What We’re Watching – July 2023

Our What We’re Watching column this month focuses on both profound auteurs as well as two lesser known LGBT films that are ripe for rediscovery. Read our thoughts on these films below:

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985)

Yukio Mishima was a compelling man of letters, rife with contradictions. His sheltered upbringing in his youth in part spurred him to become the pinnacle of physical manhood through intense physical training. His all-but-confirmed homosexuality stood in stark contrast with his reactionary beliefs, which included the restoration of the emperor. He is considered one of the most important authors of the 20th century in Japan and in the world, and his work often explored forbidden desire and characters on the fringe of society, yet his death, committing seppuku, while intensely poetic on the surface, was part of a failed coup.

Only a film as avant-garde and heightened as Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters could have done any sort of justice to the complex figure he was and Paul Schrader knew that. The film is composed of four segments, each loosely adapted from one of Mishima’s novels, and each with its own color scheme. Schrader was not necessarily known to be primarily a visual stylist at this time, but he goes all out in this film, as if he knew that he had to up his game in order to match the considerable artistry of Mishima himself. The script, written by Paul and his brother Leonard and translated into Japanese by Chieko Schrader, Paul’s sister-in-law, manages to capture not just the spirit of Mishima’s work but also manages to create the type of protagonist that Schrader gravitated towards – intensely individualistic characters often at odds with society with rich, often turbulent, internal lives. Mishima manages to not only cast a light on this outsized artist, but it also manages to illuminate Schrader’s own work and his obsession with both sex and death. – Eugene Kang

The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995)

Long out of print on physical media, The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love is a gem from mid-90’s indie queer cinema that will probably only become more beloved now that it has become available again via a new restoration in 2022. True Adventure focuses on Randy Dean (Laurel Holloman) a high school girl from a working-class family with two mothers. She is struggling in school, but she has plenty of life experience to make up for it, including an affair that she has been having with an older woman married to a man. She crosses paths with Evie (Nicole Ari Parker), a popular girl from a wealthy, single-parent family.

While the beats of True Adventure are predictable, it is still a surprising film in many ways. Though it focuses on two young women and there is a coming out scene, the characters’ sexual orientation is almost besides the point. Rather, True Adventure is more of a tender teen romance with some broadly comedic moments. A scene where the two girls are caught in bed together is played for laughs whereas many other films would have played this as a tragic climactic moment. Randy Dean’s main hang-ups are that she can’t do well in school and is probably doomed to stay in this small town with no future, while Evie is a romantic who wants someone who excites her. Neither character is overly defined by their sexuality, which makes True Adventure ahead of its time even now, despite a growing number of queer love stories in media. Director Maggie Maggenti directs with a sure hand and manages to get lovely, lived-in performances from both Holloman and Parker, which makes True Adventure stand out among the sea of 90’s indie romantic comedies. – Eugene Kang

Madame Satã (2002)

João Francisco dos Santos was a walking contradiction. A tough, assertive, even patriarchal man who had an extensive criminal record, he would become one of the premier drag queens in Brazil, performing under the name Madame Satã. The film starts with dos Santos hearing a litany of insults about his skin color, his race, his intelligence and, not surprisingly, his sexuality. Yet in the film, we never see dos Santos feeling a moment of contrition. His lack of remorse is not entirely empowering and unproblematic. He treats his partners, both male and female horribly, and he even hits the female performer whose routine about Scheherezade had inspired his own drag persona.

Dos Santos quickly becomes a symbol of resistance when the police seek his arrest, but he escapes. He is almost a Robin Hood figure to people similarly disenfranchised to him, except his actions are selfish until almost the very end as the film portrays it. There is a certain amount of hagiography going on with Madame Satã, but with a subject this compelling, it’s hard not to being drawn to such a fascinating figure. Lázaro Ramos plays dos Santos in all his complexity with a charisma that sears the screen. His performance makes it clear that these two extremes could exist in one person, and their coexistence would make sense. It would also be no wonder that Madame Satã would be so iconic that she would retain legendary status despite (or perhaps) her many arrests and constant attempts to tamp down her stardom. – Eugene Kang

Dark Waters (2019)

An eight carbon atom structure, connected to hydrogen, fluorine, and oxygen, is all it takes chemically to cause an irreversible amount of damage to the human body. Eight. Carbon. Atoms. Used in the production of Teflon, C8 or PFOA was being released into drinking water by chemical manufacturer DuPont, poisoning the residents of Parkersburg, West Virginia. DuPont knew of the linkage between C8 and cancer and birth defects, but kept their studies on the chemical hidden, all the while employing pregnant workers who came into contact with the chemical daily and poisoning the drinking water of Parkersburg whose residents were mysteriously becoming very ill.

A farmer, William Tennant (Bill Camp), knows something is awry when his cows begin dying en mass, and believes that the cow’s drinking water can be connected to their ailments. He takes this knowledge, along with hours of videotape, to Cincinnati lawyer Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo). Bilott is a corporate defense lawyer, which places him into a conflict of interest when propositioning to sue DuPont. Not to mention, DuPont is woven so inextricably into the daily lives of Parkersburg residents, one of the city’s largest employers. But Bilott cannot help his conviction to seek justice for the residents of Parkersburg when it becomes increasingly clear that DuPont is knowingly hurting others for profit.

Todd Haynes‘ Dark Waters illustrates the necessity of regulation and why connectivity and unity is vital to ensure public safety. DuPont and similar entities have nil to benefit from self-regulation, and Dark Waters reminds us of the importance of regulatory institutions and of a robust legal system. The film plays out as slow burn horror, and represents another unforgettable entry in Haynes’ Americana-centric filmography.