Thomas Dekker, who should pick better-quality hallucinogenic cookies, in Gregg Araki's Kaboom
On Saturday, Gregg Araki's Kaboom took home the Cannes Film Festival's first (unfortunately named) Queer Palm, awarded to — what? queers? Actually, it's given to a film's "contribution to lesbian, gay, bi or trans" issues.
About a dozen movies were "eligible" for the award; in other words, films screened at Cannes featuring non-heterosexual characters.
Araki's comedy/sci-fier Kaboom, which received wildly mixed reviews, is set in a university campus where a student (Thomas Dekker), while tripping on some really powerful hallucinogenic stuff, believes he has witnessed a gruesome murder. The student happens to be bisexual (queer). The murder, if it indeed took place, may be tied to the fate of the whole world.
The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt was unimpressed: "This is mostly a sophomoric exercise in black comedy, supernatural excess and apocalyptic silliness mixed in with straight/gay/bi soft-core porn."
Personally, I have nothing against the "porn" part (it's sex, people, get over it), but the "supernatural excess" does sound like a turn-off. Xavier Dolan's Les amours imaginaires / Heartbeats must have been a strong competitor, but Dolan's film about a bisexual love/lust triangle had its detractors as well.
Of the three major European film festivals, Berlin was the first to honor movies dealing with characters of various sexual orientations. The first Teddy Award was presented in 1987.
Twenty years later, the Venice Film Festival began handing out the Queer Lion, and now there's the Queer Palm.
"I thought that the world's biggest film festival could no longer ignore this sector," Queer Palm founder Franck Finance-Madureira, told Agence France Presse, adding that "the festival gave us its non-official blessing. We hope next to have a corner in the Cannes Market to attract producers and distributors."
It's good to have those awards out there, of course — will San Sebastian, Karlovy Vary, and Stockholm follow suit? — but couldn't those guys have come up with a better label for their trophies? I can't think of a single gay or bi/tri/multi person I know who refer to themselves as "queer."
Quote: AFP (via The Independent)
Photo: Why Not Productions