Tag Archives: LGBT

Reviews: The Red Sacrament

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The Red Sacrament,
Sara Hinkley,
Titan Books,
Paperback,
ISBN: 9781835410820

It’s Paris, 1869, an era when this most famous of cities is claiming its title as “the city of light”; the new Haussmann boulevards, enormous department stores like the famous Au Printemps dazzle with size, light and sheer range of goods, the pavement cafes bustle, the opera and theatres are busy, the many new squares and garden spaces are lined with flaneurs, and the new gas lighting illuminates everything.

This is not entirely to the taste of our main protagonist, Arnault, who runs the small Théâtre Saint-Siméon , tucked away from these elegant, wide, new streets. It is an unusual venue, where one cannot purchase a ticket – instead black tickets are distributed out among certain sections of society, free of charge, and many are keen to obtain one. How does the theatre sustains itself with no box office, you may ask? It transpires the cast has, shall we say, other methods of obtaining an income, and that income is only secondary to something else they require more urgently: blood.

Yes, this is a theatre of vampiric actors and singers and jugglers; some have only been undead a few years, others performed their stage trade at the open-air fairs of the old Paris, centuries before. Arnault himself is the oldest; a monk and scribe once upon a time, chosen by a pale nobleman to become his painter apprentice. Despite his centuries of existence, he maintains the low, careful profile for himself and his troupe, and truth be told, he takes little interest in the events of the outside world, which tend to surprise him when he notices, giving him a slightly grumpy old man aura, despite his youthful appearance, as he mutters about everything changing around him, as the Modern Era really starts to show.

(Portrait of Clémentine, Mrs Alphones, by Henri Lehmann, in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the original artwork the book cover design is based on)

Into this fairly static existence – select pieces to perform, rehearse, put on a season on the stage, arrange the usual bribes and covering charges, putting aside takings from their victims into a pool that accrues interest for these immortals over the years – disruption is about to arrive, partly in the form of something unusual. Not just two new vampires from another country (from the New World, the islands of the Caribbean!), but a brother and sister, both vampires, both beautiful, elegant, happy in this new world of artificial lights, masked balls, operas and department stores where they can buy whatever they desire.

The other disruption bearing down on them, almost unnoticed at first – such is Arnault’s disinterest in the wider world – is history itself. As anyone familiar with European history will be aware, this is the era of the Franco-Prussian War, which the French assumed they would win easily, but in fact lead to a humiliating defeat, a long siege of Paris itself (the infamous one where the restaurants butchered the zoo animals and served them in fine sauces as food became scarcer), the surrender of territory and the establishment of what would become a united Germany (laying the groundwork for all the alliances and grievances which would lead to disaster in 1914). How do the citizens deal with the cold and hunger or a months-long siege? And how do vampires sustain themselves when their prey is harder to find at night, and what they find is mostly weak and starving?

(The Siege of Paris, 1870, by Jean-Louis Ernest Meissonier)

There are obvious nods to the queen of vampire fiction, Anne Rice – her sequel to the now iconic Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, also boasted an exclusive theatre in Paris run by vampires, and both are clearly paying homage to the famous, or infamous, real Théâtre de Grand Guignol, which was a fixture in the city’s demi-monde for many decades. And while Rice fans (myself included) will find some familiar material here, this is, I am happy to report, its own beast, albeit one Rice fans will enjoy, I think. Sumptuous descriptions of the new, improved Paris, and especially of the styles of the period (Hinkley herself is a costume designer for film and stage) are rich, and it all comes with a nice sense of the Gothic.

Add in a witch from a backward, rural part of France (not even touched by “the iron rail”, as Arnault refers to the trains), this young, new vampire brother and sister who they know next to nothing about (exciting new friends? It has been decades since they last saw a new vampire visit the city. Or are they a threat to their comfortably carved out existence?), a potential queer romance as Arnault finds himself, despite his normal reticence to anything new, towards Victor, the visiting male vampire, who in turns seems quite taken with Arnault (unlike his sister who seems to disdain the entire group), and then the historical siege, and you have a rich, Gothic, romantic, bloody stew to enjoy, which also makes gentle commentaries on ageing, on the nature of change and moving on.

