Cruising

I had the pleasure of seeing this movie recently and I highly recommend it to any people who savor the darker things in life. If I had never seen this movie the reviews left about it everywhere on the net would surely have made me miss it at every opportunity but luckily I only came across them looking for more information after its viewing.

The first thing that really got me was the fantastic soundtrack. This is American punk rock at it's best and most glorious and I cannot think of a more apt context for it than the New York gay S&M scene. This my friends ... is punk-o-rama.

This is not a gay film ... nor is it a porno film ... this is an in your face horror much like William Friedkin's other classic "The Exorcist" ... but not a hammer horror nor a gore filled voyage through some fiery "kissing the devil's ass" hell but a very real slice of a very real life that exists in every major city in the world as well as some smaller ones. This is a film about a world so few know anything about that it is far above common criticism ... yet at the same time the directions and nuances are all too common. I would say that any fans of the movies of David Lynch might enjoy the somewhat lost disenchantment of this flick as it slides further and further into the darkest realms of the grotesque. As well anyone who's enjoyed the backwards pleasures of watching the cult classic "Je'Taime ... Moi Ne Plus" starring Jane Birkin would also find a little gem here.

"Cruisin'" is pure subversive genius.

Futurist-surrealism!

Pure *ART*

Too many things wrong with this one to really care for it. The main problem is too much focus on over-the-top depictions of the gay S&M subculture, and not enough on its characters. The undercover cop (Al Pacino), his girlfriend (Karen Allen), and the killer (???) are all ridiculously underdrawn. We don't get enough of what's going through the cop's mind as he's undercover, the girlfriend is only there to serve as a barometer of his heterosexuality, and the killer has some cliché "daddy issues." We do, however, get public fisting ffs.

Especially for 1980, it's unfortunate that this was the window mainstream America got into gay life, as it felt voyeuristic and intended to shock, not serve as a source of understanding or empowerment, at least as best possible as a backdrop to a murder mystery. Maybe the neighbor character, the aspiring writer, was intended to balance some of this out, but he was quickly lost, perhaps by things like the ridiculous man in the precinct house wearing nothing but a jockstrap and walking into interrogations to slap gay suspects around. What the hell was that?

I loved the little bits critiquing the police department at various levels - the beat cops harassing guys on the street and forcing one to perform oral sex, the captain (Paul Sorvino) who too quickly looks the other way, and the chief of detectives who doesn't really empathize with the victims, only wanting to avoid untimely negative publicity. It's too bad more wasn't done with this, but maybe there was a moment of transformation in the captain finding that last body.

The story doesn't really hold together as a police procedural, however. Maybe the film didn't want us to think about Pacino's character having to go home with guys to be effective at his assignment, so a lot of the time, he's just standing around in a bar, watching the raunchy antics of the wild crowd. Early on we're made to understand he's working for the captain only, with no one else knowing about it, but then in one critical scene swarms of cops come to his aid - only to then disappear at the end, when he acts completely alone again. There are also attempts at adding ambiguity into the story in several ways, but they all felt more forced than intriguing.

It's Pacino's character that ends up being the real mystery. You could see this as a man whose bisexuality is awakened, that he goes home with enough men like the guy we see him following out of the park that he loses interest in his girlfriend, and then later knows the repartee well in the climactic encounter. You could also see it as a straight man who has been overwhelmed by what he's seen and done, so much so that his relationship suffers along the way, and even when he's back with her at the end, he's liable to suffering flashbacks and trauma. It was interesting pondering that, but it felt like the film was being less artistic in its ambiguity, and more inhibited by what it felt it could show in a 1980 Hollywood production with a big star like Pacino. Regardless, it was less than completely satisfying, like everything else here.

In New York, the ambitious police officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is assigned by his Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) to work uncover in the gay S&M underworld to seek out the serial-killer that is killing and severing the members of gays since he has the same appearance of the victims. Steve has the objective to be promoted to detective and get his golden shield and Capt. Edelson is the only one in the department who knows Steve's assignment.

Steve does not tell to his girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen) his mission and he needs to learn the behavior of this community. During the investigation, Steve is affected by the discoveries in this new world, but Captain Edelson does not want him to quit his assignment.

In the 70's and 80's, Al Pacino was among my favorite American actors with his magnificent performances. "Cruising" is an original movie that discloses part of the society unknown to straight persons like me: the gay S&M world of New York in the late 70's.

