Title: But I Was a Girl: The Story of Frieda Belinfante |
Release Date: 1999 |
Nationality and Language: |
Running time: 69 min |
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Distributor and Production Company: First Run/Icarus |
Director; Writer: Toni Boumans |
Producer: Maarten Kramer |
Cast: |
Technical: video |
Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site: |
Review: Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender
films in 2000: Various reviews But I Was a Girl Broken Hearts Club The Well (Dr. T) The The
most remarkable film is (Tony Boumans, director) But
I Was a Girl, (69 minutes) Dutch,. Actually, it is a video, shown with a video
player projected in a manner that resembles electronic film. This documentary traces the life of cellist
and conductor Freida Belinfante,
from her life in Amsterdam before World War II as the Nazi storm clouds
gathered, her resistance and her narrow escapes from the Gestapo, to her
migration to the United States and southern California, to become the
conductor of the Orange Couny Symphony Orchestra in
the 1950’s, only to lose her contract ostensibly because her “lifestyle,”
during a period of McCarthyism. This
film does come across with the style of a Biography or History channel
program, but the film presents plenty of shots of pre-war Amsterdam, and
Europe during the occupation, as well as Hollywood and other wetern USA sites in the 50’s. Is I’ll
note another important documentary here, Into
the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport
(2000, Warner Independent Pictures/Holocaust Memorial Museum, dir.
Mark Jonathan Harris, 122 min, PG), produced by the The
big-looking, self-proclaimed “romantic comedy” The Broken Hearts Club: A
Romantic Comedy, from Sony
Pictures Classics (2000, 110 minutes, sponsored by DeskTech), directed by Greg Berlanti
(Everwood,
Jack & Bobby), starring Tomothy Olyphamt, Andrew
Keegan, John Mahoney, Dean Cain, Zach Braff (Garden State), was a read crowd
pleaser. People will compare this film
to other “straight” films in this genre, such as Oliver Stone’s Joy Luck
Club, the Ice Storm, The Big Chill, Four Friends, Three
Coins in the Fountain, and maybe even The Buena Vista Social Club—as
well as the original 1970 classic about a homosexual birthday party, The
Boys in the Band. And when I say
big, this film looked bloated, complete with wide-screen and Digital, and yet
it seemed rather claustrophobic, with none of the location scenes (whether
softball games or dance floors like Studio 1) effectively shown. And the protagonists—all of them except the
“hairless” newbie, Kevin (Andrew Keegan)—seem rather conventional and bland
(even the birthday boy photographer and homeowner Dennis (Tony Olymphant). Kevin
seems to have real character, though.
Now, I could think of 15 or 20 men whose real lives could fit into a
movie like this and seem fascinating; and maybe that is a point: comedy
writing is really very difficult—issues of personality and character
and individuality don’t always lend themselves to this Adam Sandler/Jim Carrey shows his butt—style of
screenwriting. The epigraphs (in the
style of Tammy Faye) don’t work either. I
could compare this film to a Robert Altman-style film, too, and here I’ll
mention Artisan Entertainment’s Dr. T and the Women (2000, not
in the festival), with Richard Gere. Here a straight gynocologist’s
personal life (one of his golf caddies calls him “the lucky kind” of doctor,
oh, so heterosexual) unravels slowly until his
lesbian daughter’s very surprising wedding, to be broken up by a Texas-style
tornado (filmed as effectively as Twister) and a practical but metaphysical
and ufological confusion that would suit afficandos of Owens Valley scenery and Disney’s The
Vanishing Prairie. Dr. T shows a
lot of dazzling footage of Big D (that means, The
other big film at the Festival was The Well, (2000, Cowboy films, dir. Samantha Lang,
based on the novel by Elizabeth Jolley) an
Australian mystery that tries to combine the styles of Peter Weir on the one
hand and Hitchcock on the other. (The director is Samantha Lang, and it stars
Pamle Rabe, Miranda Otto,
Paul Chubb, Frank Wilson, and Steve Jacobs, sponsored by A Brother’s Touch
bookstore.) Two lesbians living near
the
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Related reviews: Garden State; Everwood; Latter Days, etc. |
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