Queer history cannot escape its own evanescence. Neither can queer spaces, really. To judge by the conceit behind Georden West’s fabulous, if oblique, “Playland,” such ephemerality is precisely what makes such a history and such spaces so ripe for memorializing. In this case, West has turned his attention to the Playland Café which, over its storied tenure from 1937 to 1998, became a fixture of the Boston gay scene. Rather than narrativize the bar’s own story, West opts for a collage-like approach, conjuring up figures from the bar’s many pasts in intersecting vignettes that together capture the spirit of the Playland Café, both at its glory and now following its demise.
At the center of “Playland” is an interdisciplinary sensibility. West’s film builds itself out with the use of archival images, historical audio clips, choreographed numbers and glittering tableaux vivants. This is an excavated history that requires collapsing and colliding worlds and words.
At the center of “Playland” is an interdisciplinary sensibility. West’s film builds itself out with the use of archival images, historical audio clips, choreographed numbers and glittering tableaux vivants. This is an excavated history that requires collapsing and colliding worlds and words.
- 2/2/2023
- by Manuel Betancourt
- Variety Film + TV
The very definition of an "offbeat" comedy, My Normal stars Nicole Laliberte as Natalie, a down-to earth lesbian dominatrix who dreams of becoming a filmmaker. Light, quirky, and very playful, it's probably the only film about Bdsm that you could comfortably take your mother to see.
Natalie is immediately likable. The early scenes establish her as a master of her kinky profession, while still remaining a likable, friendly, girl-next-door kind of lady. She and three of her closest friends do "sessions" where they dominate their willing, paying, male clientele. Together and individually (depending on the client's preference), they ply the trade of Bdsm, then hang out and go for drinks afterward.
Natalie is a lesbian, a fact that is casually broached early on in the film, but it has no bearing on her profession. She and her partners in domination, Sonia (Maine Anders), and Melanie (Naama Kates), see themselves as "alternative therapists,...
Natalie is immediately likable. The early scenes establish her as a master of her kinky profession, while still remaining a likable, friendly, girl-next-door kind of lady. She and three of her closest friends do "sessions" where they dominate their willing, paying, male clientele. Together and individually (depending on the client's preference), they ply the trade of Bdsm, then hang out and go for drinks afterward.
Natalie is a lesbian, a fact that is casually broached early on in the film, but it has no bearing on her profession. She and her partners in domination, Sonia (Maine Anders), and Melanie (Naama Kates), see themselves as "alternative therapists,...
- 9/26/2010
- by Danielle Riendeau
- AfterEllen.com
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