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.

"I am No Longer Like the Others..."

For the life of me I have never understood how anyone could say they have no regrets. The very  act of making choices leaves one with a road not taken. The very act of living entails giving something up. Regret figures heavily in The Last Unicorn, one of the defining traits of the Unicorn is that she feels no regret. It's part of what makes her other than human (you know, outside of being a magical quadruped). The Unicorn has a lot of negative experiences she one would think might cause her to regret her choices. However, it's only when she is takes on human form and then changes back into a Unicorn that we see her understand regret.

Initially, the change is a desperate attempt by Schmendrick to save the Unicorn. During her first encounter with the Red Bull, she freaks out and the beast nearly send her into the sea. It's a brilliant idea, as the Bull discards her immediately. The plan works and Amalthea, along with Schmendrick, Molly and Lir, find the Red Bull and confront him. Schmendrick returns the Unicorn to her natural form and she chickens out again. Lir tries to get between them and is mortally wounded. This causes the Unicorn to snap out of her fear and drives the Red Bull into the sea the way it did to the Unicorns. Her brethren take this as their cue to re-materialize out of the surf and stampede out of the sea.

The transformation from Unicorn to Amalthea interests me on multiple levels. First, it feels like a price she must pay to fulfill her quest. Second, it's fascinating how the 'fake' identity of Amalthea becomes real. The transformation starts on the outside and works its way in. It's as if walking around in a human body has given her a human heart and a human mind. Even King Haggard starts to notice. The first time he creepily gets in her space, he sees the Unicorn's home forest in Amalthea's eyes. The second time he accosts her he sees his own reflection, which pisses him off. Falling in love with Haggard's son, Lir seems to have helped things along. While it is may seem obvious that the romantic connection between the Lir and Amalthea is what makes her identify as a mortal being, I'm not sure it's that simple. Lir only loves her because she's a pretty, human-looking princess. Love, for all its poetry is a superficial process.

Now that she has regained her immortality, the Unicorn will spend that eternity wondering what might have been had she abandoned her people to their watery prison and walked away from her quest. She would have lived a finite human life at Lir's side... wondering what might have happened had she faced the Bull and freed the Unicorns.That is why I can neither accept nor believe those who claim to live without regret. Every choice great or small carries with it the weight of what might have been. What the Unicorn shows in her final conversation with Schmendrick is that she can carry that burden with grace and dignity.

"Am I truly the last?"

The Last Unicorn (Animated Feature,1982):

I was six years old I think, when I saw The Last Unicorn at school. I begged my parents to rent it on video and watched it hundreds of times. And in all of those hundreds of times, I never once tired of it. This is one of those films I can revisit endlessly because after more than three decades, it holds up perfectly. Its animation is flawless, its character design beautiful, its narrative spellbinding and its score mesmerizing. This animated classic carries truths I only came to understand as an adult (although they resonated on some level as a child).

The plot follows the quest of a unicorn who is, as far as she knows, the last in the world. Leaving her forest, she wanders off into a world that has forgotten her kind. She encounters allies and obstacles alike before finally discovering the truth behind this apparent extinction. She succeeds at finding the other Unicorns but at the cost of losing her self.

The voice cast in this film is perfect. Angela Lansbury as Mommy Fortuna, Alan Arkin as Shmendrick, Mia Farrow as the Unicorn are all brilliant. Christopher lee gifts us with a chilling performance as King Haggard without sacrificing any of the character's pathos. I think René Aubejonois is in this too. Special mention to Tammy Grimes for playing my favourite character of this story, Molly Grue.

The animation for The Last Unicorn was done by Japanese studio Topcraft who were also involved in Macross Do You Remember Love?. This sets the film apart visually from what one expects to see from western animation. The film's colour palate is vividly gorgeous, lushly evoking the contrasts between different landscapes, seasons and times of day. One thing I appreciate is how the Unicorn is not simply a horse with a horn stuck on its forehead. She really seems like a four-legged person rather than a magical animal.

What makes this particular hero's journey so effective for me is the fact that the hero doesn't quite win in the end. The Unicorn and her friends encounters setbacks at every turn, often finding themselves out of their depth.  When she finally confronts the Red Bull (sigh) and frees her brethren from their watery prison, it does not alleviate her fundamental loneliness.  Her adventures have turned her into something other than a Unicorn, giving her experiences that set her apart from her brethren.

There is literally so much I can say about this film, that I'm writing about it in a series of posts. I've probably babbled about this in real life to people who had no idea what I was going on about. So stay tuned, for there is more to come about this absolute treasure of the Fantastical literature.