On his eighteenth birthday, he received a birthday present from his dead grandfather, which was a recorded voice tape. The tape retold the story of his grandfather’s war experience in France, with another injured war medic. There were some underlying gay lust here, for those of you wondering :) And through out the movie, the boy ,named Pip, listened to bit and pieces of the tape, which sort of paralleled his life as a runaway.
As a runaway, Pip befriends a gay hustler named Clark, and also Father Chris, a kind young priest that tries to understand and help Pip. Along the way, Pip also picks up a girlfriend, Jenny, and they both fell madly in love with each other. By the way, the guy who played Father Chris is the same guy that played the Nightcrawler in X-men.
Well, the main thing I got from the show was that life is about appreciating the things we have at hand, and not to lament about the things we’ve lost or the things that we could have had… (like one of my previous posts). And also, the show tells us that sometimes we have to be realistic in life, even though the reality is always rougher and more difficult to deal with. For example Pip realised that ultimately his hustler friend, Clark, hustled out of a need for survival. And Pip’s grandfather, through his war story learned that in war, sometimes you have to kill another in order to survive… it’s a dog eat dog world? Sad but true…
There is one really really scary scene in the movie though, whereby a father forces his gay son (which just came out to him) to blow him, just to prove that he really is gay. I was horror-struck at that scene, and was really freaked out by it. All I can say is that, these are the types of nightmares gay people have when we think about coming out to our parents. Though I’m pretty sure that at this moment in time, my parents won’t be ready for me to come out to them yet, I’m positively sure they won’t act in the same way as that demonic hellspawn of a father in that movie. Thank God, phew.
The film contained elements of Anger, Confusion, Hate, Forgiveness, Love, and Fear… And its when all these conflicting elements are brought together in one film, that the viewers are touched where it matters most, our hearts.
Well as I said, I felt that overall it was a pretty good film, despite the low rating on IMDB. Secretly I think IMDB rates it low cause most of the readers are American, and they are jealous of this Canadian production :P
Signing out.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Findings