The Red Sacrament was published by Titan in July; this review was originally penned for The Shoreline of Infinity

If you are able, please support your local independent bookshop for purchases – if you don’t have one nearby, you can buy through Bookshop.org , and nominate a local bookshop, which will get a cut of the sale (to hell with Spamazon!)

Reviews: Clementine

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Clementine,
Directed by Lara Jean Gallagher,
Starring Otmara Marrero, Sydney Sweeney, Will Britain, Sonya Wagner

I was drawn to check out Lara Jean Gallagher’s debut feature film Clementine partly on the good word of mouth it has been picking up on the film festival circuit (including at the Tribeca), and partly because she was been likened to a young Jane Campion (which certainly helped get my attention).

Karen (Otmara Marrero) is reeling from a bad break up with her lover, an older, successful woman artist, D; we find her watching her ex’s home until she is sure she is out, then trying to let herself in sneakily to reclaim the dog. But the locks have been changed; this relationship is most certainly over, it would seem, she’s locked out physically as well as emotionally, and she has to leave after only being able to see the dog through the doorway. Driving off, she decides to leave LA and heads on out into the woods, to the huge lakeside home by the edge of a forest that also belongs to D, only to find the spare key normally hidden nearby has been moved and once again she is locked out. Undeterred she simply breaks open a small window to let herself in.

It’s clear Karen really isn’t in a good headspace – who is after a break up, after all? – but the film gives the impression there is more than just losing her lover that is preying on her mind, and that even she isn’t exactly certain why she has retreated to her ex’s luxurious, secluded lakehouse, or what she is looking for here. A bit of clear space and solitude among the trees and the lakes to think things through? Perhaps, but it feels like there is more going on here.

In fact that feeling that there is much more going on that we’re unaware of extends through the film – while the viewer feels natural sympathy for her going through the end of a relationship, we’re also left wondering, why did the relationship actually end? Did her older, more successful lover discard her and she’s now left emotionally hurt and feeling abandoned? Or was it her own behaviour that drove them apart? We don’t know, but we have seen her prepared to dognap from D’s home while she was out, then to break into her country retreat, neither of which are exactly admirable traits.

The thing is Gallagher, who also wrote the film as well as directing, chooses not to give the viewer the semi godlike overview of the characters and their histories that some narratives do, and that continues when Sydney Sweeney’s precocious teen Lana turns up on the scene. We first see her sunbathing on a small dock near the house, in a bikini, peeling fruit, glimpsed by Karen who conceals herself at first before finally making herself visible and approaching the girl. The way Lana is lounging in her bikini by the dock seemed to me to hint at just a tiny nod to the classic Lolita, and that hint felt stronger later as there is some possible romantic tension between the two women, once they start to drop their guard and talk to one another (with Karen reminding herself that she is much older than Lana, but still clearly romantic and sexual thoughts are there).

Lana too is similarly something of a mystery to the viewer – as with Karen the director decides not to reveal all of their true story to us via flashbacks or cutaway scenes. Instead we have only what she tells Karen to go on, and fairly early on it looks pretty obvious that Lana may be mixing fantasy in with truth in what she reveals to Karen about herself and why she spends so much time by herself up here by the lakehouse. Adding to this is the arrival of young Beau (Will Brittain), supposedly D’s handyman who keeps an eye on the lakehouse, trims the trees, makes repairs (including to the window Karen broke to gain entry). Once more we don’t know his full story either: is he really D’s handyman, or is he just using that as an excuse to hang out with two attractive young women and flirt? Or maybe he is the handyman but he is also there to report to D, who may suspect that Karen has fled to the lakehouse after leaving town? And if so what is his game?

I’ve seen some reviews criticise this approach as frustrating, but personally I thought it was not just a good move by Gallagher, but quite a ballsy one, to give the audience no more information or insight than any of the characters have. We’re having to watch them, listen to them and try and decide what is truth and what is embellishment, or even outright fabrications about themselves and why they are where they are. It’s a bit of a cliché to say “nobody here is quite what they seem”, but it is appropriate, and frankly I found this a great approach. I often find that I can predict where scenes or entire narratives are headed early on in some films, simply because I’ve watched so many over the years that I pick up cues of where things are going. I’m sure many of you have experienced that too.

