Post by Dracula on Jan 11, 2022 0:33:06 GMT -5
Swan Song(12/29/2021)
For whatever reason the year 2021 has graced us with two completely different movies both with the title “Swan Song.” One is a science fiction film starring Mahershala Ali and produced by Apple and the other is an LGBT themed indie starring the German actor Udo Kier, and that film is the topic at hand today. Swan Song is a very low budget endeavor looking at an old gay man named Pat Pitsenbarger who was apparently memorably flamboyant in his younger days and was known to be the Liberace of Sandusky Ohio, where he worked as a hairdresser for the otherwise conservative female socialites of the small town. As the film begins Pitsenbarger is retired and living in a nursing home but learns that an old client has died and has it in her will that she wants him to style the hair on her corpse for the open casket funeral. He’s reluctant to take this job because he had a falling out with this woman back in the day but decides to do it for the money and old time sake. He then goes for a long walk through the city which takes up much of the film’s running time and encounters various elements of his past (some of them imagined) which paint the picture of what this guy’s life is and how he feels presently. This is what you’d call “regional filmmaking” and you can tell that a lot of the cast aside from Kier and a few others are not very experienced actors and the film doesn’t have a terribly sophisticated visual style. Still the portrait it paints of this guy and his long dark day and a half of the soul is compelling and you can tell the admiration that writer/director Todd Stephens has for this generation of gay men. It’s a little rough around the edges and has its contrivances but is ultimately a pretty compelling watch.
***1/2 out of Five
For whatever reason the year 2021 has graced us with two completely different movies both with the title “Swan Song.” One is a science fiction film starring Mahershala Ali and produced by Apple and the other is an LGBT themed indie starring the German actor Udo Kier, and that film is the topic at hand today. Swan Song is a very low budget endeavor looking at an old gay man named Pat Pitsenbarger who was apparently memorably flamboyant in his younger days and was known to be the Liberace of Sandusky Ohio, where he worked as a hairdresser for the otherwise conservative female socialites of the small town. As the film begins Pitsenbarger is retired and living in a nursing home but learns that an old client has died and has it in her will that she wants him to style the hair on her corpse for the open casket funeral. He’s reluctant to take this job because he had a falling out with this woman back in the day but decides to do it for the money and old time sake. He then goes for a long walk through the city which takes up much of the film’s running time and encounters various elements of his past (some of them imagined) which paint the picture of what this guy’s life is and how he feels presently. This is what you’d call “regional filmmaking” and you can tell that a lot of the cast aside from Kier and a few others are not very experienced actors and the film doesn’t have a terribly sophisticated visual style. Still the portrait it paints of this guy and his long dark day and a half of the soul is compelling and you can tell the admiration that writer/director Todd Stephens has for this generation of gay men. It’s a little rough around the edges and has its contrivances but is ultimately a pretty compelling watch.
***1/2 out of Five
