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All right, so I'm a romantic fool; but it doesn't deprive me of a critical faculty. Bypassing the unlikely scenario (an easy tolerance and compassionate understanding of same-sex relationships in a remote Montana community? Yes, you heard.)
if those who judged harshly were to apply the same rigorous standards to any number of anodyne, big-screen productions featuring opposite-sex couplings that defy the bounds of logic or reality, we'd see far fewer films. But until unlikely scenarios are censored altogether, I'm happy enough to suspend my disbelief, sit back and enjoy a very special kind of candy for the soul.
The story features a love triangle involving three men; played with great integrity and feeling by Arye Gross, Tim DeKay and Eric Schweig. A lonely New York artist finds the answers to his questions not all of them welcome or expected when accident sends him back to the place of his boyhood. Fledgling love and healing is helped on its way by interfering but kindly locals, with fleshed out characters and lives that are not altogether cartoon-like.
That one of the three leads happens to be American Indian is entirely incidental to the plot, but meaningful given their noticeable absence from the wider American cinema. Haven't we had enough of seeing Indians in American films only when they're running around in breechclouts? I'm sick to death of films which continue to pretend that our (modern) world consists only of straight white people, peppered with a sprinkling of token gay men who talk only in grotesquely exaggerated sibilant asides. How different are the undemonstrative gay and straight men at the heart of "Big Eden", even granted its 'magical-realist' premise.
Some clumsy storytelling and weak dialogue are offset by considerable charm, beautiful scenery and a fantastic soundtrack filled with great, off-beat country tunes. Despite its flaws, "Big Eden" didn't win numerous festival awards for being irredeemable tosh. All three lead actors do good work; but I'd single out Eric Schweig for particular praise. His cripplingly shy Pike Dexter overcomes his own shyness, and learns to show his love through cooking. He ably demonstrates his character's emotional journey, despite minimal dialogue as indeed he did so effectively in another, much younger incarnation as Uncas in "Last of the Mohicans".
If such a world as this should ever exist, I'd really want to live in it. Consider this a fine beginning; a sea change. Until the revolution comes, I'll settle for watching it, charmingly imagined in loving detail by Thomas Bezuka. Bravo.
score 7/10
LouE15 23 October 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1504786/ |
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12-3-2021 00:07:13