Art – Discover great gay stories.

DEKKOO DISPATCH 049 – ‘YEAH, KOWALSKI!’ AND ‘SEAT IN SHADOW’

Title – ‘Seat In Shadow‘

Director – Henry Coombes

Starring – Henry Coombes, Ross Hunter, Jonathan Leslie, Marcella Mclntosh

Release Date – 2016

Title – ‘Yeah, Kowalski!‘

Director – Evan Roberts

Starring – Cameron Wofford, Conor Donnelly, Kaitlyn Knippers, Annamarie Kasper

Release Date – 2013

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Happy Wednesday Dekkoo’ers! We’re getting closer to the holidays which makes everyone go a little crazy so here are a pair of movies that you might sympathize with:

‘Yeah, Kowalski‘ is a super adorable short film about puberty and first crushes by Evan Roberts. A festival darling back in 2013 it traces a week in the life of 13-year old Gabe Kowalski. He’s a bit of a late bloomer who has two obsessions: Growing armpit hair and impressing his dream-boy, Shane. Shane seems the polar opposite of Gabe. He’s tall, outgoing, and proud of his armpit hair. There’s a lot to love about this film especially the honest depiction of a gay crush at such a young age which hopefully becomes the norm in this day and age.

Next up for your double feature pleasure is ‘Seat In Shadow‘ a film hailing from the UK that has a decidedly mind-bending bent to it. I wouldn’t expect anything less from the feature film debut of artist Henry Coombes whose work has been presented at the Venice Biennale among other prestigious art shows. Collaborating with David Sillars on the screenplay who also plays the role of the therapist Albert they’ve crafted a unique study of mentor-student relationships that can go off the rails.

Albert is an older gay painter and self-proclaimed therapist that lives his own life and doesn’t seem to care what anyone thinks of it. He studies unique ways of living and thinking through YouTube videos like how to make your own toothpaste with charcoal and random lectures on Jung. He also gets very high and talks to his plant he’s named Priscilla. When an old friend of his comes to his apartment he reluctantly agrees to help her grandson named Ben who’s going through a rough time and could use someone to talk to. You’d think Ben would have everything going for him. He’s young, good-looking, and goes to parties. Unfortunately Ben is in love with a guy that’s simply a big ‘ole jerk! He uses Ben and then criticizes everything about him.

The film is comprised primarily of one on one sessions between Albert and Ben. In the sessions they delve deep into human emotions like love, sex, and the desire to consume drugs. You can tell that the director has a deep fondness for hallucinogenic drugs. The movie definitely worships them and the filmmaking style reflects a very twisted and warped view of reality. The best part of the film by far is Albert. He’s painted very realistically with all manner of human flaws inherent in an older gay artist. He’s part monster/part angel and the director really manages to delve into that with a real honesty that’s refreshing.

Well I think you’ve got two extremely interesting films to dig into today/tomorrow/this weekend so I hope you’ll do that and let us know what you thought! 🙂

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Watch ’em with: Your mentor

Mix it with: Absinthe!

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DEKKOO DISPATCH 039 – ‘IN A GLASS CAGE’

Title – ‘In a Glass Cage‘

Director – Agustí Villaronga

Starring – Günter Meisner, David Sust, Marisa Paredes, Gisèle Echevarría

Release Date – 1986

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Darkness. A house containing evil and secrets. Innocence lost. A desire for revenge and murder. ‘In a Glass Cage‘ takes no prisoners and instead marches onwards through its self-made carnage towards a delicate balancing of art-house sensibilities and an exploration of twisted humanity. In fact this film is so disturbing that even John Waters said, “I’m too scared to show it to my friends!”

Agustí Villaronga made the harrowing film in 1985 and partially based it on Gilles de Rais, a companion to Joan of Arc and a notorious and self-confessed murderer of children (supposedly in the hundreds!). Like Pasolini’s ‘Salo’, Villaronga decided to set his tale at the end of WWII and utilizes a Nazi as the twisted figure at the center of the film. The film starts without remorse with Klaus (our resident evil dude) taking photos of a boy hanging from a rope. He’s naked and bears the marks of repeated tortures (I never said this was an easy movie to watch!!). After dealing the killing blow to the young boy Klaus seems to have some sort of revelation and immediately runs up to the roof of the house and jumps. Meanwhile someone was watching the proceedings and steals Klaus’ scrapbook/diary of his evils.

