Ana Kokkinos | Head On / 1998

the no-man’s land between love and hate

by Douglas Messerli

 

Andrew Bovell, Ana Kokkinos, and Mira Robertson (screenplay, based on the book Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas), Ana Kokkinos (director) Head On / 1998

 

It seems rather surprising to me, given the fact that as early as 1994 Australian cinema had totally embraced the gay drag and transgender road comedy, Stephan Elliott’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and beat all the other English-language countries by featuring gay characters in an ongoing TV series as early as 1972 in Number 96, that Australian director Ana Kokkinos’ hard-hitting 1998 film Head On met with great controversy not only because of its presentation of the large Melbourne Greek community—arguing that it was intensely homophobic—and for the fact that it presented Australia as a country more than a little xenophobic, but simply for its graphic presentation of sex. Unlike the trio riding the outback on the Priscilla bus, the lead character in Head On, Ari (Alex Dimitriades), is not at all the cute boy like the character Guy Pearce plays in Priscilla who likes dressing up like a girl, but if necessary you can take home to your mother; Ari rather is a confused, intensely angry, closeted, drug addicted, almost S&M-oriented gay man who in one long 24-hour period goes on the run for someone who might possibly be able to help him come to a solution and whom he might even come to love.

     In this film Ari does not succeed. To put it bluntly, he totally fucks up. Yet in his desire, the trajectory of the film, and his underlying dreams, the central character of Kokkinos’ film shares a great deal with the characters featured in a genre that became popular that same year as evidenced in British filmmaker Simon Shores’ Get Real and US director David Moreton’s Edge of Seventeen. These were the earliest of a new version of the “coming out” genre which I have dubbed “version B,” a radically different species from the earlier, gritter testimonies beginning in the late 1940s with the works of filmmakers Chris Harrington, Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos, Jacques Demy, John Schmitz, and others that seemed to come to a transitional ending in A. J. Rose, Jr.’s Penis of 1965, works I describe as “version A” of the coming out genre.

      Except for Ari being two years older than the usual 17-year old figures of this genre, facing their sexuality at the moment of their graduation and leaving school and home, he is also very much in the process of coming to terms with his identity and is desperately seeking a way—despite his inability to find or job or perhaps his lack of desire to seek one—to leave his parents and his adolescent life behind, announcing himself to the world as a gay man.

      The differences between Ari and most of others of this genre, however, is crucial in that he seems unable to find a way out, meeting up in every direction he turns with a wall of human beings shouting out for him to turn back: his parents, his friends, his community, police, and the society itself. He cannot even turn to a treasured past—since it was a fascist world against which his parents and most of the elderly members of his Greek community stood against and finally fled. And in the Australia of the day, hostile to all of its millions of immigrants from all corners of the world, there is no future as well.

      Yet, unlike the gay figures making the same journey earlier, he does not “die,” even symbolically. As he reports at film’s end, his father’s abuse only makes him stronger. And there is something at least hopeful in his daily challenges to a world in which as a stunningly beautiful but bitterly gay immigrant he has no place. His no-man-land’s condition makes me want to suggest that this quite amazing film is perhaps the missing link between the version A of the coming out film and version B, when everything, despite the difficulties in explaining to the world that you don’t share their sexual outlook and a great many attendant values, became far easier to announce family, friends, and all the others who may hate you, “I’m gay, and that’s who I am.” As some survivors have described the major difference, in late 1940s and early 50s, there was no one to come out “to,” no place in which one would be permitted, a situation not so very different, despite the existence of bars and the possibility of gay friends, to the way Ari’s sees his world.

      The film begins in heterosexual paradise, at a wedding of family and friends in which Ari leads the celebrants on a Greek line dance—the first of many such dances which will link this film through all of its segments with family, culture, and pleasure which everything, including family and culture, will attempt to cut and sever.

       Even here, Ari immediately breaks away, heading off in a brooding manner into a world that is the inverse of the that from which he has just escaped. Desperately angry with his situation, hating his family and its ethnic traditions, and detesting himself for being sexually different, Ari seeks out punishing sexual encounters at the Melbourne shipping docks. Throughout the film, almost all of his “lovers” are ugly brutes, whether they be Asian, Greek, Turkish, or “wogs” (a word that originally signified a “westernized oriental gentlemen,” but now suggests any immigrant who pretends assimilation). Even his masturbation is violent as the film reveals in a full nude scene early on—a scene attacked by easily offended would-be censors.    

