eight films by chris derek van
by
Douglas Messerli
Chris Derek Van is still somewhat of a mystery. Eight films
of his popped up on YouTube and Vimeo in 2023-2024 without any IMDb mention and
literally no other commentary. It’s made even more confusing since the
director’s name seems to actually be Kris Derek Van, who went to high school
in Lombard, Illinois’ Glenbard East, where he evidently made at least a couple
of these films and from there attended
Columbia College of Chicago, studying Film and Television. A millennial, Van
was born in 2004 in Chicago. Van identifies as Asian.
.png)
So the director of these five films is
clearly still a student, only 18 or 19 when the earliest of these films was
made. And none of the works would be of any mystery except that they are so
very well-made and professional that it is quite amazing that virtually nothing
has been written about them—at least according to what I have been able to
discover on the internet. Let these short essays, accordingly, be the first
efforts to talk about his body of quite complex filmmaking that concerns gay
love and the ghosts of that love, living and past; the director also often
borrows extant images from other films and photographs.
The films that I discuss in these pages
are Dreams of a Man (2023), Julien (2023), Your Face in
December (2023), Bookend (2023), Fear and Desire (2024), Trois
Jours (Three Days) (2024), Afterglow (2024), and Princess Grace (2024).
Los
Angeles, August 20, 2024
Reprinted
from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2024).
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment