High Contrast

For some reason, I remember the late 90s as being a really great era for movies. I think it's just that I went to the cinema more often back then than I do now. It was also a pivotal time for me: young adulthood, life in a new country and discovering my identity as a queer person.  Of course, that meant that I watched nearly every queer themed film that came out in  theatres in at the time.

High Art portrays a relationship between Syd, a young photo editor and Lucy, a reclusive former photographer who happen to live in the same building. Both women are already in relationships, the former with a boyfriend, the latter with a girlfriend. Long story short, the two characters engage in a  romantic and sexual affair. Complicating matters is that Syd's magazine wants her to convince the photographer to shoot for them after years of obscurity. Working so closely together both intensifies and threatens their relationship.

If I remember correctly, this was a comeback for Ally Sheedy, known for being in the John Hughes classic The Breakfast Club. She joins a great cast including Radha Mitchell as the younger love-interest, Patricia Clarkson as a delightful German heroin addict and Gabriel Mann as Syd's cuckold. Even though this film came out over a decade and a half ago, everyone looks mostly the same now as they did then.

The relationship between the two leads is one of contrasts: blonde/brunette, mature/youthful, artist/editor, sober/addicted. These differences draw them to one another. Suffice it to say the relationship has a few obstacles, namely that one of them is a heroin addict and both of them are already spoken for. It is to this film's credit that the affair doesn't feel doomed. From the outset the association between the two women feels  finite. Sheedy and Mitchell seem to insert that awareness into their characters. Another thing I appreciated was that no excuses are made for their infidelity and most important of all, the people being cheated on are not villainized in the process.

It is impossible to discuss High Art without including its third protagonist: heroin. The stuff is everywhere. The 'high'of the title takes on several meanings: aesthetic judgement, opiate-induced euphoria and the limerence of new love. It's difficult to separate the three. The various party scenes in Lucy's apartment are weighed down with lethargy, her circle of hangers-on seem as if they are in slow-motion. Lucy herself often seems mesmerized by everything she encounters. Both Gretta (Lucy's lover) and James (Syd's boyfriend) question Syd's interst in Lucy. I'm fairly certain that we're supposed to see the relationship as an epic romance that liberated both characters. It comes across more ambiguously because of the performances of Gabriel Mann and Patricia Clarkson. Rather than jealous bitter losers or rejects, they each invest their criticisms of Syd with a calm perceptiveness as if they really are seeing red flags rather than grasping at straws.

I like that the Syd's bisexuality is not portrayed as inherently problematic. Having said that, her relationship with her boyfriend is presented as boring and staid yet stable compared to the creatively stimulating yet volatile relationship between her and the photographer. Overall, this is  lovely example of Queer Independent Cinema from the 90s.