Eden's Curve

I watched this, but wish that I hadn't. If I want to see the cruel realities of life I can go by skid row or take public transport. This movie was well made, but depressing. If you are looking for something that makes your day more uplifting - then this is not for you.

Eden's Curve premiered at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival on 6 April 2003. I felt fortunate to be in the audience - also with director Anne Misawa, producer Jerry Meadors and four cast members present.

The story is principally that of Peter (Sam Levine), a 17 year old studying at an all male university in Virginia in the early 1970s. Peter embarks on a fraught relationship with his room-mate Joe (Trevor Lissauer) and Joe's girlfriend Bess (Amber Taylor); but as tender love turns to jealousy and rage, Peter is forced out of his fraternity (despite the protestations of Billy, played with a delightful amorality by Bryan Carroll) and eventually into the arms of Peter's poetry tutor, Ian (Julio Perillan in a stand out performance).

The film has an ethereal quality - I kept thinking of various 4AD album covers seemingly sprung to life on the big screen. A little gem and well worth a look.

The film has the merit of showing how coming out stories just recently became less problematic, even if in some environments they are still a problem not only for youths. The film is set on Virginia, US, not so long ago, 1972. Peter (Samuel A. Levine) is not properly the mostly shy young boy, being visited by the police right at the beginning of the film for sunbathing in the nude at the roof of his parents' home. Soon he'll be in college, engaging in a sex three-way story with is roommate Joe (Trevor Lissauer) and Joe's girlfriend Bess (Amber Taylor) But things will soon get bad, for the jealousy of Joe, who attacks Peter, rescued of a not very good reputed poetry professor Ian (Julio Perrilán), recovering at his place at the Eden's Curve of the title. The story's sad development can be an adviser that backlashes are always possible, for it happened only 40 years ago. True story, according to the writer. I myself was coming of age at those times, and can assure you things were not that different, even keeping out tragic endings. The film is not a must see for an already over exposed to bad ends gay community, but should remind us that things were not very good until very recently, and we must keep an eye open to have not a coming back of homophobia not so difficult at all.

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 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.