Fast-forward a few years and we’ve found that Klaus, while still alive, is now living inside a large iron lung. A device that controls his breathing. Without it he dies. His wife (played by Almodovar regular Marisa Paredes) and young daughter have been taking care of him in a country house in Catalonia where they try and avoid the Nazi witch hunt taking place in the rest of the world that would surely condemn them. Suddenly an invader boldly infiltrates the house and locks the door where Klaus is kept. When the wife demands to be let in she finds Angelo, a brooding young man petitioning to become Klaus’ nurse. Much to her dismay Klaus insists that Angelo stay to be his nurse and we eventually find out that it’s because Angelo is the one that knows all of Klaus’ secrets.

What follows is a dangerous lesson in power dynamics and the nature of evil itself. The beginning is dramatic, the middle is disturbing, and the end of the film is incredibly hypnotic and moving.

Besides the fantastic acting and writing, the cinematography is really what stands out to me in this film. Jaume Peracaula has lensed almost all of Agustí Villaronga’s films and he manages to find a perfect balance between light and dark and most of all the color blue which I’m sure has some symbolic meaning that I can’t quite figure out (I’m being honest at least!). The transfer that we’ve brought to Dekkoo is the latest High Definition remaster which really is miles better than the old DVD that used to exist where you could barely make out what was happening in half of the film.

While the themes are difficult to handle I truly love this movie. Top 25 for sure! To me it seems like ‘Salo’ as directed by Dario Argento and Pedro Almodovar and I’m crazy excited that it’s finally here on Dekkoo where you can challenge yourself to Agustí Villaronga’s masterpiece.

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Watch it with: Probably just yourself.

Mix it with: Water.

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DEKKOO DISPATCH 038 – ‘UN CHANT D’AMOUR’

Title – ‘Un chant d’amour’

Director – Jean Genet

Starring – Lucien Sénémaud, Bravo

Release Date – 1950

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Today on Dekkoo we’re featuring an early masterpiece of silent Queer Cinema: ‘Un chant d’amour‘ directed by the notorious criminal-literary queer Jean Genet. The 25-minute film was one of the first cinematic depictions of explicit homosexual desire and sexuality which therefore made it ripe for censorship by many governments around the world. The movie exists as a highly entertaining piece of art-cinema, an autobiography of Jean Genet, and a harrowing portrait of homosexuality in prisons.

I feel an introduction to Jean Genet is needed in order to appreciate this film as much as possible. He was a social rebel, a criminal queer, a playwright, and a writer of literature. His novels ranged the gamut from autobiographical tales of his time in the Mettray Penal Colony lusting after fellow prisoners (“The Miracle of the Rose”) to fictionalized romancing of criminal queers (“Our Lady of the Flowers”) to tales of strong beautiful sailors who turn to criminal activities (“Querelle de Brest” – which Fassbinder later adapted into a movie in 1982 – his last movie before overdosing). His early life sounds like something out of a Christine Vachon-produced film. His mother was a prostitute who raised him for 7 months before dropping him off at an orphanage. While he grew up he excelled in getting into trouble and running away from home even though he had a supportive foster family. At 15 he got sent to a penal facility. At 18 he joined the army, but was later kicked out for getting caught having sex with men. After that his life consisted of wandering around Europe, getting into trouble and going to jail a bunch of times until he met Jean Cocteau who had taken a liking to his writings. When finally faced with life-in-prison due to being in prison 10 times – Jean Cocteau and other influential artists managed to convince the French President to pardon him. After that Jean Genet never went to prison again.

So let’s dig in to the film itself. ‘Un chant d’amour‘ is a silent film. Supposedly sponsored by wealthy French gays who wanted to add it to their porn collections the film starred Genet’s lover at the time, Lucien Sénémaud whose beauty he claimed, “harpooned me” and two other actors who we don’t know much about besides that one of them (the older prisoner) was a pimp named Bravo. The film has 3 central characters: A sexy 20-something prisoner with swagger, an older Arab prisoner in lust with his next-door neighbor, and a prison guard that acts as a jealous voyeur throughout the movie, constantly watching the prisoners interact. Of course because there’s a wall between the two would-be-lovers their interactions are limited to blowing smoke through a wall and swinging a bouquet of flowers outside their prison windows. Nothing stops them in their dreams though…

After it was screened in 1966 Sol Landau was indited by police in Berkeley, CA for screening an obscene piece of cinema. After fighting the case all the way up to the Supreme Court he ended up losing with a 5-4 ruling by the court. The Alamadea Superior Court claimed it, “explicitly and vividly revealed acts of masturbation, oral copulation, the infamous crime against nature [a euphemism for sodomy], voyeurism, nudity, sadism, masochism and sex…” and that it was “cheap pornography calculated to promote homosexuality, perversion and morbid sex practices”.

