Zetterling, Mai

1982

Scrubbers was made to cash in on the controversy and commercial success of the 1979 movie Scum, itself based on a banned BBC play about reform school violence. But Scrubbers takes its same-sex liaisons more seriously than Scum did. Ex-Scandinavian movie-star-turned-director Mai Zetterling makes prison life both harsh (beware: some scenes are not for the squeamish) and kind of tender (a lesbian limerick writer screams poetic obscenities from her cell). Like Prisonnieres, Scrubbers uses an ensemble to explore the prison formula, but Zetterling puts the smart money on Eva, a lesbian orphan who busts herself back inside to rejoin her faithless lover. Some scenes have an honest, dreamy quality. "I love you, Eva, I fuckin' love you," yells her lover, and the humorous, tender message booms out over the quadrangle, where prisoners pass notes and joints from window to window. Scrubbers even suggests that, for some, lesbianism is a choice: "Give us a lick, not a prick." Pulpy, poetic, and political. Scrubbers comes closest to a recognizable reality that evokes the serious desperation of women behind bars. What do you do if your lover is shut up in one prison, and you're locked in another? Break out, commit a worse crime and, if you're lucky, get jailed close to her. That's what Carol does, and ends up only a cell block away from her beloved. Unfortunately, her beloved has shacked up with someone else. Worse, Carol is seen as a snitch by Annetta, her coescapee who's also been caught. Annetta's anger knows no bounds and lines are quickly drawn among the inmates. Eddie, a stone butch we will all recognize, offers her protection to Carol for a not unattractive price, and the game between stoolies, patsies, goodies, and butches is on. After getting used to the accents, you'll be kept on the edge of your seat by Scrubbers' characters and predicaments. Their love affairs are intensely emotional and believable. Their desperation is high voltage. We're locked up with these women as we hear their tragic histories and see their resultant high security situations. And the constant screaming, singing, and yelling voices that bounce off the cement block will make you feel like you're there. With Amanda York, Chrissie Cotterill, and Kate Ingram.

1988

Hamilton, David

1982

Bressan, Arthur

1982

When other gay filmmakers were starting to invent stories of middle-class monogamy, Bressan turned up with Abuse, a queer kind of love story between a filmmaker and a 14-year-old child abuse victim. On Abuse (he said): "In 1975, when I met the real Thomas Carroll, I had no idea of making a movie about him, child abuse, or our relationship. Only after we became friends, then lovers, and finally ex-lovers, did I see a powerful film in his story. My straight and gay friends criticized me for my sexual involvement with Thomas. Some felt I was exploiting him, others believed he was using me simply to get away from his abusive parents. I listened to my friends but—like Larry, the filmmaker in the movie—I did not follow their advice. Instead, Thomas and I wound up living in San Francisco. I made Abuse because I thought it was a unique, compelling story about people and things that don't usually get into American feature films."

Schroder, Elizabeth

1987

The Bisexual Kingdom, where girl meets girl, still likes boy, and all hell breaks loose.

Mikesch, Elfi

1981

Walker, Nancy

1980

Produced by Allan Carr after the unlikely success of Grease, Can't Stop the Music was designed to broaden the appeal of ‘70s gay icons, The Village People. It is probably one of the strangest films of the ‘80s. On the one hand, it was promoted as the family musical movie phenomenon of the decade, and accordingly The Village People were scrubbed clean of their gay image (and the American Dairy Association sponsored a nationwide tie-in). On the other hand, the movie is chock-full of faggy in-jokes and nancy-boy behavior. Despite the (barely credible) central heterosexual romance, it's impossible to see it as anything but a queer treat. Besides, any movie with cameos of June Havoc, Barbara Rush, and Paul Sand must know a thing or two about gay credibility.

Yazaki, Hitoshi

1980

Yazaki, Hitoshi

1980

This beautifully bleak account of a Tokyo day-care worker's obsession with her roommate captures the bittersweet pain of unrequited love. Natsuko's coworker Etsuko asks her how she feels about men. "Not for me," she says, "I won't degrade myself." Based on an actual newspaper story, Afternoon Breezes presents Natsuko's repressed lesbianism (she vomits every time she feels attracted to a woman) as a crush which evolves into obsession. Natsuko's roommate Mitsu has a boyfriend, Hideo, who occasionally stays overnight with her. Natsuko breaks up their relationship by sleeping with Hideo (and she becomes pregnant). Mitsu discovers what Natsuko has done and kicks her out. Utterly desolate, Natsuko descends into a deep depression. She follows Mitsu through the streets, subways, and bars of Tokyo, stands outside Mitsu's apartment watching her window, takes Mitsu's garbage home with her and rolls around in it on the floor. In an ambiguous ending, while Mitsu is away Natsuko goes to her apartment. The film is relentlessly melancholic, with lots of ponderous long-takes of Natsuko hanging around, pining over Mitsu, obssessing, and being depressed. These real-time sequences are complemented with a remarkably complex use of sound (editing from quiet to rain to crickets, ringing bells, squeaky doors, dripping faucet, screaming kids). Conveying meaning through a wonderfully simple use of action and objects, the film has surprisingly little dialogue. Afternoon Breezes offers the cinema's most incredible and moving account of lesbian obsession since The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant.

Waggoner, David

1978

It's time to talk.