22.11.2023

2023 Mezipatra was really good

Mezipatra is a queer film festival that happens every year in Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic. I was there as a volunteer last year, and this year I was there again. But this year my voluteer shifts were all in non-film-adjacent locations, so I saw all of these films by my own selection.

Rated in the way competition movies are rated - 1 is the best, 5 is the worst.

Blue Jean

Jean is a gym teacher living in the Thatcher era. Coming out would mean losing her job. Not being out is already putting strain on her relationship with her much more openly queer girlfriend. But when she runs into one of her students (Lois) at the lesbian bar, Jean has to decide if she will out herself at school to protect this girl from homophobic bullying.

I like how this film handles Jean's complex situation of having to stay in the closet and her conflict with how to handle Lois. And Lois's character also is very interesting.

I also liked the visuals. This film is indeed blue a lot of the time, a washed out blue. And it looks really good.

I also liked that a lot of the major characters were butch.

For a film handling complex topics the stuff with the main bully girl is kind of… I don't know. "Homophobes are actually gay." Plus the sexual assault accusation stuff…

Also the ending felt unsatisfying even though I get the point. Mutual aid is really important, but it just seems too happy that they just go to a party and everything's ok.

Rating: 2

A Song Sung Blue / Xiao bai chuan

A still from A Song Sung Blue. Liu Xian, a young Chinese girl, is standing in front of many different photographs, including a large one of a woman wearing a blonde wig. The lighting is very luminous.

Liu Xian's mother left for Africa and left her with her estranged father in his shitty photo studio. There she meets confident Mingmei and falls in love with her. It is a powerful first love that leads her to desparate actions.

This is a very vibes based film. It is very glowy and quiet and visually enchanting. It has a sort of dreamlike athmosphere.

The dreaminess also manifests in the fact that nothing seems to quite connect together. It seems like there should be more emotional fallout from a lot of Liu Xian's actions but instead it just moves on to another event. This is especially bad with the ending, which feels very abrupt and random (Flash forward to Xian going to Mingmei's mother's wedding to a random Korean man after not having seen Mingmei for like a year). It almost has a "being gay is just a phase" vibe to it.

I just couldn't connect with this film and I am not sure if there's just something I am not understanding or what. I know other people liked it.

Rating: 2-

All the Silence / Todo el silencio

A still from All the Silence. Miriam is sitting in a breakroom and looking sad.

Miriam is a sign language teacher and living with her deaf girlfriend. Her life is already very similar to a deaf person's. But when her hearing loss starts progressively worsening she still has to confront losing a lot of things important to her, like acting in the theater or listening to music.

This is a very character-focused film, and I think Miriam's character was really well realized. This film had the potential to be very boring or very stereotypical about disability but it wasn't.

As a film about hearing loss, Todo el silencio is very focused on sound, and the sound design in this film is very good and unique in the way it portrays Miriam's hearing loss and how it is progressing.

Despite being included in a LGBT film festival, this was not really a LGBT film, it was a film where the main character just happens to be LGBT. I was scared it was going to be a bisexual love triangle film, but the main male character turned out to be just a friend.

I saw this film with a friend (Hi!!) and she also loved it.

Rating: 1

Peafowl / Gong-jak-sae

Two stills from Peafowl. In the first on Myung is wearing black flashy dance clothing. In the second one Myung is wearing white traditional Korean clothing and holding a small drum.

Myung is a transgender dancer who needs to get the money for her last surgery before she is forced to enlist in the military. Her father dies and she has to return to her hometown where he was a religious leader. Her family does not want her back, but her father's religious assisstant, Bo-suk, claims that her father promised her a large inheritance if she preforms the traditional memorial dance ritual for him.

This was the film that won the jury price and I get why because it was really excellent.

Family/community relationships which mix homo-/transphobia and deep connections and family trauma are portrayed beautifully and complexly. I also really liked Myung protecting her closeted gay cousin. Myung is a strong and confident person who perserveres despite family adversity without being idealized.

I really enjoy how music and dance is so integral to this story. Myung's dancing is waacking which is connected to her transgender identity. Part of Bo-suk's religious activity is traditional Korean folk dance, which of course Myung's father used to lead. The final memorial dance intertwining the two was glorious and made me cry.

I don't really know stuff about Korean folk religion, but I felt that the way this film mixed the elements of tradition and spirituality with a very modern transgender story was good.

Peafowl is also was very cool looking visually, from the spirit tree and the countryside to all of Myung's very extra outfits.

Rating: 1