If you’re a self-proclaimed Queer Cinema nerd then ‘Un chant d’amour‘ is without a doubt a MUST-SEE. I’ll leave you with these words by Jim Clark who by my research has created the best article dedicated to ‘Un chant d’amour‘ out there, “Genet takes us places, invariably in the underworld of hustlers, thieves, murderers, and convicts, where most of us have never set foot; but even as he exposes their lives with excruciating fullness, he reveals – and celebrates – their/our common humanity.”

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Watch it with: One or two fellow film nerds.

Mix it with: A deep, dark, french wine.

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New This Week – 9/22/17

Born in Guatemala, Marco Ovando discovered his love of photography while studying science and communications. Inspired by the work of Avedon, Ellen von Unwerth and Herb Ritts, he moved to New York in 1999 and quickly became a fixture on the nightlife scene. His work has appeared in such publications as Paper, OUT and The Advocate. This erotic video collection captures Ovando’s love of human expression and the beauty of the male form. The Marco Ovando Collection is now available on Dekkoo!

An outrageous and hilarious Polish import, ‘Baby Bump‘ is like a Walt Disney film directed by David Lynch. The absolutely gorgeous and equally mind-blowing film wowed audiences at the Venice Biennale, where it received the coveted Queer Lion prize.

When two boys from different social backgrounds connect via the internet they go on an adventure into the suburbs around Paris. Lost among architectural projects from times when the future was still bright, they nourish their own personal utopia. Watch ‘Utopies’ now on Dekkoo!

Having given up on school and most of his family, Shou lives in an apartment with his younger brother, Ryou, and rarely leaves. Things start to change once Ritsu arrives. A young designer back in Japan after studying abroad in New York, Ritsu works for Shou’s father… and has been given permission to stay with his two unruly sons. ‘Forbidden Love’ is now streaming on Dekkoo!

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Coming next week: Phil has a crazy family… and the handsome, mysterious new boy at school proves to be the perfect distraction

DEKKOO DISPATCH 033 – ‘TONIGHT IT’S YOU’ AND ‘SEBASTIANE’

Title – ‘Sebastiane‘

Director – Paul Humfress, Derek Jarman

Starring – Leonardo Treviglio, Barney James, Neil Kennedy, Richard Warwick

Release Date – 1976

Title – ‘Tonight It’s You‘

Director – Dominic Haxton

Starring – Jake Robbins, Roy Allen III, George Alvarez, Ian Lerch

Release Date – 2016

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Well boys, it’s almost the end of summer and to celebrate/mourn we’ve got two films that will help to make the transition as smooth as possible.

To celebrate the coming of fall (which in turn means Halloween!) we’re premiering the Dominic Haxton (‘We Are Animals‘ ‘Tonight It’s Me‘) directed horror-themed short film ‘Tonight It’s You‘! It’s always fantastic when there’s a new entry into the very deserted category of Queer Horror and ‘Tonight It’s You‘ is a 17-minute sexy thrill ride through hookup app anxiety, intimacy, and religion. What starts off as a hot hookup for CJ in the woods turns into a fight for his life by the end of the film. I was lucky enough to see this film on the big screen and holy shittttt I was so surprised at just how scared I was. Definitely check this out!

And if you’re the type that’s clinging onto summer well then have no fear because shirtless soldiers speaking Latin are here! Enter the world of ‘Sebastiane‘ – an incredibly homo-erotic take on the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian by filmmakers Paul Humfress and Derek Jarman. While you might not have heard of the former, the latter is an incredibly influential and important director in the world of Queer Cinema. Derek Jarman passed away of AIDS in 1994, but left behind an incredible array of cinema and art. His most successful film was ‘Caravaggio’, but his other films such as the experimental film ‘Blue’ (1993 – A film where the only video is a blue screen and the audio is a series of voices including the director’s describing his failing health [he’d gone partially blind at that point]) and the gay-activism themed ‘Edward II’ (1991) are all incredible achievements and works of true art.

