Parky at the Pictures (DVD 4/7/2013)

Leading things off is Greta Schiller's documentary Before Stonewall (1984). On 27 June 1969, police raided the New York gay bar, The Stonewall Inn. In a spontaneous outburst of frustration and support, the city's gay community rioted for three nights and the Gay Rights Movement rose from the ashes. Made in conjunction with Robert Rosenberg and John Scagliotti, Schiller's compelling film uncovers the hidden history of homosexuality in the United States from the Roaring Twenties to the Swinging Sixties. Opening in Jazz Age Harlem, this densely packed survey examines the impact of wartime on women in factories and men in foxholes, the bombshell dropped by the Kinsey Report, the secret agenda of McCarthyism and the significance of organisations like the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis, as well as assessing the contribution made to the cause of equal rights by the Beat poets, film-makers like Kenneth Anger and such pioneering publications as One. Narrated by Rita Mae Brown and with contributions by Allen Ginsberg, Audre Lorde, Barbara Gittings, Harry Hay, Ann Bannon, Dorothy Hillaire, Evelyn Hooker and Hank Vilas, this remains shocking, amusing, dismaying and enlightening a quarter of a century after its first release.

Launching the fictional slate is Frank Ripploh's flamboyant Taxi Zum Klo, which was hailed as a landmark in gay cinema on its release in 1980. Unrepentantly graphic, disarmingly playful, occasionally chauvinistic and always shockingly reckless, this largely autobiographical debut now stands as an invaluable record of pre-AIDS attitudes to sex, drugs and domesticity. However, it also takes great delight in taunting the bigots who still equated homosexuality with perversion.

Having described himself in an opening voice-over as `a normal, tired, neurotic, polymorphous perverse teacher', bearded Berliner Frank Ripploh arrives at school having started his day by nakedly clambering over neighbour Orpha Termin's balcony (after locking himself out while stealing her newspaper) and flirting with garage attendant Peter Fahrni. He's popular with his class and uses his pre-breakfast escapade to introduce a lesson on luck and misfortune. But away from bowling nights with his colleagues, Ripploh devotes his time to cruising the clubs, bathhouses and public conveniences of the divided city in search of conqusts.

Dropping into a downtown cinema, he makes the acquaintance of moustachioed manager Bernd Broaderup and drives him back to his place in his sports car. But, just as they are in the middle of bathing and seducing each other, they are interrupted by distraught stranger Millie Büttner, who is seeking sanctuary from her abusive boyfriend. Instead of offering her a bed for the night, however, Ripploh has Broaderup book her into a hostel for battered woman and they resume their love-making as though nothing had happened.

The meekly monogamous Broaderup moves in and Ripploh briefly enjoys having him fuss over him and cook him nice meals. But he can't resist the thrill of the chase, even though Broaderup is hurt by the sight of him cavorting with leather-chapped pick-up Hans Gerd Mertens and the encounter necessitates a visit to doctor Jürgen Möller for a deeply intrusive rectal probe (and a gleefully frank discussion of men's urges with prostitute Ulla Topf).

Ripploh proves to be more than a little kinky himself when he hooks up with Fahrni for a sado-masochistic session that is amusing followed by a discussion of soft furnishings with fellow teacher Valeska Gerstenberg. But he winds up in hospital after contracting a disease and has to endure the humiliation of being rejected by shades-wearing Ric Schachtebek after he slips off the ward and has cabby Hans Kellner ferry him to his favourite cottaging sites. However, he soon bounces back and dumps Broaderup on a subway train after a row at an all-night drag queen ball and he boldly arrives at school in his belly dancer costume and encourages the kids to act out their fantasies (no matter how subversive or destructive they are) on the roll of a dice.

Lacing the saucy action with clips from grainy porn flicks, Ripploh succeeds in lampooning promiscuity as much as celebrating it. Moreover, he also uses an educational film on the perils of paedophilia to rile the homophobes who brand all non-straight activity as deviant. But he also muses on the transcience of physical attractiveness in wondering whether his libido and bank balance will enable him to pursue his cherished lifestyle into old age, while the constant bickering with Broaderup demonstrates that being a couple is pretty much the same whatever one's orientation.

