Author | Demitra \u2018Demi\u2019 Kampakis | Film Editor<\/p>\n
The social climate of the 1970s, familial expectations, and religious faith form the thematic thread that weaves together The Parker Tribe<\/em> and Elder<\/em>, two similar stories that center on an individual\u2019s struggle with navigating burgeoning desires and claiming a personal identity, as each subject\u00a0also finds themselves on the periphery of family and society.\u00a0 Both films essentially explore the murky terrain of blossoming (homoerotic) desire for two youths whose path to self-discovery is further complicated by regressive social norms and taboos, familial contention and tragedy, and the conservative ideals enforced by their nuclear clan. Strictly speaking, though Jane Baker\u2019s The Parker Tribe<\/i> and Genea Gaudet\u2019s Elder <\/i>differ in narrative format\u2014fiction and documentary, respectively\u2014each film infuses elements of the other genre in a way that highlights the empathy and humanity inherent in their subject’s\u00a0plight.\u00a0 Whereas The Parker Tribe<\/i> is a semi-autobiographical dramedy inspired by the helmer\u2019s own childhood, Elder<\/i>\u2019s documentary approach gets dramatic mileage out of its compelling Shakespearean love saga; rendered all the more tragic through the passion and charismatic cadence of its orator\/subject\u00a0the consolidation of details and events\u00a0for greater narrative impact, and the pangs of nostalgia invited by the 8mm archival footage interspersed throughout.<\/p>\n Given that queer-themed films were unfortunately few and far between at this year\u2019s festival, the technical quality and emotional heft of these two pictures were a welcome delight, and richly contributed to the slate of films curated for the festival\u2019s Shorts program.\u00a0 I had the pleasure of sitting down with Baker and Gaudet, as well as Elder<\/i> subject Tom Clark. It seems like that’s more up her alley, on separate occasions to pick their brains on the creative filmmaking process\u00a0and the personal experiences that inform each narrative.\u00a0 What resulted were conversations that seemed to orbit around issues of faith and religious guilt, parental dynamics, the queer-immigrant experience, and navigating the tricky generational gap between the traditional values of the baby boomers with the progressive ideology exhibited by the Gen-X\u2019ers and millenials that succeeded them.<\/p>\n A TRIBUTE TO FAMILY<\/b><\/p>\n Loosely based on Baker\u2019s own experiences growing up in a large Irish-Catholic clan, The Parker Tribe<\/i> tells the story of 13-year-old Mary \u201cJo\u201d Parker\u2014a tomboy and the fifth child out of seven\u2014as she reconciles the lack of maternal warmth offered\u00a0by her emotionally disconnected mother, while being constantly picked on by her immature jock-ish brothers.\u00a0 Yearning for her mother\u2019s love and attention, and frequently finding herself on the receiving end of her brothers\u2019 obnoxious taunts, Jo constantly questions her place among the eccentric personalities and raucous dysfunction that surrounds her.\u00a0 Coupled with the confusion surrounding her burgeoning adolescent queerness\u2014a confusion further complicated by the contradictory social climate at the wake of the 1970\u2019s sexual revolution, a time when orgies were openly\u00a0and casually embraced yet homosexuality was still ostracized\u2014as well as the occasional responsibility of serving as caretaker for her two MS-stricken brothers, and it\u2019s no wonder Jo frequently retreats to the quiet solitude of her closet for some therapeutic diary writing (an apt metaphor that could easily feel too on-the-nose if not for the fact that it works in the context of Jo\u2019s Cheaper by the Dozen<\/i>-style living arrangement).<\/p>\n Fortunately, Jo also finds comfort in the relationship she shares with her playful and sensitive father, a man who so clearly loves his children, and does so with his heart on his sleeve.\u00a0 Actor David Koechner inhabits a stoic yet sarcastic and warm paternal presence, and his character helps establish a healthy father-daughter dynamic that nicely foils his wife\u2019s icy, shrewish nature.\u00a0 Amidst all the familial theatrics, it\u2019s refreshing to see the tender rapport between Jo and her father\u2014which provides an emotional anchor and sense of stability that becomes more crucial and precious as our young protagonist is not only left feeling more confused and vulnerable in the wake of her growing attraction for a female\u00a0neighbor, but is further blindsided by a tragic revelation in the film\u2019s third act.<\/p>\n Although there is a beautifully executed scene that sees Jo kissing the neighbor boy while imagining that she is instead locking lips with his pretty, slightly older sister, the scene is likewise reserved for the third act, and in fact provides the only clear exposition of Jo\u2019s lesbian desires.