Bisexuals have always been given a hard time. Told to pick a side by both gay and straight people, labelled “greedy”, or simply erased from the narrative altogether. Treacle says a lot in a short amount of time. Within 17 minutes it explores the fluidity and complexity of female friendship.
Representation matters, and things are steadily improving. Despite celebrated small screen examples such as Brooklyn 99 (2013- ) and The Bisexual (2018- ), it still feels like a drop in the ocean.
Featuring writer April Kelley as Belle and Ariana Anderson as the very straight Jessie. It’s really an everyday story – what’s remarkable is that it rarely appears on our screens, at least from this perspective. There is more depth to Belle and Jessie’s relationship than the usual inexplicable female hook-up – Mulholland Drive (2001); Chasing Amy (1997); Black Swan (2010) – all directed by men.
Treacle
Director Rosie Westhoff does a great deal with little dialogue, as with her 2017 short Crush. Treacle goes right to the heart of sexuality within female friendship and the difficulties that arise when boundaries are crossed. Treacle shows us that heartbreak is possible for promiscuous people too.
Friends Belle & Jessie go away for the weekend to help Jessie get over a recent break up. However lines are blurred when they a get a little too drunk and the morning after is filled with regret.
The Texture Of Falling is a muddle of a film who’s big reveal is rather underwhelming.
The plot, loosely, is about a female filmmaker named Louise who wants to make a movie about Portland, and include a love story to highlight how great and romantic it is. As we follow her love story with a composer named Luke, another love story runs along side. The mystery couple appear to be having an affair of some kind, and the male loves to be strangled, spanked and cut with rose thorns (yep, rose thorns).
The DOP on this film uses some interesting shots and nice use of colour… and Portland does look nice. That’s all the positives I can give this film, really. It’s one graphic sex scene and a few less acting classes away between this film and a soft porno. Although, a few people have said that about 50 Shades Of Grey, so what do I know?
The best acting is from the director herself, Maria Allred, who comes into her own in the third act playing the spankee blonde, Sylvia. It’s a shame that her best acting performance was at the end of the film, rather than consistently through it. Still, she is to be commended for writing, directing, shooting and acting in her own film.
Perhaps if she hadn’t taken on so much it might have been better? I wanted to like this film for the sheer fact that it pushed the boundaries of its actors, but the acting was so terrible, the plot so muddled and the reveal so underwhelming that as hard as I tried, I couldn’t. I really liked the use of colour to represent the saucy couples antics, but I felt that their bits could have been cut together to make an RnB music video.
The moody-electro soundtrack indicates that the film is a thriller…. but is ultimately all filler (unlike Sum 41 – remember that 90s teens?). Good effort, but perhaps Allred should just stick to one job next time.
You’re the shy kid at school with a small group of friends,
you’re not hated but you’re not exactly popular. Then, a new, good looking and
very cool student moves in from America. Somehow, a relationship blossoms and
you two end up together. What could be wrong? Well, lots.
Heart’s Ease is a discussion of taboo, and dark secrets. From experienced short film producer but first time director Jassa Ahluwalia, Heart’s Ease is as shocking as it is beautiful. Rarely do you see a more confusing piece of film. Such a beautiful love and a beautiful story on screen leaves you gasping as taboo comes to life. I didn’t know what to think. Rarely have I been taken on such a cinematic rollercoaster, and all within 15 minutes.
Heart’s Ease
Ahluwalia has shown his guns, and shown his glory. This is an incredible directorial debut. I’m trying to compare it in my head to other shorts, and other romances as I write this review and even compare and contrast Ahluwalia with other directors. Yet, I’m left thinking it’s unfair to compare or lesson work by quoting this and that influence. Heart’s Ease has its own emotion, and its own style, and I don’t want to diminish Ahluwalia’s success by rambling on about someone else.
If I were to compare it to short films it is both the same and the opposite to my all-time favourite, Oscar Sharp’s Sign Language. Sign Language was a Bafta short listed film and won the Virgin media grand prize and has stuck with me ever since I saw it in a Picturehouse cinema as a Virgin media short preceding the trailers. Sign language is beautiful, I love the couple, and I love the characters. I had the same feeling throughout most of Heart’s Ease. Yet, where Sign language left me buzzing and full of sunshine and rainbows; Heart’s Ease took my love the characters and twisted it. I loved it.
The decision to cast your own sister in a role is probably
one I’d never make. Especially, for such a taboo topic, but both Ramanique Ahluwalia and Scott Chambers (Porters & Malevolent),
who make up our taboo couple give real and powerful performances. I can see Ahluwalia making feature debuts in the
not too distant future and hopefully Chambers
can continue to climb the ladder.
The lighting throughout Heart’s
Ease was dark and off colour, but not dingy. Its brightness fit the tone
and the impending doom, and the shots were personal and close and almost point
of view. It made you feel as if you were in their heads, sharing their
emotions.
Heart’s Ease
Heart’s Ease made its festival debut in Ahluwalia home town of Leicester at the Short Cinema festival in August 2018 with a budget of only £30k and is a recommended short by me. Also check out Ahluwalia’s website for his other short Modern Man which he produced and maybe one day Heart’s Ease will be there too. You can check out the trailer below.