But here it was different, Gallagher’s less is more approach really worked for me, as did the styling and cinematography of Clementine. At some points it felt like it was going to go into love on the rebound (with added triangle when Beau appears), but at other times it felt like it may become a thriller and there was something dangerous among those hidden character histories, at some points it even felt like it could go into horror territory, or coming-of-age LGBTQ tale. All of this, and the fact we only have what the characters will reveal about themselves, and we are pretty sure they’re not always truthful about it, combined to make this a compelling film for me, and I commend Gallagher for sticking to her guns with this approach, when the temptation to go down an easier, more conventional route must have been huge, and I appreciate that she felt this was the better way to go and stuck to it. An unusual and intriguing piece, I look forward to seeing what Gallagher directs next.

Clementine is released by Bohemia Media on digital from Monday 8th of February

This review was originally penned for Live For Films

Reviews: Sensible Footwear – a Girl’s Guide

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Sensible Footwear – a Girl’s Guide,
Kate Charlesworth,
Myriad Editions

Now this, my friends, has been one of the Brit comics works on my Must Read Radar for 2019; I know Kate has been working on it for a long time, a labour of love in many respects. Kate has been contributing to the Brit comics and cartooning scene for many years, from her Auntie Studs character to the critically acclaimed (and quite brilliant) Sally Heathcote, Suffragette with Mary and Bryan Talbot (reviewed here). Kate was also generous enough to create artwork for my short story Memorial to the Mothers which closed out the double Eisner-nominated WWI comics anthology To End All Wars (thanks, Kate! You can read that story in full here on the Woolamaloo). So it is more than fair to say I have heard snippets about this work in production for quite a while and now, finally, thanks to the nice people at Myriad (surely one of our most creator-supportive UK Indy publishers?) I had the chance to read it.

And then re-read it.

Short version: it’s brilliant – it’s a wonderfully warm, often very smile-inducing and laughter-creating, emotionally engaging tour through the last few decades of Queer life and culture in the UK and further afield, intertwining both Kate’s own life experiences as she grows up with the wider cultural and historical changes taking place, which gives Sensible Footwear both an over-arching, wide-ranging historical arc but at the same time maintaining a close, personal aspect to it that allows the reader to experience this as more than historical events or social-cultural changes, we can feel the impact on a more individual, emotional level.

From the hidden gay (predominantly male homosexual) subculture of the 50s and 60s (yes, including the delightfully cheeky and risqué Round the Horne) to the heady days of Stonewall and beyond, the Women’s Liberation Movement gaining ground in the 70s, the increasingly visible presence of LGBT people and the push for more tolerance for all, the horrible early years of the AIDS outbreak and more, along the way taking in lovely little asides on a myriad (no pun intended) of gay icons, from Dusty Springfield to characters from Coronation Street.

Woven through all of this socio-cultural history we also have Kate’s own story, from childhood through to that great rite of passage so many of us go through, the first move away from home to go to college, to adult life, to exploring what her own sexuality and romantic inclinations are, the friends and lovers she meets, the people who inspire her, the intolerant elements she and friends band together to stand against. It’s all laced with a lovely, warm humour throughout – right from the start, after an introductory scene of Kate and her partner Diane on holiday with friends, discussing the old days (a framing device used through much of the book, linking past and present nicely), we go to Barnsley in 1950 and Kate’s birth, which includes a cheeky moment of baby Kate seeing the ward sister and being somewhat smitten.

There is more of that kind of scene as we see her growing up – as a family wedding approaches the young girl wonders what the husband is actually for. And she is less than impressed at being dolled-up in a fancy, very girly dress to be a maid of honour, not her kind of thing at all, oh no. Mind you, she is rather taken with the bride. There are a lot of gentle intimations here that Kate is not going to grow up to be the “regular” young girl then young woman that her family expects (thank goodness!). Balancing this out, later sections in the book hark back to those earlier days, of getting older, starting to realise she is a lesbian and not knowing how to tell her family, how they will react, but we find out as we go on that actually there were more secrets in the family cupboard she simply knew nothing of when growing up and questioning her own feelings and inclinations, because those were generations that simply didn’t share certain things, not even among their nearest and dearest.

