Queer Beacon

Character (Karakter - 1997) - No Gay Content

By Guest Reviewer Arjan Writes

Even though "Character" is not a queer movie, it most certainly has thematic aspects that gays can relate to. The sublime "Karakter" is a Dutch production directed by Mike van Diem that won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1998. It is a modern film noir set in the gray and depressed city of Rotterdam, The Netherlands in the 1920s.

Written by famous Dutch author Frederik Bordewijk, "Karakter" tells the story of Jacob Katadreuffe (Fedja van Huet) and the strained relationship he has with his father Dreverhaven (Jan Decleir). The movie starts out with the mysterious death of Dreverhaven, whose will leaves everything to Jacob (who finds out only then that Dreverhaven was his father). Jacob is interrogated by the police and the plot unfolds through story flashbacks.

Jacob was born out of wedlock and raised by his single mother. Jacob's biological father is the influential bailiff and banker Dreverhaven, who is feared across the city for his harsh business manners. Growing up, a tumultuous relationship develops between father and son who keep running into each other. Jacob (not knowing Dreverhaven is his father) takes out several loans from Dreverhaven to start his own business. But when everything fails, Dreverhaven treats him like any other customer and demands his money back, which eventually leads to Jacob's bankruptcy.

Motivated by anger and frustration, Jacob climbs out of poverty to become one of the city's most successful lawyers.  Now, father and son often battle in court. During a final confrontation, Dreverhaven dies and Jacob is suspected of murder.

The question for viewers remains if Dreverhaven was so hard on his son because he wanted to make him strong or because he never accepted him as his own. Regardess of the answer, Jacob's biggest obstacle and source of frustration also became a source of inspiration and motivation that made him a success.

"Karakter" is a touching movie that not only features an epic duel between father and son, but is also an ultimate coming-of-age story.The underlying theme of the movie is that you can be who you want to be, no matter what people expect from you.

The movie is in Dutch with English sub-titles. The Dutch language might be a bit abrasive at first but you'll get used to it quickly. This is one of my favorite movies (and not only because my native language is Dutch).

[QB Note: SPOILER AHEAD]

Kicking and Screaming (2005) - LightShed 9

The movie is pretty bad.  It has a few hilarious moments, but it's bad overall.  Here, Will Ferrell (love him, and he can sort of act too, check out Melinda and Melinda if you don't believe me) is a guy who sucked at sports all his life.  His dad is played by Robert Duvall (hate him), who is a competitive dad.  They coach rival soccer teams.

The gay content is superb.  Our gays here are two lesbian soccer moms, played by Rachel Harris and Laura Kightlinger.  They are not central characters but they appear throughout the movie.  The son of the lesbos gets in no trouble with his little friends for having gay moms.  Great.  The movie did not receive a better score because in one scene this loser screams something about the former coach (whom Will Ferrel replaces early in the movie) being a woman now, and laughs.  It is not that big of a deal because the guy seemed liked a loser, but not nice anyway.

Kudos! But you don't need to bother seeing it, unless you really like Will Ferrell, like moi.

Kung Fu Hustle (2004) - Shipwreck 4

I was wondering when we would see gay people in kung fu type movies, and this is it. The portrayal is not too nice but was not all bad.

The movie is originally in Chinese and stars, obviously, Chinese actors. In the movie a gang charges money to “protect” citizens and business owners. Nothing new, right? But here, when the gang is lead to attack a poor neighborhood, the town’s quite ordinary people happen to show remarkable fighting skills. The movie is very good.

We had two gays here, one was the hairdresser of the small poor village (he was very brave, facing up to the evildoers). The other gay was the village’s tailor, who was also fearless. Fearlessness is certainly a nice trait for the gays; on the other hand, being gay is certainly an unusual feature for kung fu fighters (I guess that was the whole point of the movie, to display fighters that didn’t look the part). The bravery in the gay characters gave the score of 4 to the movie’s gay portrayal, a score which would have otherwise been lower due to the name calling (they used "fairy" in a derogatory manner quite a lot, without much consequence).

King Kong (2005) - No Gay Content

Nothing. No Kong on Kong action (but with good eye candies according to some -- I disagree).  Here, Jack Black is a movie director with an ambitious film project to be shot in a far away island.  Adrien Brody plays the script writer for the movie, and Naomi Watts plays the lead actress.  I did not expect the movie to be good, but it was.  Very good.  Go see it.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) - LightShed 9

The movie marks Robert Downey Junior’s return to the movies and is co-stared by Val Kilmer and his gay gut. Downey is a small time crook fleeing from police when he bumps into a different life. Something related to a movie audition that he manages to pull out. I actually liked the movie a lot. Crazy. Good crazy.

Our gay here (and not a token gay as he is a major part of the movie and plot) is played by Kilmer. Our gay is nothing less than a private dick who is hired to coach Downey’s character into acting more detective-like for a movie role. The portrayal of the gays was remarkably positive, and Kilmer did a great job into using few stereotypes while making it clear he really was gay.

The movie did not get a perfect score because the one scene where our gay would actually get some action (Kilmer kisses Downey to make the police go away and not see Downey’s criminal face) is followed by a “eww” type reaction from Downey, like he was disgusted for having been kissed by Kilmer.

But there are lots of nice scenes for the gays, especially when Kilmer calls Downey a fag-hag toward the end of the movie. Kudos!