Japan has a huge mainstream straight and gay following for its ever-expanding queer manga market, and this film is an offshoot of the popular manga comic Revolutionary Girl Utena. We have screened two other queer anime at the Qlub, Project A-Ko and Tokio Godfathers, which were a great success. Utena is set in a strange world with its own rules, its own mythologies, and its own aesthetics. Still, even in this world a boy is a boy and a girl is a…. wait. What is Utena? And why are all the girls falling for her/him? And why is she/he heartbroken over a queer-looking boy? And why are we in some kind of Victorian universe with rose gardens, princesses, and fencing, where we are not spared the horrors of cruelty and abuse? This movie has been described as: “A mix of Madchen in Uniform, David Lynch and Ben Hur”. And need we say more?
INTRO. SEASON 9: OFF THE WALL!
Queer films have been thrilling and enlightening audiences since the prehistory of cinema (two women kissing in 1888 in Muibridge’s Plate 444, or two men dancing together in 1895 in Dickson’s Experimental Sound Film), and will continue to do so in the future of cinema (see Ximena Cuevas’ experimental lesbian videoart, or Yobert Yang’s cottaging simulation videogame The Tearoom, of 2017). Queer-friendly and LGBTQ filmmakers have made movies in every genre: romance, documentary, thriller, fantasy, drama, adventure, horror, musical. AND they have also made movies that are impossible to classify… Because they don’t want to be classified. Because they rather invent their own genres. Because they want to use a secret code. Because they don’t care if they’re seen as camp, mad, fab, or ‘gas’. The word “queer” originally meant ‘weird’. Join us as we celebrate the weird and wonderful and forgotten heritage of unclassifiable queer films. Unique propositions, with just one thing in common: a touch of divine madness.
© Dublin Film Qlub 2018
more info: www.filmqlub.com
