The Garden (1990)

"The Garden" is a series of beautiful images depicting The Passion of Christ--substituting the life of Jesus with the modern plight of gay men for understanding. A gay couple (Johnny Mills and Kevin Collins) represents Jesus and through a series of surreal and absurd visuals, the condemnation of Christ is represented. There is no story told out loud, it's within the subconscious of the movie itself and that of the viewer. The Virgin Mary (Tilda Swinton) becomes a modern day celebrity harassed by media paparazzis and Mary Magdaline (Spencer Leigh) becomes a vilified drag queen. We are treated to the campy, weird and shocking imagery of two lovers tortured by a cop dressed as Santa Claus, a drag queen stoned by debutantes in slow motion, and Jesus (Roger Cook) walking by a nuclear power station. Sounds like Monty Python.

The god-like narration is a poem about the journey the film takes and the pain of loss associated with AIDS. As the narration states, this film "wants to share this loneliness with you" and it's non-narrative, experimental and home movie like quality takes you on a wonderful "journey without direction". The film takes the persecution of Christ and puts it in modern times, or an unknown time for that matter. There are two homosexual martyrs who are persecuted like Christ, by the church, and many strange visual delights, but not much dialogue except for poetic narration. Like Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain", it's full of bizarre religious images. The set pieces and costumes are very avant-garde and colorful. If you like weird art-house films with hallucinatory imagery, you'll probably enjoy "The Garden".

Filmed in the stark environment of director Derek Jarman's coastal home in the shadow of Dungeness power station, "The Garden" is a jazzed-up home movie very much a relic of its time, a powerful and moving series of allegorical dreamscapes. The narrative unfolds to find Jarman asleep at his desk, surrounded by Christian imagery. His dreams transpose New Testament events into a contemporary context, examining repressive attitudes towards homosexuality, the AIDS crisis and exploring Jarman's own feelings towards the Church. It's a collage movie, combining images, shot on super 8 film with a soundtrack by long time collaborator Simon Fisher Turner consisting of music, noises, soundcapes, and spoken words. Never has a "home movie" been so professionally done that is is suitable for a large movie theater. Yet it is a very personal cinematic confession. Like many of Jarman's films, it is quite esoteric--but you don't have to be gay to be moved by it's sheer passion and spiritual presence. People seem to love his work or despise it. He is definitely pretentious, and The Daily Mail commented that it is Jarman's "most silly film".

Gay USA (1978)

"Gay USA" is an American documentary released in1978 and directed by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. The film focuses on the burgeoning gay rights movement in the United States at a time when it was facing hostility from homophobic assholes. Comprised of footage shot at a number of Gay Pride events around the US in 1977, the film captures a time just as the gay rights movement began facing the first organized backlash in the form of Anita Bryant and her campaign to repeal anti-discrimination protection in Dade County, Florida. Gay participants as well as critical spectators are interviewed. Footage from Gay Pride marches around the country in 1977 are edited together in this documentary to give us a gay state of the nation in the late '70s. What is most interesting when viewing this film many years after it was made are the interviews with people talking about how far gay rights had come at the time.

Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. (1943 - 1987) was an American filmmaker who produced gay pornography, gay-themed features, and documentaries. He died of an AIDS-related illness in NYC where he was born. Bressan directed 8 mainsteam films:

Buddies (1985)
Daddy Dearest (1984)
Juice (1984)
Abuse (1983)
Pleasure Beach (1983)
Gay USA (1978)
Forbidden Letters (1976)
Passing Strangers (1974)

He wrote most of his screenplays, edited "Space Rage" (1985), and was a cameraman for the Oscar-winning documentary "The Times of Harvey Milk" (1984). Tragically, most of his films are not available. They are gay films made by a gay man for a gay audience. But they are not available. Instead, gays are supposed to watch Hollywood crap like "Another Gay Movie". Furthermore, there is very little information available about Bressan and his films. Let's hope the situation improves.