‘Sebastiane‘ follows the Roman soldier Sebastianus who after falling out of the emperor’s favors is exiled to a remote garrison of soldiers to work. What follows is fellow soldiers falling over themselves with their lust for Sebastiane, lots of whipping, and bros being bros around the campfire. The movie definitely has strengths and weaknesses. The idea to have all the actors speak Latin was very academic and happened years before ‘The Passion of the Christ’. Also you can definitely see the early stages of Derek Jarman’s fascination with placing contemporary fashions and objects in an era where it sticks out like a sore thumb. The men are also extremely sexy and naked practically the whole time. Probably my only critique of it is that it does meander a bit. It shows its age in that because it was made for a gay audience that was desperate for this kind of overt homo-erotic sexuality in a film, the filmmakers were more concerned with that then with plot and they figured their audience would have the same feelings.

Regardless ‘Sebastiane‘ is a work of art and deserves to be watched with that in mind while at the same time observing the beginnings of Derek Jarman’s storied film career.

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Watch ’em with: A friend who likes to be scared and watch artsy films

Mix it with: A red wine

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DEKKOO DISPATCH 032 – ‘FOLLOW ME’ AND ‘LOVE IS THE DEVIL’

Title – ‘Love Is The Devil‘

Director – John Maybury

Starring – Derek Jacobi, Daniel Craig, Tilda Swinton, Anne Lambton

Release Date – 1998

Title – ‘Follow Me‘

Director – Anthony Schatteman

Starring – Ezra Fieremans, Maarten Ketels, Lien Maes

Release Date – 2015

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“I feel ever so strongly that an artist must be nourished by his passions and his despairs. These things alter an artist whether for the good or the better or the worse. It must alter him. The feelings of desperation and unhappiness are more useful to an artist than the feeling of contentment, because desperation and unhappiness stretch your whole sensibility.”
-Francis Bacon

Well hey there and welcome to tortured-artist-Wednesday! Today we’ve got two movies that focus on angsty artists in love or at least lust.

‘Follow Me‘ is the short yet touching story of a young artist struggling to figure out if the man of his affections is also the man of his dreams. Shot in fragments we see Jasper honing his craft in the classroom and his studio, working in a bathhouse, following his teacher around town, and having sex with said teacher. The incredible score really elevates this quietly shot short film to transcendent heights and makes the mind wander through issues of love, homophobia, and loyalty. Plus it helps that both characters are superrrr cute.

Speaking of cute look which famous handsome man plays gay in ‘Love Is The Devil‘: DANIEL CRAIG! AHH! And he’s naked in it? Whoa.

But seriously ‘Love Is The Devil‘ is a heavy-duty bio-pic about Francis Bacon, a legendary British painter who scandalized the art world with his intense grotesquely sexual yet beautiful oil paintings paired with his well-known penchant for sleazy homosexual encounters with rough trade. Yes Francis Bacon was definitely a bottom and Derek Jacobi plays him fearlessly as a man who isn’t at all afraid of expressing his sexual depravity:

“When I went into the house of pleasure, I didn’t stay in the room where they celebrate acceptable modes of loving in the bourgeois style. I went into the rooms which are kept secret and I leaned and lay on their beds. I went into the rooms which are kept secret which they consider it shameful even to name. But there is no such shame for me because then, what sort of poet, and what sort of artist would I be?”
-Francis Bacon, ‘Love Is The Devil’

So where does Daniel Craig feature in all this artsy-fartsy sexual psychodrama? Well he plays Bacon’s lover naturally. Late one night Francis discovers a man trying to rob him. That man turns out to be George Dyer, a working-class Brit and after a proposition of coming to his bed for ‘whatever he wants’ they become inseparable. Great way to meet a lover right? Well, that story is actually a myth, dreamt of by Bacon, but why not? It’s a better story than meeting in a pub which is where they actually did meet in real life. Dyer went on to become a muse for Francis and modeled for him several times.

The visuals in this movie are incredible! One of the coolest set-pieces is Francis Bacon’s studio. They actually re-created it inch-by-inch. It looks incredibly similar to the real-life studio. Also of note are the camera techniques to re-create Bacon-esque moving images. Also if all of that didn’t entirely convince you we’re also offering TILDA SWINTON! She’s great in it as always 🙂

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Watch ’em with: Your muse.

Mix it with: The classic drink of tortured artists – Absinthe.

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