Rating: 4.5/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 21/52 | LGBTQ+
Liverpool, 1950s After the opening credits, the 20th Century Fox fanfare plays as we tilt down a brick wall. The camera shows a sign for Kensington Street and a worn poster before pulling away to the street.
Night rain falls on the ramshackle street. The camera gently pushes in to the tune of Nat King Cole. Our eyes scan the screen, looking for any signs of life. We cut a corner, down an alley.
A boy named Bud calls for his mother, asking if he can go see a film. She tells him to do the laundry.
Bud stares out the window at a shirtless bricklayer, his arching muscles shifting as he moves bricks. The man catches his eye and winks.
Downstairs, Bud’s mother sings “If You Were the Only Girl in the World.”
Bud stands outside the theater, asking for someone to take him in. Finally, finally, the rain subsides.
Bud sits at his desk at school. The lights dim. He looks aside at a passing ship, the sea foam spraying on his face. The thought subsides and the lights return.
The film continues in this woven pattern — a spotlight or key light cuts Bud out from his surroundings. If a narrative emerges, the viewer assembles them from the disparate moments.
The queer identity is a kaleidoscope of influence and subliminal expression. For those of us who grew up in an environment where we weren’t allowed access to our entire selves, we built our identity out of fragments — a slice of memory, a dash of dreams, a morsel of music.
Intrinsic to this form of identity-making is a distancing. You speak a language of your own making, and moments of recognition sparkle like sequins in the brassy brown world. We all speak the language of joy and sorrow, but must patiently listen through the specifics of experience.
Through abstractions and melodrama, the film achieves an indescribable honesty.
I don’t want pity or adoration — I want to be known.