Tan Lines

If you wonder how one might find a fresh perspective on the old issues of coming-of-age and coming out, then check out this smart quirky movie, set in a small-town surfing community. The main characters are a self-questioning protagonist, and two brothers who are his surfing buddies. The older brother is a confident but alienated gay man who returns to his family after being driven away some years before following an affair with his high school teacher. The movie takes a number of surprising turns, and the relationships are complex and ambiguous (especially the relationship between the brothers, and the relationship between the older brother and his teacher). One Net-blurb inaccurately describes this movie as a "charming romp." Parts of it are quite funny, but it's a serious look at the stresses of a gay adolescence. The geeky-charming young protagonist, Midget, learns how to be callous, and to face disappointment, even as he learns about love and sex. Don't expect a romantic fade-out. The next-to-last scene has a brief, silent shot that provides a thought-provoking plot twist. The young cast were largely non-professional actors and they are fresh, fun, believable, sexy, and blessedly un-Hollywood in appearance. If you see this movie and like it, do not miss the terrific director commentary. The director is articulate, very smart about both movies and life, and funny. It's one of the best commentaries I've heard in some time.

A contemporary masterpiece of the Arthouse genre, featuring impressive performances by adolescent lead actors and a more mature supporting one (Christian Willis). Atmosphere and emotion without neglecting the plot. The incorporation of elderly amateur actors and surreal elements doesn't really fit in, but could be explained as an exercise in style, done by the director to make his long-film debut more diverse. - Absolute recommendation for all gay and straight audiences interested in coming-out related stories, and that - in my opinion - from the age of 12, unlike the actual certifications.

With a taste of Larry Clark's teen angst and desperation but without the moral emptiness of Clark's "kids", the teens in this Aussie film do care for each other and for the most part "do the right thing." The surreal scenes: a geriatric drunken game of strip poker, a chorus of Christian wall images occasionally commenting on the action, a Gothic setting where the "hero" Midget "works" (too bizarre to describe and ruin it for you), all these make it interesting. That Midget is struggling (but not too much) with working out his gay desires along with a try for a girl doesn't compete with the dreariness of every day life and the hope to leave this dismal town.

If a modest goal is to make the viewer care about the people and the plot, this movie achieved that goal and more. The photography was effective with snappy cuts from one scene to another.

I saw this last week at a gay and lesbian film festival, and quite liked it. It wasn't what I expected at all. I thought we'd have adorable blonde surfers caressed by the bright Australian sun during carefully timed outdoor shoots. The guys are cute, but mainly because they're young and do something physical -- they're not preposterously cute. They're a bit ... well, not vacuous, but limited in their interests. There's no indication that anybody willingly opens a book. The town they live in may have a beach and waves but it's a dreary little backwater where money is hard to come by and people fall into sex situations for lack of much else to do. The kids may be inexperienced and untutored but they're not particularly innocent, and the adults don't seem to be much different from the kids -- just various degrees of Older.

The director seems unsure how to go about making a conventional film properly, so he gropes, and ends up making the movie very interestingly. There are establishing shots we don't need, of things that aren't important. And somehow the arbitrariness of that echoes the characters' ennui and drift and cluelessness.

The young people are nice enough, and they have real feelings for one another, but their imaginations are so limited that life seems like a choice between (a.) sticking around and doing some kind of poorly paid labor or (b.) going out and seeing the world -- subsisting on various kinds of poorly paid labor. The first place that comes to mind is always Paris, France, and somebody always points out that there are no waves there. Cass, who has traveled the globe, has no stories of doing anything but working in supermarkets. He paints no pictures of his experience. The main advantage the larger world seems to have is that his parents aren't in it, and it's away from this nothing town.

The hero Midget (Jack Baxter) is sweet and pretty born loser who shares (platonically and by necessity) a small bed with his slutty mother (we never see her awake, and we only see the back of her head or an occasional hand). He's illegitimate and doesn't know who his dad is, and his big escape is smoking grass and/or putting on sound-blocking headphones and blissing out on rock music. (There's a great scene of a teen party where everybody is dancing to different music through the earbuds of his individual IPOD.) Back from a lengthy exile comes his best friend's runaway brother Cass -- who has fled the shame of being exposed in a homosexual affair with the 30ish local geometry teacher. Knowing that Cass swings that way, and having apparently been attracted to him for years anyway, Midget initiates a secretive affair.

The movie indulges itself in a few kinds of welcome whimsy -- Midget's secret summer job is pretty kinky, and Catholic Cass's bedroom photo of John Paul II, and his various kitschy holy pictures and statues, carry on an animated conversation in (subtitled) Italian, with some holy figures criticizing the libidinous boys and others defending them. This isn't the ubiquitous gay coming of age picture. It's really quite charmingly different, and even its crudities (like the trouble they have racking shots) seem to add to its charm. The sky always seems to be overcast, even on surfing days, and the whole gray atmosphere is all too real and familiar. It would probably be familiar even to a lot of 17 year olds in Paris.

This film knocked my socks off! The eroticism is one for the books - unlike anything I have ever seen in a film. Kudos to the director who understands that being subtle is much more interesting than blatant sex. Everything about the film is first rate. The two leads are knock-out hunks and when they get together, brother look out - your glasses will be steaming as mine were. In its own way, however, the film breaks very new ground by meandering from one surreal scene to another so that you never know where it's going and this is a good thing, because the erotic scenes pop up so unexpectedly that you can hardly catch your breath. The photography is spellbinding, some shots looking like paintings they are so abstract. But more than anything else it's the naturalness of the acting that grabs you so that before you know it you are caught up in the story like nothing else.