sandover
Let's pick up what a Rotten (that is Tomato) critic says: "May just be the most sophisticated and compelling movie about the lives of black gay men ever made." That echoes uneasingly the down-playing article we listen to at a point in the film, condemning like a bunch the eminent group of Harlem Rennaissance artists, concluding like this: they will never be thoroughly cleansed; that is, from exposing themselves and readers - for they are mostly writers - to vices other than color: drugs and homosexuality; also, as an undercurrent, they will never be cleansed by their own blackness, of course.I said this echoes uneasingly the praise of the critic mentioned, and the crushing majority of the reviews. Why? The film, sanely evaluated, is like a school project; using a term paper as its framing device this unsurprisingly turns the film into a self-parody. Segregation, self-hatred, trying to find one's way, memory, self-reliance, what you will, it's all here, but it lacks a mature, assured grasp; for just plainly assured it might be, like all things trying to confuse the brave.Take, for example, albeit a crucial one, the fact that at the opening night Perry, our leading man and a young painter, is approached by a gallery owner who wants to represent him adding, "do the same themes, but in a more accessible way," thus echoing, with the exact words!, what the editor said to Zora Neale Hurston and Wallace Thurman. On top, on leaving the gallery, our leading man is submitted to thuggery by his own homophobic "brothers." A pamphlet, a libel, a manifesto and a melodrama are four different things; the film, bravely not holding back itself, mixes them all up: why use in such a blatant way the exact same words, does this make one's mark more powerful? No, it unwittingly mistakes being straightforward with being politically expedient (with just a pinch of blunt manipulation). Again, it echoes itself like a self-parody, for it does the same themes, but in a more accessible way.It wants to play a clean game but when you pile cliché on cliché disaster is what it paves for: the violence after the gallery echoes the timing of Bruce Nugent's death just after the completion of their dual portrait. We do not have any time to absorb any fact crucial for Perry's inner struggles and such a handling of timing and clichés, deprives the whole endeavor from any realistic involvement; add to that the fact our artist seems not to know the difference between arrogance and pride. And contrast it with a psychologically implausible dismissal of a white lover, because he does not think he can offer him the love he needs. After having slept some times together, and the white guy has just stepped into male-to-male love? Oh my, quite unsympathetic.So, to come back to the article and the reviews: just to overpraise a film because it is the first attempt, or attack in a virgin field does not mean the film will be redeemed; it will mostly mean that exactly the praise reads like an endeavor to downplay it in an even more haughty manner than the critic of the article in the film, that it is even more, unacknowledgedly, racist. Or, it will show the sad phenomenon of overplaying our repressed state, or liberally using it for pushing our political agenda in those wonderful years when so many things are liberally exploited, when fine distinctions are denied their status because the situation is urgent, and art becomes the veritable second rate citizen, if there ever was one. Or it just may be that losing one's virginity sounds more exciting than the sex itself; only later will one remember, or not, how the sex really was like.
joelsink
Watched "Brother to Brother" last night and thought it was excellent. A small movie shot on a small budget that packed more punch than many of the pathetic H'wood Blockbusters I've seen over the past year. You don't have to be black or gay to appreciate the artistry of this film. This is a story of a young black man coming to terms with two different prejudices, his being black, and his being gay. He meets gay writer Bruce Nugent who with other prominent artist of his day pushed the envelope of acceptance on many different levels. The flashbacks to Nugen't youth are beautifully done with period music. While it was obvious that this was a low budget film, that fact didn't take anything away from the movie. It only made me respect the makers even more for crafting such a fine film without the mega-budgets usually given to film makers. Most all of the actors did fine jobs here. Rent/buy this movie, let the studios know that there is a market for this type of film - one with heart and soul.
owen_charles
I was thoroughly impressed w/ Rodney Evan's Brother to Brother. It was a refreshing coming of age story. To add a historic context was genius. This movie was bold in that it brought to light the homosexual subtext of the Harlem Renaissance. BTB was not laden w/ stereotypical imagery that often plagues Black cinema. The setting was simple, one of which we can relate. My favorite scene was the skit that included James Balwin whereby Baldwin had to defend why being gay does nothing to hinder 'the movement.' Although Evans had many concurrent themes, the movie was not over-bearing. From familial troubles to inter-racial relationships, we saw that Perry's character was multi-dimensional Kudos!
