Cinema Scene

HEADING INTO the closing weekend for the inaugural Bangkok Gay and Lesbian Film Festival at the Esplanade Ratchada, there are many highlights, including “I Love You. Thank You” and “The Commitment” from the Philippines and “The Sun, the Moon and the Hurricane” from Indonesia, which will have Q&A sessions by the directors tomorrow and Sunday. There’s also question time on Sunday for the UK gay drama “Soft Lad”.
But probably the most provocative entry is “Eisenstein in Guanajuato”, a gorgeously strange-looking feature from cinema stylist Peter Greenaway, inspired by that weird time when Soviet cinema pioneer Sergei Eisenstein went to Mexico to make a movie.
Officials in homophobic Russia aren’t fans of Greenaway’s lurid depiction of Eisenstein losing his anal virginity, but critics have gobbled it up. “The explicit film-history and gay angles might help introduce the idiosyncratic filmmaker’s work to niche audiences not necessarily familiar with the rest of [Greenaway’s] oeuvre,” said Boyd van Hoeij of The Hollywood Reporter. Peter DeBruge of Variety says it is a gay cult classic in the making. “Greenaway has wrought an outrageously unconventional and deliriously profane biopic that could take decades to be duly appreciated,” he said.
“Eisenstein in Guanajuato” screens at 9.30pm tomorrow and 11.30am on Sunday. For more details, search for “Bangkok Gay & Lesbian Film Festival” on Facebook.

Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – There’s more of the colourful world of Peter Greenaway on tap tomorrow in the food-themed crime comedy “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover”, starring Helen Mirren who has hardly changed since her revealing turn in 1989. Tonight, Peter Sellers daubs on the brown greasepaint for “The Party”, and on Sunday it’s Steven Spielberg’s biggest flop, the overstuffed epic war comedy “1941”. Shows start at 8pm. For more details, check FGC.in.th.

Alliance Francaise – There are two free French screenings. First up at 2 tomorrow is the animated teen pregancy tale, “Aya de Yopougon”, about girl in 1970s Yop City, Ivory Coast. And next Wednesday’s regular 7pm show is “2 automnes 3 hivers”, a romantic comedy centering on three hapless thirtysomethings. For more, check AFThailande.org.