I'm not a big Gus Van Sant fan. I did enjoy Milk a surprising amount, but I don't like My Own Private Idaho, Gerry and Last Days were dull, and even Good Will Hunting is severely overrated. So I had little interest in this film before watching it, but it was short so I thought I would get it out of the way quickly.
Fortunately, the film turned out to be rather interesting, a sort of inadvertently gay addition to the Queer Cinema genre. I say inadvertently because the film is entirely about a gay man and his unattainable lust for a younger man, an illegal immigrant named Johnny, but it could so easily be about straight people that it seems unnecessary to categorize the film as being about gay people, or at least gayness. This is perhaps what makes the movie seem so revolutionary: unlike the tiresome films about intolerance that preach to the unconverted (films from A Gentleman's Agreement to the admittedly excellent Brokeback Mountain), the lead character in Mala Noche, Will, simply is gay, gay right from the very first words of the film, with no apologies and no persecution. The slurs against gay people in the film, like the slurs Will himself delivers towards "the Mexicans," seem less about generalizing and more about personal attacks and emotional chess.
Shot in black and while for little money, Mala Noche is kind of beautiful, and artfully made without seeming pretentious. While I don't think I'll hold onto the experience of the film, it was good enough to convince me to give My Own Private Idaho another chance.
Love it
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