Next up is Chris Krause's Four Minutes (2006), which sees the prison authorities detaining murderess Hannah Herzsprung resist 80 year-old music teacher Monica Bleibtreu's insistence that she has the potential to become a great pianist, especially after she assaults weasly guard Sven Pippig during her first lesson. However, Bleibtreu earns Herzsprung's trust and they discover more about each other as they travel to outside competitions. But while Bleibtreu learns about her prodigy's dead baby and her abusive father's certitude of her innocence, she refuses to divulge anything about her own past as a lesbian nurse whose Jewish lover was cruelly executed during an Allied air raid on a concentration camp. This revelation risks tipping a finely balanced, if somewhat predictable, character study into melodrama. But Krause redeems the story with a finale that's riven with anti-heroic self-destruction and a crushing sense of the futility of existence.

This powerful drama will be showing with Abbe Robinson's Private Life, which will be joined in the shorts section by Hong Khaou's Summer (both 2006), Sally El Hosaini's Henna Night (2009), Ana Moreno's Mosa, Marialy Rivas's Blokes, Deb Shoval's AWOL (all 2010), Jason Bradbury's We Once Were Tide and Christopher Radcliff's The Strange Ones (both 2011).

The prolific Christophe Honoré's is next up with Man At Bath (2010), which was originally devised as a short for a project sponsored by director Olivier Assayas and a local theatre company to showcase the Gennevilliers district of North-West Paris. Unfortunately, it often feels like a scenario that had been padded to feature length and is likely to disappoint the many admirers of Dans Paris (2006), Les Chansons d'amour (2007) and La Belle personne (2008).

Film-maker Omar Ben Sellem lives with hustler François Sagat, even though they have little in common outside the bedroom. Ben Sellem is about to go to New York to promote his latest picture, Making Plans for Lena, with its star, Chiara Mastroianni. But Sagat is jealous and he rapes Ben Sellem in frustration and is ordered to move out.

As Ben Sellem finds solace with Canadian film student Dustin Segura-Suarez, Sagat draws his likeness on the apartment wall and embarks upon a series of meaningless encounters with American art expert Dennis Cooper and his toyboy Rabah Zahi, Ben Sellem lookalike Sebastian D'Azeglio (whose face he covers with yellow gaffer tape to leave only his moustache showing) and actress Kate Moran and her fiancé Sébastien Pouderoux, with whom he has an awkward ménage after a wincingly twee guitar rendition of `The Man With the Child in His Eyes'.

Taking its inspiration from a painting by Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, the works of Georges Bataille and JD Salinger's Franny and Zooey, this passes cursory comment on such issues as intellectual incompatibility, physical longing and the nature of the gaze. But Honoré dwells overlong on the sex scenes (which include a threesome with black and Arab partners  Ronald Piwele and Lahcen el Mazouzi), with porn star Sagat often being subjected to the kind of leering that the script questions.

That said, the Gennevilliers sequences are more intriguing than those set in Manhattan, which have been shot in HD shakicam with erratic sound and seem designed to justify the casting of Mastroianni, as she meets the press and throws a hissy fit after addressing a class of bored students. Ben Sellem's fling with Segura-Suarez is no more necessary (although the latter's tattooed torso is also lingered over by Stéphane Vallée's camera) and the action rather fizzles out to the echo of Cooper's cutting remarks about bad art.

A sense of cosy outsiderness informs North Sea Texas (2011). Having earned a cult reputation directing gay-themed shorts, Bavo Defurne makes an assured feature bow with this charming adaptation of André Sollie's novella This Will Never Go Away. Set on the Belgian coast several decades ago, this appears to be just another adolescent boy's first love story. But such is Defurne's affinity for both time and place and his insight into family dynamics that this becomes a poignant study of fitting in and breaking out. 

