In this second and final look at shorts from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, we happen to be looking at films where a connection between two people changes the course of someone’s life. I honestly didn’t plan it that way–it just happened. While some of these sparks lean towards romance, some twist into something else entirely to explore identity and sense of self.
¡salsa!
Antonina Kerguelen Roman’s ¡salsa! features a connection between two women full of curiosity and hope. While not entirely a love story, Roman’s film captures passion and attraction so effortlessly that the moments never seem fleeting or ignored.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than an obedient woman,” is the first line spoken in Roman’s film, and we hone in on Margarita’s face after it is said. It is not difficult to fathom that other men in Margarita’s daily life feel the same way, but, by the way that she looks on and holds herself, we feel how isolated she is. While grabbing a beer at a bar, she sets her eyes on Liana, a deaf tourist, and the music playing almost vibrates them together. Their sweat gleams on their bodies, and Margarita puts her hand on Liana’s chest to help her feel the rhythm of the music on the dance floor.
Roman’s film is a sensory experience about connection and understanding. You feel the heat, and the music pulses in your ear drums. It defines that feeling when you are surrounded by sound and you don’t even realize that your body is moving. The men of ¡salsa! seem set in their ways, especially when it comes to how they look at women, but Margarita defies an entire town’s expectations of her by moving her body and bonding with a relative stranger.
Original Skin
The themes of identity and ownership come into play in the astonishing and mysterious drama from Mdhamiri á Nkemi. This short makes you think about the mechanics of how we hook up, date, and even present ourselves. Some say that we give a part of ourselves when we are intimate with someone, but Nkemi’s film makes us question if those parts can also be stolen.
Bea is part of a small commune, but Nkemi intentionally keeps things intentionally vague as we see them all dressed in white and picking at their bruised arms. The sound of the bouncing, scratched skin is enough to put you on edge. It appears that Bea is given a mission as an elder gives her a bag containing a sparkly green and purple coat before she enters a nightclub.
As the music blares, she makes eye contact with Lexi, and they tumble home and have sex. What appears to be an innocuous encounter transforms into something else entirely when we realize that, in this alternate world, you swap bodies with someone when you sleep with them. Another film would put too much emphasis on the plot’s devices, but Nkemi presents it in an intimate fashion. After all, not every sexual encounter matches what someone else might experience, so it makes us wonder if sex is feared, used as currency, or handled with carelessness. I love how the frame will blur colors together and the visuals will meld into itself whenever a swap occurs
A lot is left unsaid and unexplained, and, for once, that is a welcome change. Nkemi has opened a door for conversations about identity and physical ownership of one’s self that it forces the viewer to ponder whether we are mature enough to share a physical experience with someone ever again. It might make you cautious to ever take your clothes off again or it might thrill you to live in someone else’s body.
Jane Austen’s Period Drama
In 1813, it was a dream come true to have a dashing gentleman propose marriage at the right time. Timing is everything in Julia Aks and Steve Pinder’s comedy about how ill-informed the male sex is when it comes to a woman’s anatomy. When Estrogenia Talbot receives the proposal she’s been waiting for, her suitor mistakes her monthly visitor for a life-threatening injury in this whip-smart and clever film. Joe Wright should consider re-releasing Pride & Prejudice?
Mr. Dickley might be handsome and he might be valiant…but there are a few, shall we say, blind spots when it comes to education about the goings-on of the human body. Rather than shame all men for their inexperience with talking about a woman’s menstruation, Aks and Pinder lean into the comedy while educating those in the audience who (somehow) might still have questions. The filmmakers don’t let anyone off the hook, but it made me wonder what an actual conversation about this topic would’ve been like in 1813. Hell, some men back in 2013 have had over-the-top reactions to something that has been going on day after day, century after century.
Aks as Estrogenia (I giggle every time I write that…) fights for honesty as her sisters, Labinia and Vagianna, offer enthusiastic and very different advice. “No one will marry someone who blathers on about her bloody bits,” one says to Estrogenia.
In a world synonymous with delicacy and pastels, Period Drama is bold in its messaging but light in its execution. A little red won’t hurt you, and neither will this film’s blunt, hilarious message.
Some Kind of Paradise
A lot of us gay men are attracted to the Old West for many different reasons. The American Western is known for its masculinity, gorgeous ranges, and its ties to the dirt of this country. A cowboy has always been defined by how he carries himself, and there seems to be no wiggle room in how these kinds of men are portrayed. What happens, though, if you love all of that mythology about cowboys and open ranges, but your heart is devoted to another man? In Nicholas Finegan’s Some Kind of Paradise, two men search for a bit of grace in a world taught to reject them.
John Brodsky’s Tyler navigates the Grindr jungle as best he can while living in rural Arkansas. His hook ups might request a kiss in a moment of passion, but Tyler usually meets those requests with a rough and dismissive shove. Avoiding romance is key to him leading a solitary and uncomplicated life. Work, fuck, sleep–no room for anything else.
When a film crew unexpectedly shows up in town to film a movie, his Grindr grid includes a new face in Raphael (Gabriel Leyva), a hunky actor with a disarming smile and forward nature. They run lines together outside as they smoke, and, unbeknownst to Tyler, his walls tumble down without him knowing. In the short time that they spend together, Tyler’s eyeline raises to meet others, and he smiles so warmly that Brodsky quite literally lights up the screen. It’s a performance full of surprises as his character experiences affection unlike the backseat of a pickup truck.
Finegan’s film is gorgeous as it captures wide outdoor shots, but he retains a control of the intimacy to make sure this romance never loses focus. There are love stories that last a lifetime and those that sweep you up in its scope, and there are those that change its characters in ways they least expect it. Some Kind of Paradise is tender, sensual and evocative.
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