If Roger Corman (e.g. Attack of the Fifty Foot Cheerleader (2012) had produced a film about the complexities of coming out or if Bruce La Bruce (e.g. Hustler White (1996)) had directed a seemingly straightforward narrative about homophobia in a small town, Ganymede might have been the result.
Yes, this often-heartfelt exploration of a young wrestler from an EXTREMELY religious household, one who's seeking his first same-sex kiss, is in the end a hoot and a half. Coming to that realization, though, might take you through two or three Twizzlers and a handful of popcorn. Indeed, all the vicissitudes of confronting one’s queerdom in a family that starts praying against Satan at breakfast over pancakes are achingly chronicled here with a touch of the horrific.
The opening: It's 1989 and an unknown gent with a heavy brick tied to each of his arms, jumps into a lake. Very Virginia Woolf.
Skip to the present day: an attractive, bare-chested high schooler, Lee Fletcher (Jordan Doww), is darting through town under a starry night as any athlete might. He, however, decides to also to jump into a lake where almost instantly he beholds a blurry vision. Underwater he silently screams.
That won’t be the last of his shrieks.
You see, Lee is the only son of the town’s county commissioner—a homophobic, head-thumping, Bible-verse-quoting zealot. The young man's high-strung mother who has a meltdown at the thought of an LGBTQI-soul breathing within 20 feet of her yard isn’t much more comforting. No wonder that as Lee falls into love and desire for an openly queer schoolmate, Kyle Culper (the seductive Pablo Castelblanco), he starts hallucinating that monsters are closing in on him and bathroom sinks are gurgling up blood.
Could it get worse? Of course. When Lee's caught nuzzling with Klye, Dad sends him to the local rabid pastor (David Korchner) who isn't much of a help. He's just rubbing salt into the lad’s already festering mental wounds.
Pastor: Lee, do you have feelings for that boy?
Lee: (Silence)
Pastor: I believe we are dealing with a Ganymede.
Lee: What is a Ganymede?
Pastor: A Ganymede is an unrepentant homosexual, usually a man or boy who is uncommonly beautiful, and they're so deeply entwined with demonic forces that their homosexuality begins to take over and attract others with uncontrollable same-sex urges . . . demonic disturbances.
Add a few electroshock treatments, a bit of midnight toilet-stall cruising, plus Kyle's inability to wear a shirt for more than five minutes at a time, and you have a feature that might resonate with you for days and days. It has for me.
What's odd here, though, is that if you edit out about 22 minutes of Ganymede, you could wind up with a highly persuasive ad for conversion therapy groups. Ah, but those 22 minutes make a whole world of difference. Instead of burning the RuPaul poster over your bed, co-directors Colby Holt and Sam Probst's highly entertaining Ganymede might just have you running out the door in search of a same-sex hand to hold whether you are queer or not.
Covering similar ground at this year's East Village Queer Film Festival, but without the monsters, was Nicholas Hansell's highly effective short, "Flowers." Here another winsome high-school youth, Josh (Rocco Roberts), a soccer player, is yearning to connect with an openly gay peer. How does we know the object of his desire, Eddie (Henry Leith), is openly queer? Well, he's reading a book daily while sitting with his back against a tree. That sort makes you wonder if any heterosexual has a library card.
With time ticking away—the film's only 20 minutes long—Josh has to go to a party and kiss a girl in a bathroom without causing himself or anyone else to barf. Why? He's trying to prove to his sports-mate (Blake Weise), a hunky homophobe, that he's not that way. Can true boy-on-boy love win the day before the end credits roll? Well, with the aid a whole lot of daisies, a happy ending blooms forth and a nice career ahead for the director, who's currently working on a feature, seems assured.
Hansell, formerly a location scout for several features, noted at the talkback after the screening that Brokeback Mountain was a major cinematic turning point in his young life. He didn't, however, reveal if he identified more with Ennnis Del Mar or Jack Twist.
Also screened that night was writer/director Nicolle Marquez's 5-minute "Thank You," possibly only the second eco-friendly, explicitly lesbian offering I’ve ever viewed.
The first was Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkles' documentary, Water Makes Me Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure (2019). Besides shining a light on how bottled water companies are destroying the environment and where California waste matter goes after being flushed, the directors of Wet, for our benefit no doubt, supplied highly detailed examples of how women can have sex in a lake without disturbing aquatic life.
Back to Marquez, who grew up in Puerto Rico and has her second Master's Degree In Gender studies.
In "Thank you," she avoids all mentions of H2O. Instead, she plays a gal awaiting in her apartment for her date, portrayed by the truly stunning lass Andrea Reyes, who arrives with wine and some other goodies in plastic bags.
IN PLASTIC BAGS? OH NO! HOW COULD SHE?
Marquez's distraught character runs into the bathroom, slams the door, and starts smoking. Meanwhile, Reyes' charmer, not sure of what just occurred, meanders into the bedroom, lies down, and feels up the coverlet without being aware that her plastic bags are coming to life. Before you can scan your organic plums at Whole Foods, both gals are suffocated to death, a fitting reminder that the world’s population utilizes 5 trillion plastic bags a year. That's a 160,000 a second, dental dams not included.
By the way, the audience laughed hysterically throughout these five minutes. I though hid in fear under my seat due to my severely underdiagnosed plastophobia.
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Ganymede is currently available on Cable and Digital VOD, including Apple TV, Fandango at Home, and Prime Video. Thank You can be sought out at numerous upcoming film festivals, including The New York Latino Film Festival; PrideFull Film Festival; and Reel Q: Pittsburgh LGBTQ+ Film Festival.)