24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: No Ordinary Man

Dir: Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt

I knew a little about Billy Tipton going into this film, which is to say that I basically knew the précis of what we discover is a rather controversial biography of him. It goes like this: Tipton was a trans man who was a fairly successful jazz musician in the 1940s and ’50s, and it was only with his death in 1989 that either the wider public or his wife and adopted children discovered the so-called ‘real’ identity he had been ‘hiding’. To be a hundred percent clear, there I am using the language of coverage at the time and that biography, trans men are men, trans women are women.

This documentary is, on its surface, a deeper telling of the story of Billy Tipton—a telling that acknowledges and celebrates his identity—but it is also much more than that. Aisling Chin-Yee, Chase Joynt and co-writer Amos Mac scrutinise and criticise the way Tipton’s life was framed in coverage after his death as, essentially, a long-running deception of the people around him. One clip, from a news show on E!, has sinister music behind the story, as if it’s something from a horror film. It’s worth noting that this characterisation of Tipton is rejected by his wife and son in archive footage, and by his son in new interviews for the film. They also relate that to the way trans identity is seen and talked about today “If I tell you who I am, I’m not lying” says one interviewee. More than that even, No Ordinary Man explores the issue of the erasure of trans history, and how that plays into the need for trans visibility and representation.

One of the way the film digs into these subjects is through auditioning trans actors to play Billy. The conceit reminds me of the documentary Casting Jon Benet, but it has much deeper resonance here because the directors talk with their auditionees about Tipton, what they already knew of his story, and how it relates to their own experiences. There are several great virtues to this idea, first, it completely gives the lie to the idea that cis people keep getting cast in trans roles because of some lack of talented trans actors, but much more important is the insight into how things are both different and the same for trans people now as when Tipton was alive.

The audition sequences are some of the film’s most riveting material, never more so than when the actors are playing out a sequence that seems mysterious to begin with. In it, Tipton indicates that he recognises something about a DJ he had never met before. It turns out that this is an imagined version of the only time that we know of that Tipton met another trans man. When the actors know this it entirely reframes the performances and leads to some deeply moving moments in which one in particular is overcome with the emotion of knowing that, just for a moment, Tipton knew he wasn’t the only person like himself. This, as much as any moment, show us the value of representation because that empathy just can’t be acted, and it’s a moment that must provoke empathy in its audience as well.

No Ordinary Man is a fascinating film about identity. I’m sure it will be a film that trans audiences identify with, and for cis audiences, it lays out so many nuanced issues of trans identity in such a directly emotional way, while also telling an interesting biographical story, that you can’t help but have a lot to reflect on long after the credits roll. 

★★★★½

24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: Firebird

Dir: Peeter Rebane

At the height of the cold war, Private Sergey (Tom Prior) and Lieutenant Roman (Oleg Zagorodnii) meet and fall in love on base. When they are suspected, Sergey leaves the army for his long held dream of going to drama school and Roman marries Luisa (Diana Pozharskaya), Sergey’s best friend. Still, Sergey and Roman continue to be drawn to each other.

Every film whether, like this one, it is based on a true story or it is the most fantastical and surreal tale ever told, sets out to create a world that is, in itself, credible. In some ways, Firebird does this: the historical detail—sets, props, hairstyles, costumes—appears to be on point, but right from the start, something is off. The film is spoken almost entirely in English (background dialogue that doesn’t need to be subtitled is in Russian, as is signage and other incidental writing). The commercial imperatives of this choice are clear and easy to understand, but the fact remains that Firebird is telling a fundamentally Russian story. The story takes place entirely within the USSR, the characters are all Russian, and two of the three lead actors are Ukrainian. From the first moment they start talking to each other in accented English (often dubiously so in Tom Prior’s case), a vital part of the world-building is broken however good the rest of the film may be.

Unfortunately, even apart from this glaring issue, Firebird isn’t a particularly good film. The performances are a mixed bag; the actors are clearly capable, with the films quieter moments coming off well. The longing looks between Sergei and Roman, the silent build of chemistry, and Sergei’s terror, which he has to hide from the other soldiers when Roman’s plane gets into trouble, are all effective. The best moment in the film comes from Tom Prior. When Sergei hears that Roman is marrying Luisa we can see the deep, under the surface, hurt coming to the fore for just a moment. However, probably thanks to the language issue, dialogue is often stiff and stilted, never more so than in a dinner table scene between Roman and Luisa. This means the film always feels uneven. While it looks handsome enough and Rebane puts some of his influences on display (a beach scene late on has a definite air of Francois Ozon), the direction isn’t especially inspired and, on a couple of occasions, notably clunky. This is never more true than when we find out that Luisa is pregnant with Roman’s child, there is a hard cut to Sergei standing in the pouring rain—a cheap, corny, and cliche emotional shortcut.