\u00a0 In fact, much of the film is dedicated to establishing Jo\u2019s relationship with various family members\u2014even while in the closet with the privacy to indulge her own thoughts, she seems to mostly fret over familial matters\u2014and for the most part, Baker approaches Jo\u2019s sexuality with a casual restraint by way of suggestions\u00a0and references that are patiently doled out.\u00a0 \u201cI wanted to show a kid who you like simply because they\u2019re a kid, someone who values and contributes to her own family,\u201d noted\u00a0Baker during our interview.\u00a0 \u201cIt was important for the audience to join\u00a0Jo AS she realizes she\u2019s gay\u2014rather than making her queerness immediately evident, I wanted to focus on the process\u00a0of Jo growing into this knowledge while she learns how to integrate it in her life.\u00a0 She is more humanized as a character if viewers like and invest in her before the \u2018reveal\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n AN ITALIAN LOVE STORY, \u2018CIGARETTES AND THORAZINE\u2019 STYLE<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cWith Elder<\/i>, I wanted to create a vignette, a self-contained moment in time for viewers to experience,\u201d remarked director and screenwriter Genea Gaudet when I asked what she envisioned for the documentary.\u00a0 Throughout the film\u2019s heartbreaking 13-minute saga, subject Tom Clark recounts his experience as a Mormon missionary who, during a fateful trip to Italy in 1974, meets and falls in love with a handsome Italian communist and avid smoker named Gianni.\u00a0 Although Tom knew he was gay well before the mission, his Mormon upbringing had embedded a deep sense of shame and secrecy fueled by misguided religious righteousness, to the extent that he was taken to a psychiatrist and prescribed Thorazine at the behest of his mother prior to said trip.<\/p>\n Upon meeting Gianni, Tom felt a fire ignite within him, a mental invigoration that was just as must a result of being in love, as it was the decision to end his Thorazine \u201ctreatment\u201d (and ultimately, the former led to the decision of the latter).\u00a0 However, the bliss was short-lived, as Tom\u2019s missionary responsibilities eventually forced him to relocate elsewhere, leaving behind his soul mate.\u00a0 With heavy eyelids faintly fluttering in tandem to his heartbreak, Clarke visibly translates the anguish, despair, and self-preservation-fueled cognitive dissonance that accompanied his dread in knowing that he and Gianni would soon be separated (as Clarke notes in the film, despite Gianni\u2019s pleas that they stay in Italy together, he wasn\u2019t at the point in his life where he could feasibly cut off all ties to his family).<\/p>\n Liberated from shame and secrecy by heartbreak and ready to consummate his love, Clarke was finally no longer able to deny his passion and feelings for Gianni, and recalls the poignant reckoning he made with God on the last night the lovers were together; \u201cI\u2019ve asked you to take away these thoughts, feelings and desires and you haven\u2019t\u2014so I\u2019m gong to do what I need to do, and you do what you need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Elaborating on that resonant moment in the film during our phone interview, Tom conveyed how that exchange was life-changing for him, a moment of spiritual clarity and liberation.\u00a0 Yet, a twinge of self-effacement can also be detected in that message, and when I probed Tom on this interpretation, he further opened up about the nature of his self-identity.\u00a0 \u201cAlthough I was born in the States, I grew up in Italy\u2014so culturally speaking, I consider myself more of an immigrant.\u00a0 Unlike Americans, Italians don\u2019t regard homosexuality as the principal form of one\u2019s identity.\u00a0 It\u2019s a topic that isn\u2019t openly discussed often, not because of shame, but because there isn\u2019t a need to fixate or sensationalize.\u00a0 Fundamentally viewing someone within the framework of their sexual orientation is very much an American construct\u2014so although I proudly embrace the fact that I am a gay man, and acknowledge the various ways in which my gay sensibilities are manifested, I nonetheless have a tenuous relationship with my homosexuality.\u00a0 In that sense, I hold a more casual, European approach to being gay wherein I view it as an auxiliary aspect of who I am\u2014a \u2018man who happens to be gay,\u2019 rather than a \u2018gay man.\u2019<\/p>\n Elder<\/i>\u2019s Shakespearean poeticism is further enhanced by the documentary\u2019s rich visual tapestry, as Gaudet infuses contemporary shots of the Italian landscape with actual Super 8 archival footage taken by Clarke at the time.\u00a0 With a grainy authenticity made only possible with actual film, these cinematic artifacts capture a wistful, temporal nostalgia that is equally visceral and melancholic.