While floozy mother Eva Van der Gucht plays the accordion at a nearby bar, 10 year-old Ben Van den Heuvel dresses up in the costumes she used to wear as a beauty queen and even flounces around in her tiara. With Van der Gucht invariably preoccupied with sulky lover Luk Wyns or her latest passing fancy at the bar, Van den Heuvel spend lots of time with neighbour Katelijne Damen and her children Nathan  Naenen and Noor Ben Taouet. As Naenen is nearly a teenager, Van den Heuvel hero worships him and, as the story moves on five years, this develops an overpowering adoration that means 15 year-old Jelle Florizoone will do almost anything that 17 year-old Mathias Vergels tells him.

Although he has grown into something of a rebel and now has his own motorbike, Vergels is somewhat smitten with Florizoone himself and they often sneak away to the garage for mutual masturbation sessions that provides the younger lad with a unique souvenir to store in the box of keepsakes he keeps hidden in his closet. However, shortly after they have an idyllic night together on a camping trip, Vergels gets a job in Dunkirk and starts a romance with French girl Ella-June Henrard. Florizoone is heartbroken and, on seeing them making out together, he lets down the tyres on Vergels's bike.

Ignoring the consolation offered by his beloved's now voluptuous sister (Nina Marie Kortekaas), Florizoone turns his attention instead to lodger Thomas Coumans, who works in the carnival and cuts such a rippling dash that both mother and son drool over him. But it's Van der Gucht who wins out, as the pair run away together, leaving Florizoone to burn his treasure chest on the beach. However, even though the long-suffering Damen finally dies, all is not as lost as Florizoone first fears, as Vergels returns home for the funeral.

Trainee ballet dancer Jelle Floorizoone makes a hugely impressive debut as the loner who always seems to be looking in the wrong place during his search for love. Vergels and Kortekaas also catch the eye, while Van der Gucht and Coumans respectively exhibit a blowsiness and a unself-consciousness that suggests where adolescent passion ultimately leads. But, as in his shorts, Defurne proves as strong in capturing atmosphere as emotion and he allows Anton Mertens's camera to linger on torsos and seascapes with a similar sensuality, while also evoking the mood of a lost golden age that is most likely the late 1960s and early 70s.

Although the story drifts slightly, the insights into youthful yearning are both delicate and unflinching. But what is most moving is the contrast between teenage dreams and adult reality and the difficulty mothers face in letting go of their children while also trying to lead lives that don't always meet with the approval of their offspring.

Also in 2011, Céline Sciamma followed up her impressive debut, Water Lilies (2007), with Tomboy, another charming study of hesitant emotions and confused identity. Variously recalling such classic Gallic childhood tales as Jean Eustache's My Little Loves (1974), François Truffaut's Small Change (1976) and Alain Berliner's Ma Vie en rose (1997), this perfectly captures the way in which younger kids accept the world around them. However, it also raises sly questions about the extent to which personalities and preferences are established in the formative years and the role that peer and parental pressure plays in forming them.

Moving into a Marne valley estate outside Paris with pregnant mother Sophie Cattani, workaholic father Mathieu Demy and pesky sister Malonn Lévana, 10 year-old Zoé Héran is entirely comfortable with being a tomboy. Yet when she meets Jeanne Disson, she is so keen to befriend her that she fails to correct her mistaken assumption that Héran is a boy and she is forced to keep up the pretence in order to avoid embarrassment.

Thus, Héran finds herself playing football with the other lads with her shirt off and stuffing some plasticine down her trunks to go swimming. She is nearly rumbled when Disson comes to the house and asks for `Michael', but the whip-smart Lévana realises what is going on and exploits the deception to her own advantage.

Naturally, the truth emerges and Héran is not only faced with repairing the damage with Disson, but also with coming to terms with the fact that her new baby brother has usurped her status within the family. But Sciamma skirts melodramatics as deftly as she avoids sexualising the puppy love that develops between Héran and Disson. Consequently, the action retains its essential innocence, even though Sciamma is constantly exploring weightier themes below the surface.

Shooting with a Canon 7D photo/film hybrid, Crystel Fournier keeps the camera moving in mostly intimate close-ups to convey the eager naturalism of the performances. Héran is sweetly gauche, but the six year-old Lévana steals just about every scene with her impish wit and delight in sharing a naughty secret. Indeed, the assurance of the young stars ultimately atones for the fact that the narrative rather peters out into predictability, with the grown-up intrusion feeling all the more contrived because Cattani and her neighbours had previously been so periperhal.