Taken purely at an emotional level as a story of forbidden love, Firebird has its affecting moments. We do believe in the relationship at its heart, and it’s hard not to feel for the characters, especially knowing that the story is at least broadly true. On the other hand, every detail is clunky. The language issue means everything feels artificial and Peeter Rebane doesn’t find much visual inventiveness with which to tell his story. There’s the kernel of a great movie here, but it’s not the one that ended up on the screen.
★★

24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: Boy Meets Boy

Dir: Daniel Sanchez Lopez

On Harry’s (Matthew James Morrison) last day in Berlin, he meets Johannes (Alexis Koutsoulis) and they end up spending the day together, walking around the city, talking and connecting.

There are many great brief encounter movies—the Before series, Weekend, Brief Encounter itself—and Boy Meets Boy isn’t afraid of wearing the influence of all of them on its sleeve, but it cleaves closest to Before Sunrise and Sunset. There is a real sense of time being limited, and we know that at a certain point Harry has to move on, physically at least, to go home on an evening flight. As with those films, the time Harry and Johannes have together is largely filled with moments that might otherwise be mundane, but become meaningful both because of who they are with and the truncated timeline.

The most important thing with a film like this is to find two actors who have chemistry. From the first moment we see them together, dancing in a club and making out soon after, that’s not a problem, but it also carries over into the conversational scenes. There is an ease between Morrison and Koutsoulis that gives the film a loose, relaxed, flow. This certainly helps the chemistry in the sex scene (another where director Daniel Sanchez Lopez makes his influences, in this case Don’t Look Now and Out of Sight, obvious), but it’s felt just as much in the long series of conversations as the two wander around Berlin. The two talk about general life stuff, but things are most interesting when they get a bit deeper, where in a lighthearted way (Johannes’ assertion that “Everyone’s a cheese”) or in deeper conversations about sex and relationships, and what each is really looking for.

It’s easy to be swept along with this film, almost as if you’re tagging along with Harry and Johannes, the issue with it as a brief encounter film is that the stakes never feel especially high. For all the chemistry, the film seems to acknowledge immediately, and never change its mind about, what this is. The sense of longing that we are primed to feel both from the characters and in ourselves for them to be together, or the sadness that they can’t be, just never comes through. In some ways, perhaps this is more of an honest approach to the Tinder/Grindr age of relationships, but as drama it ends up feeling a little flat and meaning that, for all its fun and promising qualities, Boy Meets Boy doesn’t linger that long in the memory.

★★★

24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: The Obituary of Tunde Johnson

Dir: Ali Le Roi

The time loop narrative has been in vogue lately, with the two Happy Death Day films, coming of agers like Before I Fall and The Map of Tiny Pretty Things and rom-com Palm Springs (still unreleased in the UK), but The Obituary of Tunde Johnson uses the conceit to a much more sober and serious end than I’ve seen before.

Tunde (Steven Silver) is an 18-year-old high school senior from a wealthy, Nigerian-American family. He’s in a secret relationship with Soren (Spencer Neville), a jock who is also the boyfriend to Tunde’s best friend Marley (Nicola Peltz). On this day, he tells his parents he is gay and, at the end of each day, he is killed by the police only to wake, gasping for breath, in his bed.

There are two threads at work in The Obituary of Tunde Johnson; one personal, the other societal. The early part of the film is more focused on the wider issue of how black people, especially young black men, are seen and treated in the US. The steady flow of stories about black men killed by cops can, I would imagine, feel like a time loop; a reiteration of different but similar circumstances leading to the same tragic result day after day. Here, writer/director Ali Le Roi simply reduces that to an actual loop. Each day, with each iteration, Tunde makes changes to his circumstances, he avoids the incident in which he gets pulled over, he responds differently when challenged, but even when he heeds his father’s counsel that “Your life is more important than your pride… You stay silent, and you comply” the result is the same. It’s a confrontational message, powerfully delivered. Because we’ve seen time loop movies before, we want to see Tunde figure out the magic formula to survive the day, but the deep sadness of this strand of the film is that it’s message is that this is the reality; that a lot of black people in the US have to figure out that formula each day.

