Te keremutunga o nga atua | Twilight of the Gods
Directed by Stewart Main
15min, New Zealand, 1995
A Maori warrior comes upon the aftermath of a battle to find that the only survivor is a wounded enemy soldier. His wishes to avenge his fallen countrymen by finishing off this helpless enemy but the gods won’t allow it (as conveyed to him through a spirit bird). Anguished that he must instead treat the soldier’s wounds, he’s further repelled by the soldier’s incessant homosexual advances. Slowly and surprisingly, a change comes over the warrior to accept the soldier’s advances, but the war all too soon intrudes upon them.
Google synopsis
Crafting a work that is as homoerotic, as it is brutal, [director] Main wondrously breaks free from the confines of your standard gay cinema to showcase how two men of differing cultures, languages and warring factions, become one. Beautifully detailing Maori traditions, whilst equally questioning just how well should you trust your enemy, this is title that deserves to be more widely known, even if the b/w print I saw looked like a third generation copy, causing it to resemble more a film from the gay cinema underground movement of the 1950s, than a work produced in the 1990s. It does however mark an early appearance by noted New Zealand actor Marton Csokas, in what is undoubtedly his most revealing performance.
Gay Celluloid
Main’s film, shot in rich black-and-white hues that remind one more of the cinema of the 1960s than 1990s when this work was shot, provide it with an archaic look that seems appropriate for its historical timelessness. It seems amazing, given its rather graphic presentation of sexual genitalia and acts that it was funded, in part, by the New Zealand Film Commission, obviously an organization far more open-minded that any US governmentally-supported organization might be.
World Cinema Review
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