\u00a0 Had the documentary been solely comprised of contemporary footage, a slight disingenuousness would linger, as if to constantly remind us that this is all still a recollection removed from the past.\u00a0 Yet because we actually get to see Gianni and Tom interact (through photos and videos), and because we are literally peering into the visual lens of Tom\u2019s experiences, we as viewers are transported back in time both spatially and emotionally.<\/p>\n \u201cI think because the love story embodies that moment in time, I never felt that the film should be any longer.\u00a0 Its self-contained nature as a vignette allowed me to condense the narrative while still painting a complete picture.\u00a0 It\u2019s like the difference between a novel and a short story,\u201d remarked Gaudet during our interview.\u00a0 A filmmaker with extensive experience working in docu-series and music videos, Gaudet remains artistically loyal to the documentary format and seems to be most pointedly applying techniques from that genre in creating a story.\u00a0 \u201cWith my style of documentary filmmaking, I definitely borrow from the narrative.\u00a0 I\u2019m completely fascinated by the vignette-narrative documentary-hybrid that\u2019s been happening for a few years now.\u00a0 So I think I can easily see myself crossing over into that, should the story lend itself to being told as a fiction.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve always been completely enamored by non-fiction, so I think if I did that it would probably be based on a true story type thing.\u201d<\/p>\n TO BE CONTINUED<\/b><\/p>\n Interesting to note is how both THE PARKER TRIBE and ELDER don\u2019t offer clear resolutions to their characters\u2019 journeys.\u00a0 In a sense, each protagonist feels like outsiders\u2014the black sheep\u2014of their own family, yet there is never a grand gesture of \u2018coming out\u2019, or the external repercussions that ensue, and the lack of closure shrouds both films in a \u201cto be continued\u201d ambiguity that seeks to emphasize the organic experience of how falling for another can catalyze one\u2019s personal odyssey of self-awareness and self- definition regarding identity, one that doesn\u2019t necessarily have a defined endpoint.\u00a0 Baker and Gaudet don\u2019t feel the need to neatly tie a bow around their characters\u2019 experiences\u2014opting to ask more questions than providing answers\u2014and their films remain a truer reflection of life as a result.<\/p>\n With prior experience writing and directing theater, Jane Baker hopes to continue to direct behind the camera, where she can offer her unique personal voice, details to physicality, and improv skills.\u00a0 She is in the works to adapt The Parker Tribe into a ten-30 minute length-episode format web series\u2014with 3 episodes currently written and the entire first season already sketched out.\u00a0 She wants the series to be less formulaic and more adventurous, and envisions it to \u201cequal House of Cards in temperament and mood.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n Fascinated with gender and sexuality, Genea Gaudet plans on making her next documentary an advocacy piece, and has begun brainstorming several possible topics.\u00a0 Among them is the exploration of the idea of flat-rate brothels in which she will interview sex workers, a paternity documentary that will examine how the courts have been biased towards women in custody battles, and a bio-doc on a transgender lute player.\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n Interviews with the filmmakers and subjects of two Tribeca short films that ask the burning question: what happens when burgeoning desires and self-identity conflict with cultural norms, faith, and familial pressures? Featured Image: Tom and Gianni.\u00a0 (Photo: \u201cElder\u201d. Girlfight Pictures) Author | Demitra \u2018Demi\u2019 Kampakis | Film Editor The social climate of the 1970s, familial\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":6831,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2065],"tags":[1676,1863,1963,174,1862,784],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-desire","tag-elder","tag-film","tag-identity","tag-the-parker-tribe","tag-tribeca-film-festival"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Gianni-e-Tom-6.jpg?fit=669%2C469","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6QBV8-1M3","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6823"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6887,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6823\/revisions\/6887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6823"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"shorts](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/shorts-image-1.jpg\")
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