The other throughline is the relationship between Tunde and Soren. Tunde is clearly all in, and at times this feels mutual. The chemistry is there but so, for both of them, is the fear. Of course, that fear dissipates for Tunde as the days loop, because he knows that when he tells his parents it will be fine. The portrayal of the way that Soren hides his relationship with Tunde, staying with Marley as a cover seemingly for fear of losing his jock friends and the love of his father (a broadcaster on a Fox News type political show) rings true, sometimes in ways that are almost painful to watch. This is never more true than in a heartbreaking key moment when Soren is obviously desperate to say something and the words simply can’t claw their way out. The combination of all this with the two sensitive and detailed performances at the film’s heart adds up to a storyline that ends up powerfully putting across why Tunde says that, as a black man and a gay man “In the eyes of humanity, I’m two degrees off human”. 

The Obituary of Tunde Johnson is definitely a film driven by message (much to the consternation of some imdb commenters, giving it 1/10 and decrying its ’wokery’, expect more of that idiocy as it is more widely seen). That said, it advances that message, if not subtly, then often poetically. The dialogue is beautifully written, from Tunde’s repeated obituaries for himself to other lines that simply stick for how well crafted they are (“When you die you become a scar”). Tunde’s loop never feels like Groundhog Day; the universe giving him a chance to get everything he wants, it’s sadder and more realistic about the US than that, perhaps it’s just a chance to survive this day, and that maybe being enough.

★★★★

24FPS @ BFI Flare 2021: The Greenhouse

Dir: Thomas Wilson-White

Four siblings are reuniting for their mother Ruth’s (Camilla Ah Kin) 60th birthday, several years after the death of their other Mum, Ruth’s wife Lillian (Rhondda Findleton). Only Beth (Jane Watt) has remained at home over the years, being there as Lillian died and to try to help Ruth cope afterwards. She has also discovered that the path at the bottom of their garden acts as a portal, transporting her back to the past, when both her mothers were alive, her siblings were home, and she was falling in love for the first time.

The Greenhouse falls pretty distinctly into two genres. One works better than the other. The more familiar part of the film is a fairly simple character-driven drama. A wife struggling to come to terms with the loss of her wife, even a few years later. Siblings who love each other but have a difficult relationship, at least partly because the eldest, Beth, feels as though she has become stuck while her brothers and sister have gone off to live their lives. These are also dynamics we find echoing in the flashback sequences, as Beth observes the past. These sequences aren’t wildly original, but they are well acted, in particular one scene in which Beth sees herself shout at a dying Lillian, only for her older self to desperately try to take it back, screaming her “sorry” to a memory, unable to change it even though it is right in front of her. This is by far the moment that best distills what the film is saying in these flashback sequences. 

The flashbacks also have a few moments that colour in the characters of the siblings. Beth’s tentative relationship with her friend Lauren (Harriet Gordon-Anderson) is interesting in how it speaks about the fact that even though her mothers are gay and one of her brothers is bi-sexual, Beth isn’t entirely comfortable with or confident in her sexuality. Also effective are the purely domestic scenes. The family dynamic is credibly fractious, but we also believe that the siblings and Ruth all love each other, especially during Ruth’s speech at her birthday party, which becomes something of a eulogy for Lillian.

What works less well is the sci-fi aspect of the film. In the beginning, it’s somewhat unclear how we are supposed to take what is happening. Beth could be having very vivid, lucid, dreams (which would perhaps better explain what everyone she sees in the past is their current age, despite flashbacks clearly going back to when she was about 16), when it becomes clear that she’s not the only one who has found this path, and thus that it isn’t a dream, the rules aren't especially well-defined, which means that a late attempt at a shift into horror—while it throws up some emotional moments—doesn’t feel credible within the film’s conceit.

Overall, The Greenhouse isn’t bad, but it’s messy. The sci-fi element trips over itself literalizing a fairly obvious point, but the straightforward drama sections showcase strong performances and some emotionally articulate writing from director Thomas Wilson-White.

★★½