I have seen this film at least four time and today for the first time on DVD, and my greatest question is how far a person would go to be promoted. Steve Burns dreams on having a golden shield and when he has his chance, he accepts a dangerous psychological mission to find the serial-killer that is killing gays and affects his personal life and his relationship with his girlfriend. The conclusion is one of the most ambiguous that I have ever seen in an American movie, when Steve looks at his image on the mirror. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Parceiros da Noite" ("Night Partners")

William Friedkin is a mysterious, often mystifying film-maker. Although he rose to prominence at the same time as the rest of the so-called 'movie brat' generation of directors (Coppola, Spielberg, Scorsese, DePalma, et al.), he stands apart, even from a group as essentially disparate as this one. For one thing, his films lack the intertextual references and cinematic stylisation common to most of the other members. If he has an over-riding aesthetic, it would be the ugliness of the majority of human existence. He's not interested in prettifying his images or indulging in style-for-style's sake; which is not to say that his film's don't exhibit inventive and effective technique, just that this technique is always at the service of the story he's telling, and is often blunt and brutally effective in it's employment. All of this no doubt arises from his start in documentary film-making. Friedkin is particularly good at depicting the menace of urban environments, and the locales of a lot of his films are frightening, tangibly real places. Witness the sequences involving Karras' aged mother in 'The Exorcist', which for me are the most disturbing scenes in an often terrifying film. As we observe the elderly lady living alone in her shabby apartment in a crime-ridden neighbourhood, we realise that this is the existence that many millions of people are forced to endure, and it's oppressiveness adds immeasurably to the psychological impact of the film as a whole. We share Karras' fear and traumatising guilt that she died alone in such circumstances, and the special effects trickery of the climax is lent a genuine resonance.

Because of the stark, seemingly 'artless' force and apparent misanthropy of much of his work, a number of otherwise perceptive commentators dislike Friedkin intensely. Pauline Kael was extremely cool about 'The French Connection' and absolutely hated 'The Exorcist'. David Thompson described him as "essentially incompetent", bludgeoning the audience with blatant and obvious effects. In fact, Friedkin's best work is highly sophisticated in it's use of sound and music, and employs often visceral imagery to telling and subversive effect. However, some of his films ARE genuinely bloody awful, or at least depressingly mediocre. The very inconsistency of his work lies at the centre of the mystery that is his career. He seems to me to be a fiercely intelligent man whose art is driven by his life rather than the culture of film, and whose reportedly quixotic, often self-destructive personality in no small measure accounts for the expansive peaks and troughs of his cinematic achievements.

Friedkin has reassuring or comforting his audience way down the list of his priorities. In the case of 'Cruising', he neglected to add them at all. Because of this, 'Cruising' is a very difficult film to watch. Most film-makers, were they making a film set in such an alien and frightening environment, would go overboard on providing us with at least one protagonist we could identify with. But Friedkin takes the very opposite route and presents us entirely with characters who are abhorrent, sleazy or totally ambiguous. Indeed, ambiguity is the film's raison d'etre - we are never sure of anything, and this becomes both the pictures great strength and source of much audience frustration. It seems that unlike, say, Spielberg, who continually seeks the approbation of his audience, Friedkin actively resents his (or rather, their preconceptions and certainties), leading him to consistently challenge and upset them. This can be exciting to those who value such seditious manouveres, but dispiriting and destabilising for those that don't.

The major problem with evaluating 'Cruising' is that the film as it currently exists is seriously incomplete (apparently having been shorn of some 40 minutes of footage by the censors!). I suspect that a 'directors cut' should it ever emerge, although no doubt clarifying certain issues, would overall fail to dispel the central ambiguity that is so infuriating and troubling to the majority of the audience, and that lies at the heart of Friedkins vision. "What interests me is the very thin line between good and evil", the director once said when asked to provide a thematic overview of his work - and this is the core of 'Cruising'.

I would urge you to watch the film. It is a uniquely dark, brave piece somewhat compromised by well documented production difficulties and the censors scissors. It has a sinister, compelling momentum and wonderfully ugly, grainy textures that seep into your pores leaving you uncomfortable and unsettled. Sometimes a feel-bad movie can be as bracing as a winter morning. 'Cruising' is such an experience, and a fascinating, provocative one at that.

What strikes me while watching the film, is that truth to reality is really refreshing. No editing in the world can make up to a camera catching a dark, rainy street as they could back in those days when equipment was not developed. Aristoleles claimed that cruelty should be committed outside the scene, that is, in the background. The imagination of the spectator is far more imaginative than a view of the actual event. Therefore, leaving out is stronger in terms of storytelling than showing. Quite the contrary to contemporary movies, I'd say. The advantage of this story is thus the suspense built up on lack of knowledge. There is no flirting with the audience; you do not know in advance who dunnit. There is no flirting with the audience on the task of staging one of the protagonists as a gay either. This is not the greatest movie, but really worth seeing.