The Wake of Light is an emotional romantic drama that focusses on Mary (Rome Brooks), a woman who lives a simple life with her father, Stanley (William Lige Morton) who she’s been looking after ever since he had a stroke when she was little.
Then one day Mary meets Cole (Matt Bush) and after an awkward first conversation they start growing closer, eventually leading Mary to think about the future they could have together. However, the turmoil she faces over the prospect of leaving her father could be too much for her to bear.
With the film being an indie drama, some audiences may not expect to find much depth in such a simple story. However, the film touches upon a lot of issues around responsibility, love and doing what’s right, even if it means leaving loved ones behind. Thanks to the script, Bush brings out Cole’s nervous energy and turns him into a likeable and believable character, making it a refreshing change to see a romantic lead that doesn’t always do and say the right things, but isn’t forced to be clumsy and awkward for comedic effect either.
Also, Brooks manages to channel Mary’s outlook on life in a realistic way, as she mulls over what she wishes for in life but also struggles with the reality of her responsibilities. Together the couple work well, and the quiet, thoughtful charm of the direction gives the audience an insight into their blossoming relationship to which I’m sure many can relate.
However, with every good side of a relationship there comes a bad and the film doesn’t shy away from the harder dramatic moments which makes the film all the more interesting.
Beautifully shot and paying homage in part to What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Wake of Light may not be the most original storyline but it’s all about the journey on which the film takes its audience and not the destination. The pacing may have been better if there were perhaps weren’t as many shots of the leads staring into the distance looking for answers, but the tone is just right and the ending will lift the hearts of the audience. The Wake of Light certainly shows promise for its cast and writer/director and judging by how well thought out the script and characters were, I’m sure there will be more interesting stories that they can tell.
Ponyboi‘s a deep dive into the American mythscape, a reflection on the
“American Dream,” and the intersex experience.
Speaking on “the decline of the American
Dream,” Feminist author and historian Stephanie Coontz writes
“Americans are right to believe the American Dream is fading. But that
dream only became a possibility for white men as a result of the labor
struggles and reforms of the New Deal, and it began to extend to minorities and
women only after the civil rights and women’s movements of the 1960s and
1970s.”
Coontz is right. The “American
Dream” is fading, largely because we no longer know what it is. While WikiPedia
offers the definition “a national ethos of the United States, the set of
ideals (democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality) in which freedom
includes the opportunity for prosperity and success, as well as an upward
social mobility for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a
society with few barriers,” this egalitarian, utopian ideal has gradually
diminished to the stereotypical “house in the suburbs with a white picket
fence, containing a family with 2.5 children.”
Already, we begin to see the fissures in this once-indomitable marble facade. As Coontz notes, for much of America’s history, that dream was only available to certain select individuals, in this case, White Men. Feminism and the Civil Rights Movement saw that definition open up the dream to a broader cross-section of Americans, looking for the pursuit of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Unfortunately, this was roughly the same
moment when global forces would undermine that pursuit, as stagnating wages and
income inequality made the American Dream inaccessible once again, for vast
swathes of Humanity.
It’s difficult to say, definitely, what the
American Dream is, at this point in history. Just as it seems difficult to say
what exactly it means to be American. Postmodernism has had its way, and we are
living in freefall.
Ponyboi
Luckily, we have River Gallo’s directorial
debut, Ponyboi, to take a deep dive
into the depths of the American subconscious, via the story of Ponyboi, an
intersex youth working at a laundromat and dreaming of better things.
Ponyboi is a short, sweet vignette that operates with its own dream logic.
Ponyboi dreams of better things, of being treated like a lady by a proper
gentleman instead of the locals who use their body, never seeming to see
Ponyboi’s spirit. As we see Ponyboi entertaining their callers, we are offered
glimpses of Ponyboi’s past, as an intersex child, being forced to live as a boy
instead of their true self.
Ponyboi dreams of a Southern gentleman in a white Mustang. Ponyboi gets a glimpse, a hint that this dream could contain a kernel of truth. Ponyboi takes a chance, hitting the road in search of their mysterious gentleman and his hot white car.
The dream gentleman was true to his word. The
white Mustang was there, waiting, keys in ignition, just waiting for Ponyboi to
crank the ignition and find a new life.
Ponyboi acts as a kind of waking dream, thanks in large part to Maddie Leach’s luminescent cinematography. In this dreamscape, objects take on a deeper resonance. The white Mustang becomes the symbol of autonomy. My Little Ponys become a symbol of liberation from masculinity. Coca-Cola glows like a midnight censor, while laundry machines sing hosannas into the empty night.
The American Dream is dead. No longer can we
cling to some overarching universal
narrative to justify oppression, genocide, and the success of the few at the
expense of the many. Here, in the twilight of decaying myths, we are offered a
chance, a wide open road into the heart of the American dreaming. In this
psychic landscape, we can become whomever we want, recreating ourselves with
the rising sun. We can go out and seek our destinies, in the land of the free
and the home of the brave.
The American Dream is dead. Long live the American
Dreaming.