Even before Ingmar Bergman's Summer With Monika (1955), Swedish cinema had a reputation for dealing with young love in a refreshingly honest manner. Lukas Moodysson continued the trend with Show Me Love (1998). However, first-timer Lisa Aschan's She Monkeys inclines more towards such French studies of burgeoning sexuality as Catherine Breillat's A ma soeur (2001), Katell Quillévéré's Love Like Poison (2010) and the aforementioned Water Lilies and Tomboy. Consequently, this rigorously controlled rite of passage succeeds in being both psychologically intense and teasingly subversive, especially in tackling the decidedly tricky topic of pre-pubescent passion.

Fifteen year-old Mathilda Paradeiser and her seven year-old sister Isabella Lindqvist live with their father (Sergej Merkusjev), who is invariably out at work or on a date. Paradeiser has a trial with the local voltige team and coach Maria Hedborg welcomes her to the team after an audition to test her gymnastic skills and her affinity with horses. She is watched closely by Linda Molin, the star of the troupe, who is slightly older and prettier than Paradeiser and who seems torn between treating her as a rival or an acolyte.

When the pair meet at the swimming baths, Molin pushes Paradeiser off the high diving board and she sustains a nose bleed. As she recovers in the junior pool, policemen Adam Lundgren and Sigmund Hovind come over to flirt with them and Paradeiser promises to give the former a call.

Meanwhile, Lindqvist is feeling self-conscious after watching some women in the showers and then being informed by a lifeguard that she has to wear a bathing suit that covers her chest. Bullying Merkusjev into taking her shopping, she selects a wholly unsuitable leopard print bikini and begins plotting how she can use it to entice older mixed race cousin Kevin Caicedo Vega, who occasionally acts as her babysitter.

Molin persuades Paradeiser to invite Lundgren and Hovind to a late-night beach rendezvous and they show up in a speedboat. Unimpressed by their clumsy chat-up lines, Molin goes for a swim and is peeved to find Paradeiser and Lundgren have slipped away for some privacy. She finds them and begins giving Lundgren orders. He remove his trousers and underwear in the expectation of kinky gratification, but the girls steal his clothing and run away.

Now almost inseparable, Molin and Paradeiser get tipsy and begin frolicking. However, when Molin attempts to kiss her, Paradeiser backs away and a frostiness is evident at their next meeting at the stables, where Paradeiser is struggling to make the grade, as she lacks the extrovert personality to go with her athletic ability. Consequently, she refuses to attend the party that Molin throws for the team. But she does sneak into the house after the other guests have gone and watches Molin sleep.

Clearly, inappropriate behaviour runs in the family, as while Paradeiser is snooping on Molin, Lindqvist marches into the sitting room with a boom box and proceeds to do her best impression of a sexy dance for the stunned Caicedo Vega. When she announces her love for him, he tells her that cousins shouldn't think of each other in that manner and she orders him out of her bedroom.

Paradeiser also takes rejection badly and kneecaps Molin with a rake so that she has to withdraw from the voltige team. However, she says nothing about the true cause of her injury and Paradeiser takes her moment in the spotlight with her customarily impassive expression betraying none of the emotions she must be feeling at fulfilling her dream.

So unflinching is Lisa Aschan's approach that this studied examination of juvenile sexual mores feels dangerously transgressive and viewing often becomes a deeply unsettling experience. By limiting the backstories of the principals, Aschan forces the focus onto their inexpert efforts to exploit their untested feminine wiles to exert control over each other and their menfolk (as well as Paradeiser's dog). Moreover, she explores the connection between the physical and the psychological, between pleasure and pain and between passion and power in such a provocative manner that the most innocent of situations start to take on disconcerting undertones.