    There is but one exception in his pattern of sexual partners, a young man he meets in his brother’s and sister-in-law’s house, Sean (Julian Garner), a blond-haired gentle-speaking boy of his age who immediately seems attracted to Ari, as Ari is to him.

     They have breakfast together before Ari is forced to leave him, his brother having received a desperate phone call from his and Ari’s parents asking for the boy’s whereabouts since he has remained out all night. His brother keeps repeating, “Boy, are you in for trouble,” which is not only the truth, but quickly becomes worse that anyone might imagine.

      The rest of the film might be described as an attempt—despite the endless roadblocks he and everyone around him put up to prevent it—to get back to Sean.

       If one thinks of the world of West Side Story, or Romeo and Juliet as being violent, after watching this film we might re-think those works in their two-sided battles as representing boys playing soldiers instead of going off to actual war. In Kokkinos’ cinema, Melbourne is a brutal battlefield wherein, as one character puts it, “everyone hates everyone.”

       Ari, accordingly is a Tony that will never find his gay Juliet because of the wounds he acquires in the process of simply walking the city streets.

      First of all, there is his father, a proud man who with his wife fought the Greek fascists before escaping to Australia. His password might be described as “freedom,” which is what he has fought for all of his life in order to be able to provide, like almost immigrants desire, a good life to his children. He wants them to become something of importance, a doctor, a lawyer, to marry, to simply be happy. But as Ari points out early in the film, the son is not bright enough to become a university student, too Greek to easily find an interesting job, and is gay, having no desire for the traditional family into which he has been born. In short, in the eyes of his father, and therefore in his own eyes, he is a failure. His father’s much touted “freedom” permits no freedom at all for his son, locked away as he is in his family’s bedroom and even at 19 attacked for staying out all night.

      They not only know nothing about his sexuality, but have no comprehension that in his anger and frustration and just simple boredom he has turned to drugs, not just marijuana, but coke and heroin. Yet the first thing his father does in his attempt to restrict his daily wanderings and nights out with friends, is cut off his small allowance, forcing Ari to gamble on quick loans from his own brother. He wins, and all seems well for a few moments, until various other barriers arise.

      There is a moment with his mother in the kitchen in which we almost witness familial love as they dance to a contemporary song. But when his father witnesses the event he turns off the radio replacing it with a Greek record, he joining his son again in a Sirtaki for a few lovely moments. But soon after when Ari says he’s going out for the night with friends, his father demands he join his mother and himself at a party, he storms out of the house; his mother calling after him to keep a watch over his younger sister, Alex (Andrea Mandalis).

       Another friend, Johnny, now Tula (Paul Capsis), a transgender woman who looks to Ari for her survival, is vilified by her father, an old friend of Ari’s dad who won’t even acknowledge their friendship anymore due to what Johnny/Tula has become. Tula begs Ari to join her for the night, he attempting to explain that he has other plans.

       At the required party, Ari’s best friend Joe (Damien Fotiou) announces his engagement to his girlfriend Dina (Dora Kaskanis), to which the already emotionally fraught Ari finds it difficult to respond in the positive manner they expect. Taking Dina aside, he hears her confession that she is not so much in love with Joe but, basically speaking, is bored with her current life and wants to take a trip with him to Greece as a wedding gift. Like all the women in this film, she is really attracted to Ari.

       Ari also quickly perceives that Joe is not desperately seeking to marry, and later accuses him of what is probably the truth, that Joe has been paid by the girl’s family to marry her, a traditional way to arrange that an overweight and not so beautiful daughter might find true happiness.

       And then there’s Joe’s neurotic sister Betty (Elena Mandalis) to be cared for. Ari not only provides her with the drugs for which she’s desperate, but tries and fails to satisfy her sexually as well, she realizing in the process that he’s a “poufta,” a fag, for which she wildly mocks him.

       What Ari’s parents don’t know, as well, is that their own daughter is seeing Charlie, a Lebanese boy, an impossible relationship given the ethnic rifts that roar through this movie. Even Ari doesn’t like the situation, but won’t be a hypocrite by standing in her way, even if his responsibility demands that he must.

       Escaping the party he makes his way to a Greek bar where none of his friends like to go anymore, but then neither do they like the poufta bars which he haunts. Besides, the Anglo boy Sean will be there, presumably to eat up some of the Greek culture since the bar features excellent Bouzuki playing, singing, and dancing.

      But Sean seems to be attached to a Greek girl who speaks out against racism and espouses liberal causes. The magic between them the two men seems to have dissipated.  Disappointed, Ari catches the eye of an older Greek bearded man who looks like the archetypally aged sailor, the two sneaking out for violent back alley sex, Ari sucking off the man and demanding, in turn, that the brute at least “pull” him.

