Tan Lines

I saw this last week at a gay and lesbian film festival, and quite liked it. It wasn't what I expected at all. I thought we'd have adorable blonde surfers caressed by the bright Australian sun during carefully timed outdoor shoots. The guys are cute, but mainly because they're young and do something physical -- they're not preposterously cute. They're a bit ... well, not vacuous, but limited in their interests. There's no indication that anybody willingly opens a book. The town they live in may have a beach and waves but it's a dreary little backwater where money is hard to come by and people fall into sex situations for lack of much else to do. The kids may be inexperienced and untutored but they're not particularly innocent, and the adults don't seem to be much different from the kids -- just various degrees of Older.

The director seems unsure how to go about making a conventional film properly, so he gropes, and ends up making the movie very interestingly. There are establishing shots we don't need, of things that aren't important. And somehow the arbitrariness of that echoes the characters' ennui and drift and cluelessness.

The young people are nice enough, and they have real feelings for one another, but their imaginations are so limited that life seems like a choice between (a.) sticking around and doing some kind of poorly paid labor or (b.) going out and seeing the world -- subsisting on various kinds of poorly paid labor. The first place that comes to mind is always Paris, France, and somebody always points out that there are no waves there. Cass, who has traveled the globe, has no stories of doing anything but working in supermarkets. He paints no pictures of his experience. The main advantage the larger world seems to have is that his parents aren't in it, and it's away from this nothing town.

The hero Midget (Jack Baxter) is sweet and pretty born loser who shares (platonically and by necessity) a small bed with his slutty mother (we never see her awake, and we only see the back of her head or an occasional hand). He's illegitimate and doesn't know who his dad is, and his big escape is smoking grass and/or putting on sound-blocking headphones and blissing out on rock music. (There's a great scene of a teen party where everybody is dancing to different music through the earbuds of his individual IPOD.) Back from a lengthy exile comes his best friend's runaway brother Cass -- who has fled the shame of being exposed in a homosexual affair with the 30ish local geometry teacher. Knowing that Cass swings that way, and having apparently been attracted to him for years anyway, Midget initiates a secretive affair.

The movie indulges itself in a few kinds of welcome whimsy -- Midget's secret summer job is pretty kinky, and Catholic Cass's bedroom photo of John Paul II, and his various kitschy holy pictures and statues, carry on an animated conversation in (subtitled) Italian, with some holy figures criticizing the libidinous boys and others defending them. This isn't the ubiquitous gay coming of age picture. It's really quite charmingly different, and even its crudities (like the trouble they have racking shots) seem to add to its charm. The sky always seems to be overcast, even on surfing days, and the whole gray atmosphere is all too real and familiar. It would probably be familiar even to a lot of 17 year olds in Paris.

It seems everyone in the movie is attempting to escape from where and who they are. Some actually leave. Some escape through fantasy, others with drugs or drink, still others by taking a holiday at the lake. The mother of the central character, Midget, seems to spend the entire movie escaping life through sleep, covered with a blanket and only reaching out for cash that Midget leaves for her next to the bed … a bed that he and his mother share. Even the money Midget provides his mother is "earned" from an old lady who escapes from her reality by watching Midget and her niece acting out a sexual charade.

Midget, who seems to be one of the few genuinely lovable, essentially "normal" people in the movie, keeps trying to figure out who he really is and what he really wants. Sadly he seems to be continually used and rejected by everyone … gay friends, straight friends, older people, young people, his mother.In the end Midget abandons his quest for love, gives up his hope of escape from his hopeless environment and attempts to resolve his loneliness in the only way left open to him.

You really have to love Midget. It's quite sad that love is in such short supply in his life.

I thought I had seen more than enough gay coming of age stories. Some told well, others not so well. It's a genre that is unbeatable: pretty young thing figures out who he or she is.

TAN LINES is a gay coming of age tale but it is amazingly up to date.

This movie is a wonderful surprise---a small gem, really. The photograph on the DVD and the title are actually misleading. The actor on the cover is not the lead, though he is good.

The standout performance in TAN LINES is the by the actor playing the main character. Jack Baxter is absolutely sensational as a smart and mouthy youth coming of age. He is attracted to other boys but also lets himself be distracted by females.

The Australian director of this movie has done a gorgeous job of creating a totally believable world of young slacker/surfers. This screenplay for TAN LINES is smart, funny, sexy, interesting and compelling.

Bravo to all involved, especially Jack Baxter!

With a taste of Larry Clark's teen angst and desperation but without the moral emptiness of Clark's "kids", the teens in this Aussie film do care for each other and for the most part "do the right thing." The surreal scenes: a geriatric drunken game of strip poker, a chorus of Christian wall images occasionally commenting on the action, a Gothic setting where the "hero" Midget "works" (too bizarre to describe and ruin it for you), all these make it interesting. That Midget is struggling (but not too much) with working out his gay desires along with a try for a girl doesn't compete with the dreariness of every day life and the hope to leave this dismal town.

If a modest goal is to make the viewer care about the people and the plot, this movie achieved that goal and more. The photography was effective with snappy cuts from one scene to another.

"All I want from this life is a little space. That's all I want."

Those who say this film lacks heart clearly have never found themselves aware of the doldrums of everyday life. Or they simply lack a keen eye for subtlety. One of the things I love most about this film is its utter lack of a compositional score. There is no music safe for the songs we hear, quite lifelessly from Midget's headphones. In fact, lifeless is a marvelous word to describe this film because in its lack of heart, lies the terrible melancholy and truth of nothingness. It's about people trying to find something from nothing. It seems like a trite notion, and one which many independent filmmakers have tackled with little success, because of their indulgence and incessant naval-gazing. But here, "Tan Lines" writer and director, Ed Aldrige, has concocted a deliberately (and perfectly) paced art film about a community in a listless Oceanside town in Australia.

At first, the acting seems stiff. But then it becomes clearer that the characters' words are but sounds coming out of their mouths, with little meaning or punch behind them. They talk for the sake of talking. They try to express themselves, but only wind up exchanging banalities without really finding the motivation to say anything that matters to them. The acting is then perfectly synched with the tone of film which is listless. And wonderfully so.

It won't be everybody's cup of tea. People who love sweeping climaxes and funny gags to get them through a film would do well to look elsewhere. But for those who appreciate well made small films with an intention to entice and provoke feeling and thought, may find something to chew on from "Tan Lines". Not to mention, the film is beautifully shot. It's very static and coloured quite dryly, like the sun had made all of the colours fade.

In terms of the plot, it is quite bare, but rich with the nuances in the everyday life of this group of young surfers. Aldrige never spoon feeds you information or character motivations, yet his film never comes off as lazy or un-focused. It is a gift to watch a film wherein a filmmaker trusts his audience enough not to explain every single act that is being committed, but instead finds a way to keep the story moving along while making us believe every single character we see on screen. There is also a nice reference to Ms. Havisham from Dickens' "Great Expectations" in one of the characters, though that is my own interpretation. Again, a wonderful instance where a strange character is never explained, but merely meant to make you ponder after the film has ended. That is what I look for in films. I prefer to be left thinking once the credits roll. I know some moviegoers prefer simply to leave the theater feeling good, but for a more satisfying experience at the cinema, I do recommend well made small films like "Tan Lines" which leave mysteries up for the viewer to decide on. That is the beauty of art.

I'm sorry if I sound pretentious. There have been terribly negative reviews of this film, so take this as my counter argument, instead of a simple review.