Despite the odd improv longueur, the performances of the lead trio are remarkable for non-professionals making their debut. But Aschan reinforces the mood of heightened naturalism through a combination of Linda Wassberg's crisply detached photography, sound designer Andreas Franck's mix of wind, bird and sea sounds and Finnish composer Sami Sänpäkkilä's disquietingly thrumming electronica score. Yet, while Aschan's willingness to take risks is laudable, there is something cold and calculating about She Monkeys that will leave many feeling as manipulated as the film's cipher males.

Personal cinema has been one of the enduring legacies of the nouvelle vague. It has also been the cornerstone of much American independent cinema since the early 1980s. Yet, in drawing on his liaison with literary agent Bill Clegg for his new drama, Keep the Lights On (2012), director Ira Sachs has curiously opted to eschew intimacy in taking a detached view of the incidents that make and mar the relationship over several years between a Danish documentarist and his crack-addled lover. Given that the story has already been chronicled by Clegg in his memoir, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man, it suggests that Sachs has exercised great restraint in not presenting his own version of events. However, in being quite so fair minded, he has succeeded only in creating a couple of characters who scarcely invite empathy.

Some time in 1998, while still suffering the anguish of a recent break-up, thirtysomething Thure Lindhardt finds himself in need of a distraction from the profile he is researching of pioneering gay photographer and film-maker Avery Willard. He calls a chatline and derives a certain pleasure from flirting and negotiating the terms and conditions of a possible meet. However, much to his own surprise, he arranges a date with Zachary Booth, a lawyer with a major New York publishing house, who tumbles into his bed, despite protests that he has a girlfriend.

Lindhardt confides details of his growing crush to sister Paprika Steen and producer friend Julianne Nicholson, who both urge him to be careful. However, within a few months, Booth has dumped his girlfriend and moved and the pair are swept along by passion and the sheer excitement of discovering someone new. But, almost immediately, Sachs pushes the action forward two years, and we not only learn that Booth is beginning to grow restless, but that he has also developed an addiction that causes him to disappear for days on end and refuse to discuss his recklessness upon his return. Lindhardt keeps the truth from Booth's boss (Jodie Markell) and arranges an intervention that results in him agreeing to go into rehab. But the romance is over and Lindhardt seeks solace in artist Miguel Del Toro.

When we catch up with them again, Booth seems to have regained control over his life and Lindhardt is still sufficiently smitten to suggest they try again. However, while he is premiering his film in Berlin in 2004, Booth goes on another bender and Lindhardt finds him three weeks later in a hotel with rent boy Shane Stackpole. He admits he needs help, yet still makes Lindhardt wait in the next room until he has finished copulating and, when forced to make a choice between commitment and uncertainty, he breaks Lindhardt's heart once more.

Complete with clips from Avery Willard's own films and cameos by intellectuals Marilyn Neimark, James Bidgood, John Michael Cox, Jr, Henry Arango and Ed Vassallo assessing his significance, this is an intriguing treatise on the distinction between an artist's creative life and their physical cravings and emotional needs. Shooting on 16mm stock, Greek cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis makes evocative use of bright lights to expose every aspect of the relationship, while Sachs adroitly positions his protagonists in front of open doors to convey their reluctance to commit and uncertainty of where they are actually heading, both as individuals and as a couple.

Equally effective are Amy Williams's production design and a score inspired by the compositions of Arthur Russell (whose career was so sensitively revisited by Matt Wolf in the 2008 documentary, Wild Combination). But the action seems to take place in a netherworld of self-preoccupation that cannot even be breached by calamities like 9/11. Moreover, it lacks the genuine sense of connection between the characters that made Andrew Haigh's Weekend (2011) so credible and compelling. Similarly, a hint of the wit that informed Bill Sherwood's evidently influential Parting Glances (1984) would not have gone amiss. But, while Sachs and co-scenarist Mauricio Zacharias concoct some stinging exchanges, Booth's bad boy remains something of a cipher, while Lindhardt struggles with the psychological shading that would make him seem less like just another vulnerable victim of a feckless lover. Moreover, the writers find too little for Nicholson and the ever-excellent Steen to do. So, in spite of making a welcome return to overtly Queer themes for the first time since The Delta (1997), Sachs strays from the edginess that made Forty Shades of Blue (2005) and Married Life (2007) so impressive.