Pelikulaya’s queer films will make you ask: ‘Me, when?’
Positive and authentic representation humanizes queer experiences and highlights the universality of human emotions and relationships. For the longest time, queer characters in media were just treated as comic relief or mere accessories to the plot. Presenting diverse and complex queer characters can dismantle harmful gender stereotypes.
With the theme “Mga Kuwentong Mapagpalaya,” the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) celebrated last Pride Month with a special showcase of LGBTQIA+-themed movies. It delves into the realities and stories of the members of the community. Pelikulaya’s queer films will make you ask: ‘Me, when?’
“Happy Together” (1997)
by Dir. Wong Kar-wai
“Happy Together” is a classic queer film of a profound exploration of love, longing, and the complexities of human relationships. Set in Buenos Aires, Argentina, it tells the story of Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai, two Hong Kong lovers who have traveled to a distant city to start a new life.
At its core, it is a tale of love and its various manifestations. The film depicts the turbulent dynamics between them, their constant fights, and their attempts to find solace in each other. It portrays the raw and often painful realities of love while celebrating its ability to provide moments of tenderness and intimacy.
It masterfully uses the backdrop of Buenos Aires to convey a sense of displacement and alienation. The characters find themselves in a foreign land, disconnected from their roots and struggling to forge a sense of belonging. The city’s landscapes and the characters’ surroundings mirror their emotional states, creating a melancholic and introspective atmosphere throughout the film.
Their masochistic affair heightened with their desire for home personified in one another. But there is no peace in their relationship; only their troubled history and brokenness mapped out on each other’s bodies. They are never meant to be happy together.
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019)
by Dir. Céline Sciamma
A film made by a woman who is very much on fire herself.
“Portrait of a Lady on Fire” is the story of a five-day love affair, the kind that people think about for the rest of their lives. Marianne is a painter, brought to a remote oceanside house in Brittany to paint the portrait of Heloise, an upper-class woman who is soon to be married.
The thesis of the film is “Don’t regret, remember” — we follow their romance from its beginning to its inevitable end, but we must live in the memory instead of wallowing in the loss. Both women take with them parts of the other; in the epilogue, Marianne comes across little signs from Héloïse, their love echoing through their lives ever seen, reminiscent of Call Me By Your Name — a tale of doomed love — but even more affecting.
Real love may be fleeting, but as Portrait of a Lady on Fire explains, art and memory are immortal.
“The Boy Foretold by the Stars” (2020)
by Dir. Dolly Dulu
Without being outwardly subversive and formulaic, “The Boy Foretold By the Stars” traverses the realities of coming of age.
Set in the all-boys Catholic School, where both religion and spurts of machismo are mainstays, it carves a gay romance to root for. It places the lovers in the middle of religiosity but avoids turning this film into an argument against Catholic conservatism. It never loses its goal from the start, which is only to put onto a pedestal the purity of love, wherever and whenever it decides to exist.
Sure this film isn’t perfect, it could use a little bit of consistency when it comes to its visuals, but by the end of it, it still erupts with emotions.
“Billie and Emma” (2018)
by Dir. Samantha Lee
It’s more than just a queer story.
“Billie and Emma” is a coming-of-age centered on two teens who fall in love and deal with the mishaps that life throws at them. Set in an all-girls Catholic school like “The Boy Foretold by the Stars”, it perfectly captures what “love” is through the queer lens.
It is also about a girl taking agency over her own body despite the many voices attempting to undermine her decisions. The film’s triumph rests in its drawn-out conversations and painful silences all too real to resist. As the viewer, you will experience every beat with them, drowning in these silences and watching them fall in love.
While the film has its faults, offering a few rushed and almost surreal resolutions, nothing can’t be forgiven considering the comedic and light-hearted tone that the movie sets you up for by its start.
Watching these films is heartwarming, liberating, and comforting all at the same time. Some of it dwells on heavy subjects, but it represented all of them as just two people falling in and out of love. It portrays queer love in the simplest, most natural, and most realistic way.