     Angry at the situation once more, Ari dances out some of his frustrations. This time his beautiful moves are clearly meant to catch Sean’s attention. But instead, Johnny / Tula shows up, shocking everyone in the restaurant which, as a central Greek gathering place, is not open to the idea of a transgender suddenly appearing amongst them. She demands that Ari dance with her, but Ari cannot possibly do so without announcing his being gay to the entire community. He moves away, and she dances alone, actually engaging some of the crowd while others boo her.

      Furious with the situation, Ari leaves and attempts to hail a cab, but both Sean and Johnny stop him, Sean finally admitting that he finds him attractive, as Ari and Tula head off to a gay bar where Sean promises to meet them.

      On their way, Tula passes Ari more drugs in the form a sugar cube, and two, discovering their driver is Turkish, suddenly become engaged with their ancient “enemy” is a loving display of songs and cultural sharing, having so much fun that the cabbie drives through a red light, the police stopping them.

      Ari begs Tula to remain quiet, but she cannot, asking in the noir femme fatale manner of someone like Lauren Bacall, “What seems to be the problem officer?” Despite the severity of the situation, they break down into a fit of laughter.

     Neither they nor the audience are prepared for what follows. Taken into custody, two policemen force them to strip, and proceed to beat Johnny simply because of the fact that he is a woman with a cock. Ari can do nothing to help her as he watches her beaten and kicked again and again while he stands stark naked in a white-walled, fluorescently-lit space.

      After, he begs for forgiveness, but Tula, it appears, is tougher than even he is. When Ari argues that she should have just kept her mouth quiet, Tula answers by pulling Ari to his knees: “Every time you keep your mouth. Every time you keep quiet, that’s where you’ll stay! You have to stand up against all the shit and all the hypocrisy. That’s the only way to make a difference.”

       If this is a coming out story, Tula has already outed herself, realizing what Ari hasn’t yet quite been able to come to terms with. You need to take a stand no matter how much you’re beaten and you suffer. Like their parents, Tula is brave, fighting for her own cause.

      Finally, long after the appointed hour, Ari shows up to the gay bar unable to spot Sean anywhere. In a lurid tour of the backrooms where everyone seems to grabbing out for a piece of him, he finally spots his “Maria.”

     And for the first time the two engage in a deep kiss, Ari beginning the motions of sexual engagement. But Sean gently whispers, “Not here.” And a few moments later, he shows Ari into his own apartment where, unlike all of the other brutal engagements Ari has undergone all day, someone stands behind him and lovingly strokes his beautiful face, Ari accepting what he has never encountered previously, a true embracement. Sean whispers, “I think I’m falling in love with you,” and his kneels to suck Ari’s cock.

     Ari’s head falls back in utter pleasure, but before we can even register the fact, he is again thrusting violently forward, wildly like an animal, not a lover. Thrown to the floor, Sean stands and pushes him down, trying to imagine what is happening. When Ari attempts to regain bodily contact Sean grabs and wrestles him down, pulling his out the door and tossing his clothes after, rejecting the utter violence he has not expected.

     Ari sits against the wall, unable after all that he has been through to even move, simply repeating the words, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

      Once more at the docks we see Ari, whose image alternates with archive film of the arrival, perhaps at the same dock, of boats of political refuges such as his parents, as his voice firmly intones: “My father’s insults make me strong. I accept them all. I’m sliding toward the sewer. I’m not struggling, I can smell the shit. But I’m still breathing. I’m going to lead my life. I’m not going to make a difference.”

     Ari begins once more to dance.

     “I’m not going to change a thing. No one’s going to remember me when I’m dead. I’m a sailor and a whore. And I will be until the end of the world.”

     If Ari is not yet dead, the fate those of those early “coming out” figures had at least metaphorically to face, neither is he fully out, and he may not ever to able to advertise himself the way Tula does. What he realizes is that not everyone can be a hero.

     But he’s so close to being there we imagine the next battle he faces the very next day might take him there. If he is truly sorry, if he is capable of learning from the lessons Tula has taught him, he will be able to move on, take his head out of sewer and stand up proud, like all the young boys were beginning to do at the end of their movies in 1998. This wonderful film leaves him painfully just shy of his goal. But his dance suggests he will soon link up with a new freedom he seeks—a freedom different from that of the older generation. Perhaps he already has, and his dance is the first announcement to the world.

 

Los Angeles, November 18, 2022

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (November 2012).