March 9, 2001

GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

From Eden to Uranus

Four of the Cleveland festival's six gay films are documentaries, including one from northeast Ohio

by Anthony Glassman

For the 25th anniversary of the Cleveland International Film Festival, the organizers have pulled out all the stops for the Ten Percent Cinema, their showcase of gay and lesbian (this year, pretty much gay) films.

They have six new films with multiple showings, as well as "Absolut Best," an

anthropologist; Letters to Uranus: the Hidden Life of Tedd Burr, a Cleveland film chronicling a conversation, shot in real time, between filmmaker Lenny Pinna and actor/ director Tedd Burr, and, making its Ohio debut, the Sundance-award winning Scout's Honor, chronicling the battle against the homophobia in the Boy Scouts of America.

Lest one get the impression that all of the films being shown are serious fare, the film

Nico and

evening with Comedy Central's Daily Show film reviewer Frank DeCaro. They are also bringing back the classic Longtime Companion as part of their 25th anniversary celebration.

Four of the six films that are part of the event are documentaries, covering widely varying aspects of life in the gay community. The documentaries are Trembling Before G-d, an award-winning film about gays and lesbians in the world of Orthodox Judaism; Keep the River on Your Right: a Modern Cannibal Tale, about Tobias Schneebaum, an openly gay painter-turned-

festival folks are also debuting Nico and Dani, a Spanish film glorifying underage sex, smoking, drinking and drugs, and Big Eden, an American indie starring Arye Gross as a New York artist who returns to the home of his youth in Montana to care for his grandfather, while struggling with his love for his old high school best friend.

And, as mentioned before, Longtime Companion, the 1990 film that garnered Bruce Davison an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.

Big Eden

Freshman film maker Thomas Bezucha both wrote and directed this film about going home, and it's an impressive achievement for the former vice president of Ralph Lauren.

Henry Hart (Àrye Gross), a successful artist in New York, gets called back to his home town of Big Eden, Montana, on the eve of the opening of his big gallery show. (The Whitney winds up buying two of his paintings, even though he's not there to schmooze. Of course, that's beside the point.) It seems his grandfather Sam, who raised him since childhood, has had a stroke, and Henry must go home for a while to take care of him.

There are, of course, some small complications. First of all, Henry is gay, something only his grandfather's friend Grace (Louise Fletcher) knows. Second, Henry's great unrequited love, former high school heartthrob Dean, is back in town after splitting up with his wife.

Although at first gun shy, Henry starts spending time with Dean, hoping to rekindle a romance that never really got off the ground in the first place.

By forty minutes into the movie, everyone in town realizes Henry

is gay, although Henry himself doesn't seem to know they've figured it out. It's apparently an unusually accepting Montana town; no one cares what team he plays for.

Okay, that is a lie. Pike Dexter, the Onandaga man who owns the general store, cares that Henry is gay, although not for the reasons you might think. Pike has had a crush on Henry since high school, just as Henry has on Dean, causing the quiet, gentle man no end of heartbreak.

Pike manages to work his way into Henry and Sam's lives, but his efforts might be for naught when Dean decides that maybe. he and Henry could have a romantic relationship.

It is a warm and funny movie, right down to the happy ending. Whose happy ending, I won't tell you, but nobody dances alone at this ball.

Gross and Schweig were excellent. The character of Henry is supposed to be kind of whiny and neurotic, a little self-centered but not maliciously so, and Arye Gross is good at that. Eric Schweig is a very physical actor; his entire body illustrates Pike's unease, nervousness, expectation, elation and disappointment. (As a side note, this reviewer would have happily taken the lovesick Mr. Dexter off Henry's hands; he was like a little lost puppy, only about 6' 2".)

Of course, the supporting cast was also magnificent, but with Louise Fletcher, who played the menacing Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, what else did you expect? Continued on next page

Trembling before G-d