don’t see them in any of the shots. Either way,
it’s a royal pain in the ass.
As for plot: Intelligent gay teen-ager Dean
Page (Matthew Leitch) wants to go to college,
hut his severely abusive, working-class father
won’t have any son of his becoming a learned
snob. Dean’s mother, who is portrayed with great
affection by British TV actress Lindsey Coulson,
finds it better to lock Dean out of the house
than be at the mercy of her rat-bastard husband.
Dean manages to eke a job exit of local society
dame Lady Franc ine Gryffoyn. He integrates him
self into the Gryffoyn home, althexigh there are
complications—particularly in her nasty son
Alexander. Dean eventually flees to Paris, posing as
Alexander—a la Matt Damon in The Talented Mr.
Ripley (albeit with far less psychosis)—and holding
a minor up to the cruelty of class distinctions.
It’s the experiment in filmmaking, really, that
makes A .K .A . worth recommending. Because,
althcxigh the story ckxis take on an added passion
knowing it’s reflecting the director’s truth, most
of its full two hours are passionless for viewers.
Notably, portions of the film before Dean leaves
home and after his climactic return are dramatic
and intense; it’s all that hour and a half in the
middle that will leave viewers bored and restless.
Although Dean’s hapless bumping around
from place to place at the whim of his privileged
acquaintances seems normal considering his age
and situation, it also does nothing to elicit a
feeling of sympathy. And all the quirky charac
ters he meets, frankly, seem a bit too quirky.
Still, A .K .A . is visually beautiful, ultimately
powerful and adept at skewering the rich. If
this is the first attempt at feature filmmaking,
we should hxik with great anticipation for
more from Duncan Roy.
— LB
Mere! Docteur Rey
O
r, rather, merci Andrew Litvack for
making this amusing vehicle for the
limitless talents of Dianne Wiest and
French singer/actress Jane Birkin.
Litvack was bom and raised in New York
but has lived in Paris for the past 16 years,
working as a subtitler and on Merchant-Ivory
sets before directing this first feature. His cross-
cultural consckxisness is in full play in this
black comedy in which achingly cute expat
Thomas (French actor Stanislas Merhar) must
endure an extended visit from his American
opera singer mother (Wiest), to whom he has
never come out.
Wiest and her lesbian comrade are too hilar
ious to hate as the Big D vas on Campus, but
Thomas does his best. When he inadvertently
becomes a witness to murder after answering a
kinky personal ad, he finds it harder to keep
secrets from Mom— and she has a few skeletons
in the family closet to unleash, too.
Understandably, Thomas visits a therapist,
the elusive D x teu r Rey, to help sort exit his
quickly crumbling young life. There, he finds
and befriends nervexis patient Penelope
(Birkin), a film dubber plagued by an
unhealthy obsession with Vanessa Redgrave.
Showcasing one of the best ensemble casts
of the festival and set against a Paris perfectly
balanced between sordid lust and glimmering
beauty, Merci Docteur Rey pays homage to clas
sic film, opera and the divine histrionics of
divas, even when a critical eye is cast (“Divas
make me puke, literally!” exclaims Penelope).
Although one might argue that at the end
of the film this kxiny family of sorts is no closer
a bicycle ride through heavy traffic; schoolyard
scenes of students eerily turning in unison to
pay tribute to the amplified Chinese national
anthem; Ke-rou admitting to Shi-hao that she
doesn’t know how to swim just before confid
ing what she considers to be her other short
coming— liking girls.
As young Ke-rou, Chen Bo-Lin gives her
Blue Gate Crossing
absolute best on all counts— from her touching
depiction of a tomboy learning the full human
capacity for love, to her facing the daunting
n Blue Gate Crossing, Taipei classmates Ke-
mu and Yueh-chen share the kind of friend
confusion of both a tabtxi love in modern-day
China and a love triangle of teen proportii>ns.
ship that requires only one bicycle to get
Ke-rou is able to transform from a moody, wistful
both of them around town until a dare posed by
yixing girl with an unrequited and heartbreaking
tine to the other comes to unexpected fruition
crush to a multifaceted, exploratory yixmg
and one boy suddenly changes everything.
woman. She is able to simultaneously battle
Crushes abound in this cinematic breath of
fresh air, but the problem is that there are
what she has been taught and revel in what she
three instead of two: While Ke-rou has her eye
has learned about love. The character develop
on Yueh-chen, Yueh-
ment in the film is revo
lutionary in that the most
chen has her eye on
typical character is the
Shi-hao, the school's
swim star. After a few
straight girl who main
tains her illusions akxit
secret notes passed
ideal relationships while
and a few tricks
the dynamic characters
played, Shi-hao
flow thrixigh conversa
develops his own spe
tions about sexuality and
cial liking for Ke-rou,
possibility as gently as a
who, in fierce loyalty
stream.
to her beloved Yueh-
chen, signed on as
Blue Gate Crossing is a
stunning debut from this
only a messenger in
new director and a prime
the game.
example of how very lit
Director Yee
tle is lost in translation
Chin-yen reveals
when it is said accurately
both the inntKence
Blue Qate Crossing captures the delicate
and beautifully in its
and chaos of the
mother tongue.
changes of youth with relationship of a girl who likes a boy who
— Mane Fleischmann
symbolism as subtle as likes a girl who likes girls
to proving its theme— “To learn to love is to
divest oneself of one’s narcissism”— as they are
at the beginning, it’s still a rollicking good time
watching them try.
— LB
I
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