A Stormy Night

Deep and heartbreaking. I loved everything about this movie. The acting, the dialogs etc. Especially the fact that it was filmed in black and white, something that projects the overall feeling of the movie. I would totally recommend it.

A threatening storm is playing havoc with flights from New York and causes "Marcos" (David Moragas) to seek shelter at his friend's apartment. She has gone alway to avoid the weather, but her friend "Alan" (Jacob Perkins) is there and the remainder of this film depicts the twenty-four hours (or so) as these two gay men learn a little about each other. It is quite intimately filmed, this - but the whole story is contrived and over-scripted. Perkins brings an intensity to his performance, but the underlying themes of love, happiness, frustration etc... are depressingly familiar. Despite the odd quip and some fairly predictable attempts at humour, this really just comes across as a rather unfulfilling story that left me indifferent to both characters and rather bored with a will they/won't they dynamic that really fails to get off the ground - and never looks like it should either. The audio of the thunder and lightening around them, along with some frequently rather dingy lighting, does lend a little to the atmosphere of the scenario, but in the end Perkins just has way, way too many lines to deliver and, well, eighty minutes seemed to take much longer.

Goodness. Yakily, Yakily, Yak and more whiny Yak Yak Yak. Drama in drama out. If I were Marcos, I would have had dashed out of that yin energy vampire black hole within 5 mins of encounter and checked into the YWCA instead for a more authentic butch environment. I felt drained just watching for 30 mins and then decided I'll FFWD this Woody Allen masterpiece to its end while I pound in this review.

No there is no sex in the film, and it is in black and white and it is more or less confined to various rooms. A Spaniard has to stay over because of a storm in a stranger's house and spends the night there with one of the two lovers who live in it. They talk a lot and sometimes the camera moves and sometimes there is just stillness of camera movement. I have seen a lot of films like this and notably Rohmer's ' Ma Nuit Chez Maud ' comes to mind. It is not as good ( for me ) as the Rohmer but it is an ambitious film. Why ? It questions monogamy, and the two characters resist their attraction towards each other. I know for a lot of homosexuals the lack of sex is frustrating, the black and white pointless but there is such a thing as austerity in film. Dreyer, Bresson, Ozu and to a lesser extent Bergman showed that it works and holds an audience and this film clearly wanted to hold an audience's attention. I think it could have worked better with actors who were clearer in their speech. I missed out a fair bit of the dialogue and had to rewind. This was annoying but I found the film a refreshing change from a lot of Gay film which has a shower scene to indicate that we will see nudity etc, etc, etc. I hope Gay people will stop accepting formula. This film is finely directed and certainly deserves better and more intelligent reviews. I personally feel it did not quite succeed, but for those who lack concentration it will not succeed at all. It demands attention to solid dialogue and intimacy without sex. Agnes Varda was mentioned in the dialogue. I do not think she would have had difficulty with it, but then she would probably have needed subtitles and for parts of the film so did I. See it if you can.

The conversations the 2 protagonists (around 40 - 45 minutes) raise the script above an amateur level.

Plus all the actors are convincing in their characters's portrayals. 👌 Filmed in a crisp/focused B & W adds an effective atmosphere to the story.