SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO
Bob Clark’s 1967 “She-Man: A Story of Fixation”
is objectionable, but very telling about the era in
which it was made.
➤ MUBI, from p.38
Fixation” was the ‘60s equivalent
of sissy porn. It includes an intro
and coda from a doctor, portrayed
by an actor so stiff that Clark must
be deliberately parodying the ending
of “Psycho,” offering 1967’s
version of liberal tolerance. While
that comes off wildly patronizing
now, affi rming Rose’s heterosexuality
and calling Dominita a man
while deadnaming her, it also explicitly
says that there’s nothing
wrong with a man enjoying crossdressing,
that it should be legal to
be trans, and that Dominita went
wrong only in her abusive behavior
toward other people, not in her
gender identity. These sentiments
weren’t exactly common in the
‘60s, especially in a context this
erotically charged.
“She-Man: A Story of Fixation”
is an oddball curio; Jean
Genet’s 25-minute short “A Song
of Love” is a sublime reverie. Yet
they’re both driven by sexual desire.
A silent fi lm made in 1950, it
was the great French writer’s only
foray into directing cinema. Using
a prison setting he knew well from
life, it turns cigarettes into phallic
symbols. Genet claimed to have
written his novels in prison with
one hand while masturbating, and
that sense of charged fantasy permeates
every frame of “A Song of
Love.”
The fi lm’s characters can only
touch each other in a dream scene;
the prison setting means that in
reality even the guard is confi ned
to a voyeuristic round of gazing at
men through the peephole. (Contradictorily
but not uncommonly,
“A Song of Love” fi nds erotic delight
in police power while their control
of prisoners plays out the worst aspects
of the male gaze, even hinting
at rape and murder.) Astonishingly
for a fi lm made this early, it shows
men genuinely masturbating.
“A Song of Love” takes the subject
of sex into a dreamlike direction
that hardcore porn could have
pursued but rarely has. The fi lm
layers fantasy upon fantasy, with
a style driven by pure desire rather
than storytelling logic, but ultimately,
what matters is the ability
to pull real tenderness and joy from
such a brutal, isolating world. It
was an obvious infl uence on Todd
Haynes’ “Poison,” but the later fi lm
seems tame in comparison, even if
it was controversial in 1991.
Marie Losier’s 2018 “Cassandro
the Exotico!” echoes the
underground superstars of Andy
Warhol’s world. Shooting in 16mm
and acting as her own cinematographer
and sound recorder, she
profi les Saul “Cassandro” Armendariz.
He’s a gay professional wrestler
in Mexico whose persona in
the ring incorporates drag. “Cassandro
the Exotico!” pivots around
the paradox between the opulent
theatricality of Cassandro’s act
and his larger-than-life personality
Father’s Day
Specials!
KYZ2020_4.3125x5.625_revised.indd 1 5/29/2020 1:04:11 PM
and the fact that wrestling is
destroying his body. In an early
scene, he shows off his many
scars, and he constantly requires
surgery. As he ages, the damage
done in his younger days becomes
harder to live with; in the fi lm’s fi -
nal scenes, he appears to have diffi
culty walking. A recovering addict,
he says that child abuse led
him to use drugs to cope with that
mental pain, but one wonders if
physical pain also played a part.
Losier’s rough style, however,
emphasizes the grungier aspects
of Cassandro’s life without doing
justice to his aspirations toward
glamour. She leaves in visual and
audio noise; the sound is frequently
murky, making one strain to hear
Cassandro. This impressionistic
view of Cassandro’s life falls fl atter
than Losier’s earlier documentary
about the late transgender musician
Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
Without being much interested in
narrative, it still follows a predictably
sad, even tragic trajectory.
For complete information on MUBI
offerings and subscriptions, visit
mubi.com.
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