The story tries to sell itself as feminist but to me, a woman watching, it was anything but. The synopsis is, ‘When an injured male leftist on the run discovers the remote stronghold of the Female Liberation Army, a radical feminist terrorist group whose mission is to usher in a female world order, one of the members takes pity on him and hides him in the basement. However, the man in the basement is just one of many secrets threatening to disrupt the FLA’s mission from within. Balancing sharp social commentary and salacious popcorn entertainment, iconic filmmaker Bruce LaBruce has created an experience that’s a blast to watch and just as much fun to dissect afterward.’ Sounds great. But when you ‘dissect’ each part of what you watched, you walk away with something completely different. I can sum it up simply by saying it was made as an excuse to be sexual and extreme.

I was surprised to read that Indiewire proclaimed this as one of the fifteen greatest lesbian films of all time because if that’s the case, lesbians have a very low bar unless bad sex scenes are the most important factor in their rating system. There are a few reasons I say that. One is because the acting wasn’t a crucial element of the actor’s abilities to writer/director Bruce LaBruce. While watching a feature film, an audience member would like the actors to be able to pull off a line. Sex scenes are littered throughout for they must be more essential they be there rather than be good to the creator of the film. The first sex scene, outside of the very X-Rated gay porn (being watched by two female leads and framed nicely for us to watch, too), isn’t good either. It appears as though the actors aren’t comfortable with one another and the song that was chosen to play during their lovemaking, which literally screams, ‘Down with the Patriarchy,’ is so bad it makes the ears of anyone within auditory range of the tune hurt slightly.

There is some clever cinematography that suggests LaBruce does have a gift for how to bring a story together, such as when the women in the film turn their male leftist stowaway into a female by showing us what I assume were real shots of the procedure in different stages, but other sloppy editing decisions makes the rest of the work hard to forgive.

Also, having these characters attempt to make a statement about the objectifying of women by men and a patriarchal society is totally missed. As a woman, I found it to be the opposite of what the premise alleges. The Female Separatists want to be heard, accounted for and treated as equals and then to take over. Classes on ‘HERstory’ are taught to bored young women who want only to get back to the bedroom and have pillow fights, complete with feathers, of course, and outside of repeating some philosophical quotes, it doesn’t seem anything they’re learning is really sinking in. But why would it? After all, Big Mother (Susanne Sachße as Susanne Sachsse) gives them no reason to want to stay. She’s every bit the tyrant that she claims all men to be, ordering the girls, forbidding them and even cruelly punishing them. Women are more nurturing by nature so the idea that such a sadistically hate-filled charter would exist seems ludicrous. Surely fantasy could explain the purpose of the film but not a good one. However, there is also learning what Parthenogenesis means. We are told that Parthenogenesis is a type of sexual reproduction where the egg develops an embryotic form without male penetration. This has yet to be found in mammals. Will one or more of the mistresses in the film be the first to carry this to term? If you can stay with this intensely misguided film long enough, it does appear this is the big question LaBruce was leading us to. Men are pigs and women are creation. If he had wanted to be taken more seriously, I believe LaBruce would have been, but he needed to stick one message. Even then it was mired in a hodgepodge of events that made the narrative anything but engaging. I don’t know, maybe this can catch some future cult following but I would be surprised if it did.

Opening in Phoenix Exclusively at Harkins Valley Art

‘Bernard and Huey’ was a favorite at the Phoenix Film Festival this year. The originality or the story, characters and the acting were refreshing, and it became even more so when the director, Dan Mirvish, stood before us and gave us a little history of how the film came to be. ‘Bernard and Huey’ is based on a cartoon strip of these two men that were in Playboy magazine in the 1950’s. The characters were created by Jules Feiffer who later wrote a script about the two pals who reunite many years after college to find they’re nothing like they once were. Learning the history of the story made the film much more fascinating but the writing had already won me over. The fact that Jim Rash and David Koechner are Bernard and Huey leads one to ask, what could go wrong? Why ask this? Based on characters they’ve played before I knew the characters would be colorful, to say the least. So, the answer to the question is nothing. Nothing goes wrong. Not for the film, that is.

When they were young, Bernard (Rash) was a shy kid who couldn’t speak to girls and Huey (Koechner) was a jerk who took advantage of them whenever and wherever he could; he couldn’t care less who he tortured along the way. Huey enjoyed telling him tales of how he treated lovers and Bernard would learn but was shocked and disgusted as he listened. He tried to be a good influence but nothing doing… Huey and his lack of maturity wouldn’t budge.
When we meet the men, Bernard is rather successful and Huey, having just lost his wife and child due to being a chump, needs a place to crash.

Though he’s no longer a pushover, he’s still kind-hearted and Bernard gives him a place to stay. He’s also loving seeing his hero dethroned. However, letting him back into his life, he recalls all the reasons why they didn’t remain friends. A very ‘Odd Couple’ feeling begins to emerge, and these reasons come rushing back to him when Huey starts taking advantage of him. Bernard has done well but who he once was comes flooding back and he begins to lose faith in himself, especially when it comes to women who he was doing very well with until Huey came back into his life.

Flashbacks are revealing and help you see that Bernard is reverting to his old self because he’s now attempting to one-up Huey and goes too far. Zelda is that too far. Keep in mind, Bernard sees himself as better, more advanced mentally, than Huey but really, they are one and the same and that’s what Bernard has tried so desperately not to reveal to anyone. He hates that Huey’s arrogant, nasty attitude has taken him to have to dive into his own hubris because he has gone to such great lengths to appear above the norm.

Why you’ll love this film so much is the dialogue. It seems perfectly written for Jim Rash to deliver and when he goes head to head with his attempt at getting back at Huey, it works even better. Zelda is that ‘too far’ he’s willing to travel. Bernard starts seeing Zelda, (Whitman) a twenty-something aspiring graphic novelist who is also… Huey’s daughter. Bernard tries to but cannot resist her charms. She likes being with him but is looking for help to get published. Bernard doesn’t want Huey finding out about them, but Huey does find out and doesn’t have the reaction to the news one might think he’d have. Knowing that his child is an extension of himself, Huey knows Zelda is only going to devour him. Bernard isn’t prepared for her but at the same time maybe needs her before he can ever fully grow up.
I’ve spoken of how wonderful Whitman and Rash are but can’t leave out Koechner’s brilliance as a modern-day Neanderthal. His bold hilarity as he works impeccably opposite Rash to bring to life a script based on a comic strip is frustratingly precise. Mirvish couldn’t have cast this film better.