Eden's Curve

I happened across this movie at the video store. I'd never heard of it and thought I'd give a shot. Turned out to be a good story about a guy getting a lot more out of his first semester in college than he anticipated. He's a nice guy that doesn't seem to have much direction and gets into a relationship thats great (from my point of view), but he really doesn't know what he's getting into. That's pretty much his character in a nutshell. His attitude in the opening scene is pretty much what you see throughout his experiences (and you'll want to see his experiences). I really liked this movie as I found it refreshingly different. It's set in the sixties during the war, but you really don't get the feel for that, so much, with the exception of some of the music and a story or two being told by other characters in relationship to the war. The cinematography was great. I loved the campus setting and the wooded area in which one of his professors presided.

There's a lot more I want to say, but I don't like telling too much as it destroys the experience for some. But, if you like the independent film feel you'll like this movie. If you like what Hollywood cranks out all the time then you may not like this movie. It has a small, but impacting, feel.

This film reminded me a little of, "Dreamers", with less fun and more intimacy between certain characters.

This movie had so much going for it, I guess, if you saw it in a theatre. But the DVD is a challenge. The sound quality is so poor, even with my stereo surround equipment, that total scenes are inaudible, just mumbling. The blackouts between scenes are too long, making you feel that the movie has stopped. Then occasionally, you get to see a complete scene, well-lighted, and audible and you discover that the acting is quite good and the script is more than passable. It's unfair to rate this film by the lack of quality in the transfer from screen to DVD video. It's a mess...and it shouldn't be! Wait for another Gay Film Festival and hopefully someone will revive it. But if you're seeing it for the first time at home...forget it and rent "Latter Days", "The Man I Love", or "The Trip" instead.

Others have remarked that the video quality on the DVD is poor. No argument there. I thought at first maybe I'd been spoiled by a recent visit with a friend's HDTV, but I had to squint the whole time. The sound is sub-average too. Discounting that, the film itself is quite deep, quite surreal, and the sort that will keep you very quiet while watching.

The pace is slow, which I normally despise, but in this case it enhances the whole impression. Watch it when you're NOT in a hurry.

Bryan Carrol as Billy has a screen presence I can't begin to describe. I'll want to see anything else he does.

9/10.

I really liked this movie and gave it a score of 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The film was a very believable story involves a young gay man coming of age in college in 1972 in either North Carolina or Virginia . Most of the characters were very good looking and enjoyable to watch. The the nude and sex scenes where shoot in a very tasteful manner, while showing the viewer the lust, sexual experimentation, and passion of their young sexy bodies. I really liked the cinematic style of shooting that was used in the movie. The events in the movie are very true to live for gay people I would recommend this film to to anyone who likes films dealing with gay life issues.

Scott in Virginia

I saw the world premiere of 'Eden's Curve' at the London L&G Film Festival on 6 April & was hooked. The film has a lush distinctive visual style all its own which stays in the memory long after you walk out of the movie theatre. Apparently based on real-life events in a backwoods Virginia University in the early 70s, it succeeds in conveying the spirit & look of the time with exactitude (think a grainier more sepia-tinted version of "The Ice Storm"), Ang Lee meets Jim Jarmusch.

Framed around a bisexual menage-a-trois & a young man's coming-of-age, the film is actually "about" much wider themes of identity, commitment & the limits of romanticism. Sam Levine is excellent as the lead character, a blank page waiting to be written on. Viewed from Europe though, the "real" subject of the film is the Virginia landscape, how the enormity & relative emptiness of America provoke a conflict between 'pioneer' independence & bourgeois conformity unimaginable on this side of the pond.

This is a film about mood & longing, more than about narrative or even characterisation. That means it deserves a wider audience & a good US distribution deal. It would be a tragedy if work of this quality doesn't get seen beyond the "gay film festival circuit", valuable though that is. Go See!