by Douglas Messerli
Barry Morse (screenwriter and director) Mouse's
Birthday / 2010 [4 minutes]
This odd
fairytale-like film that involves music, lyrics, masks, puppets, animation, and
other special effects, is a cautionary tale about a great many things including
gluttony (a mouse falls into a birthday cake and dies), lust (a wealthy woman
of the 1920s with razor sharp fingers consumes cockroaches as her punishment),
vanity and sexuality (a punk gay boy with an outlandish mohawk stares at the
mirror as if he were Narcissus), and homophobia (a gang of gay-haters surround
him and evidently do him in).
What it all means, however, is a mystery, unless the code is in the director's name (u for r in Morse's name, an in joke for his birthday?) Other than some clever effects, I certainly cannot find a coherent relationship
among the so-called sinners of this supposedly comic affair. Perhaps it’s just
that none of them are who they appear to be, the punk rocker played by the
author/director Barry Morse and the 1920s Woman performed by Keith Glen
Schubert. And does that mean that performing in drag will send you straight to
hell.
As the IMDb comment observes, perhaps
it’s just a “whimsical visual poem.” But frankly it just doesn’t work for me,
even after watching it now 3 times over a period of several weeks.
Los
Angeles, September 22, 2024 / Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog
(September 2024).
No comments:
Post a Comment