Quatrilho (1995)

Fábio Barreto's film initially feels as though it's just going to be a kind of sexy early twentieth century tragedy about forbidden love and a cheating spouse. But no! Instead O Qu4trilho is a delightful film about love and choosing a different life, and living life to the fullest despite the idiocy of the world. This film's third act is a total surprise and completely wonderful.

I have been looking for a copy of this film for at least a decade. O Qu4trilho was never released in theatres in the U.S. It was the only movie from the 1996 Oscar season I hadn't seen. Finding a copy of this Brazilian film with English subtitles proved difficult. One day a couple weeks ago I searched YouTube, and lo and behold there was a copy with English subtitles just sitting there waiting for me.

On Frantz Fanon

Frantz Fanon: Black Skin White Mask is a really great little documentary in Isaac Julien's signature style, where Fanon is played by the British actor Colin Salmon. I liked this a lot, and I learned a lot about Fanon and his life and dreams. This also puts his books in context very nicely. Appearances by Stuart Hall and Françoise Vergès make this a must see, I think.

This played at at least on Gay and Lesbian film festival, but there's no hint that Fanon was queer, and there are no queer topics here. Its presence in LGBT circles must be due only to Julien.

The Sum of Us (1994)

The Sum of Us is a sweet Australian gay romantic comedy that was obviously based on a play (by David Stevens, who also wrote the screenplay). The two main characters, a dad and his son, speak directly to the camera and tell us about their feelings and their lives. This is cute, though, and it was sort of a 1990s romantic comedy thing. It feels like a product of its period.

I don't understand the title The Sum of Us, and the film doesn't really explain it despite the constant direct address employed throughout; perhaps it's clear in the original play. 

I watched this movie because I fell in love with Jack Thompson in the Australian New Wave film Sunday Too Far Away, and I thought what else has this man been in, and then I came across a gay romantic comedy with Russell Crowe starring him and wondered what on earth I had been missing all this time.

Russell Crowe is dreamy obviously, and he is so sad and sweet for the whole film that you can't help but be in love with him. But The Sum of Us just isn't that great.The acting frequently feels a bit stilted, and the direction is off most of the time, not really understanding how to set the right mood between sad scenes, jokes, and romance. It's almost as if the directors (Geoff Burton and Kevin Dowling) are just trying to tell the story or something silly like that without thinking about what the beats are and how we're supposed to be responding to the story. As such, the movie never hits its stride and when The Sum of Us ended I thought, oh wait, really? That was the final beat? Shrug.

I think you can stream The Sum of Us, but I got Netflix to send me the DVD. This was another one in the very long wait section.

Safe (1995)

Well... Safe is fucked up and weird. It's so weird to watch this movie about HIV in the moment of COVID-19. I totally respected this, and there's so much good stuff, but Safe was hard to love.