Love and Death on the Long Island Pathe chain of movies screen more than 50 films every 2 months of different genre, and I knew that they are going to screen this "gay classic" in one of their night shows. I read the reviews on IMDb and was keen to have a go at the movie. I had several motivations first, it was called a "classic", second, I had never been to a night show alone in Amsterdam (so wanted to venture out and feel the city) and third, with curiosity I wanted to know more about the gay people of Amsterdam who this people are? How do they behave? Are there any peculiarity / characteristic they possess? The movie is about a widower - who falls in love with a film icon while watching a movie, meets him, builds a contact, discloses his true love for the hero, and gets rejected.
Does not it sound familiar? So many times in our lives we have adored and loved our film icon. The premise was good. Sometimes the adulation turns into devotion and obsession. I know about physical and sexual fantasies one has around these film icons mostly of hetero-sexual nature. But this film provides a new premise of love and sexual longing within the same sex. That concept is interesting, and the liberal mind of mine was able to empathies and accepts such story-line.
But the movie was badly made. The script was weak. It looked like a stage drama. The screenplay was also staged and over expressive. John Hurt seems to be a good actor but in this movie he was in wrong hands the director, Richard Kwietniowski, who is famous for making short gay movies (and most of them are very poorly rated). Richard was lucky that he got John Hurt for this role.
The direction was poor. The movie looked like a "B" grade movie. Only saving grace was at times very good visual shots by cinematographer Oliver Curtis.
The dialogues were funny but suitable for a stage drama. I heard some laughs during the movie and I could not make out whether it was because the scenes were funny or ridiculous.
Just a trivia, that the movie hall was 80% packed with mostly middle aged and old men who came in couples or gangs. There were very few lonely riders like me. I guess there were only three women in the show because those persons had long hair.
I give some grace for the concept and give 2.5 stars out of 10.
(Stars 2.5 out of 10)
Does not it sound familiar? So many times in our lives we have adored and loved our film icon. The premise was good. Sometimes the adulation turns into devotion and obsession. I know about physical and sexual fantasies one has around these film icons mostly of hetero-sexual nature. But this film provides a new premise of love and sexual longing within the same sex. That concept is interesting, and the liberal mind of mine was able to empathies and accepts such story-line.
But the movie was badly made. The script was weak. It looked like a stage drama. The screenplay was also staged and over expressive. John Hurt seems to be a good actor but in this movie he was in wrong hands the director, Richard Kwietniowski, who is famous for making short gay movies (and most of them are very poorly rated). Richard was lucky that he got John Hurt for this role.
The direction was poor. The movie looked like a "B" grade movie. Only saving grace was at times very good visual shots by cinematographer Oliver Curtis.
The dialogues were funny but suitable for a stage drama. I heard some laughs during the movie and I could not make out whether it was because the scenes were funny or ridiculous.
Just a trivia, that the movie hall was 80% packed with mostly middle aged and old men who came in couples or gangs. There were very few lonely riders like me. I guess there were only three women in the show because those persons had long hair.
I give some grace for the concept and give 2.5 stars out of 10.
(Stars 2.5 out of 10)