Even today coming out is often not an easy thing for anyone – growing up is rarely simple, we’re all trying to figure out who we are, what we want to be, looking for role models and inspiration and supportive friends who will help us. How much harder when society was so horribly bigoted and intolerant? Yes, we have plenty of bigots today – sadly they seem to be on the rise again, racism, sexism, homophobia – but it is still very different, both society’s general attitude and also the law’s stance (where LGBT people are recognised and afforded the same rights and protections any of us should have).

And here we get to see where some of those changing attitudes – and political and legal changes – came from, with groups inspired by Stonewall, the first gay rights movements, the increasingly important woman’s rights movements, the push for greater racial tolerance. I was reminded a little of Sally Heathcote, where Kate and the Talbots made it abundantly clear that the Women’s Suffrage movement was never just about the vote, it was about a whole range of important social issues, including healthcare and educational opportunities. Similarly here, we can see how the fight for tolerance, understanding and equality for any one group is, in reality, always about tolerance and understanding and equality for all. Or as congressman John Lewis, Civil Rights veteran and one of the original Freedom Riders, put it when equal rights for gay marriage was proposed in the US:

“I fought too long and too hard against discrimination based on race and colour, not to fight against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”

If you needed any more reminding of that, just think how the same, vaguely-worded Obscene Publications Act that was used to try and stop some gay publications – state censorship, effectively – was the same Act used to try and shut down counter-culture publications like Oz, or, even in the 80s and 90s Tony Bennett’s Knockabout having to fight the Act and HM Customs over importing underground Comix. Like I said, these rights and tolerances – or lack thereof – affect most, if not all of us in some way or another.

For readers of a certain age there is also a lot of nostalgia and a strong sense of “oh, I remember that” moments throughout Sensible Footwear, from the idolising Honor Blackman and then Diana Rigg in the Avengers (strong women characters that took no nonsense without every losing any sense of the feminine) in the 60s to the hideous Mary Whitehouse and her Festival of Light, using religion as a way to demand that what people watched or read conformed to what they approved of (chilling, and still has echoes today with some (mis)using religion as an excuse to practise bigotry), or “God’s Cop” James Anderton (a favourite of Thatcher), the imposition of the Section 28 whereby the government tried its best to suppress discussion of gay culture, to the emergence of AIDS and the rampant hatred that often followed this in the press of the time, rather than extending sympathy to those suffering illness or losing loved ones.

But through all of this weaves Kate’s own story, or more accurately Kate and all the people she has interacted with, friends, lovers, other creators, support groups, family, beloved icons (Dusty!), a reminder of how what is personal and individual to us or our small circle of friends is also part of the larger picture of our ever-changing society, and this makes the events covered in this history much more accessible, more emotionally personal, regardless of the reader’s own orientation. The artwork moves from cartoon to an almost collage style when incorporating numerous old publications, or flyers or badges or media clippings from the time, with good use of colouring and shading for different aspects of the story or different times being depicted.. The art is also frequently funny – young Kate staring into a mirror after he friend asks if she may be a lesbian, trying to see if it is obvious, is just one of many parts that had me laughing out loud.

Sensible Footwear can’t, of course, be an encyclopedic history of all of LGBT culture in the UK for the last few decades, and Kate notes that herself – there is only so much anyone can cover, and besides, as she also comments, everyone’s experience is a bit different, so you can’t always show what every single person was going through. What it does do though is encapsulate several decades of LGBT history in a very accessible manner, often touching on areas some of us might not even have realised were important to the emerging Queer Culture at the time, and shows how it is part and parcel of the forever changing, diverse nature of our whole society, not apart from it. And most of all that wonderful, warm, personal aspect to the whole book that engages you, like a chat with a dear chum over drinks on a summer afternoon. A book that left me with a very satisfied smile on my face.