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PART ISAN REVIEW
(unjust?) puni shment will be. Still , if we think of the movi e as the message,
then why not put out an upbea t fabl e to its vi ewers-many of whom will
be in black ghettos-rath er than th e usual pi cture of doom and gloom, and
of defea t and separati sm. Still anoth er tale of rehabili tation ,
My
Name IsJ oe,
recounts the life o f an unemployed ex-alcoholi c who is fo rtunate enough
to fall in love with a communi ty health worker. After Joe nea rly founders
because he (unsu ccessfully) tri es
to
help hi s bes t fri end fi ght the drug car–
tel in order to save thi s fri end 's addi cted wife, that hea rtbreaking story too
has a relativel y happy ending.
velvet Colamill e,
a film of a different stripe, celebrates gay culture and
excess.
It
is the loudes t and mos t fi-eneti c spec tacl e I have ever sat thro ugh.
Th e audi ence applauded, and no one left- were they afi-aid to call atten–
ti on to th emselves, or truly fasc inated? Thi s film , in its glitter and
psychedeli c co lors, certainly did everything possibl e to shock the by now
unshockabl e bourgeoisie-an ever mo re amorph ous class. Al though at the
beginning bi sexuality does occur, it is rare, as we get to see more and more
orgies of fu cking (thi s is what it always is call ed), sodomy, and fellatio
among males . Eventually cross-dressing is so confusing that I o ften didn't
know who was who or what was what. Thi s supposedl y was the London
scene in 1970, althou gh it couldn't possibl y have been sustained at such a
fas t clip. Are we seein g an updated and full - blown fantasy
a
la O scar Wilde?
For at the end nea rly everyone is either spent or gay and part of the rock
scene_ And unhappy as well.
In
two of the fea tures,
The Celebratioll
and
Happill ess,
th e fath ers' fixa–
ti ons on anal intercourse with children are handl ed with sensitivity. Both
stories deal with what, on the surface, appea r to be especiall y successful ,
contented famili es-and end up in di saster. Whether in rural Denmark, on
the eas t coast of the United States, o r anywhere else, pederasty apparently
may go unnoti ced until brought out into the open , in one case by the old–
est son , in th e other throu gh di scovery by the police.
In
both instances, the
contented wives' innocence fun cti ons as a sort o f unknowing coli usion , and
we realize that these fathers love th eir children in spite of what they do to
them and / or their fri ends.
Happill ess
revo lves around the lives of three si s–
ters, Hel en (the glamorous writer), Joy (whose every j ob and every
romance ends in fi asco), and Tri sh (the contented mo ther whose husband ,
Dr. Mapl ewood , abuses young boys) . On e o f Hel en's timid neighbo rs is
addi cted to makin g obscene phon e calls, another has murdered the j ani to r,
and the sisters' parents are planning to get a divo rce. All of that, as we find
out at the end , causes mo re upset to those around th em than Dr.
Mapl ewood's child abuse.
The Celebratioll
reaches its climax when we find
o ut that th e sister, w ho has kill ed herself sho rtly befo re th e extended fam–
il y assembl ed fo r th e fa ther's sixti eth birthday, had done so when the
