Hard-hitting movies

You’ll say “Girl, you kicked some butt” and I’ll say “I don’t really remember”
- Ani DiFranco, You Had Time

The first “lesbian” oriented movie I watched was a film called Lost and Delirious. It’s brilliant. I don’t care what orientation you identify yourself as, go watch it, even though I’m essentially going to ruin it for you right now.

I was shown it by the girl I came out for, the girl who stole my heart literally. I wanted to marry her. She was my everything, this captivating force that had me completely wrapped up in a totally different world. It was not long after we got together that she showed this film to me. At the time I was gathering momentum in a graceless downhill race toward depression. I was a hell of a long way from the bottom, but the journey had certainly begun and the signs were all there for a doosey.

This movie depicted that first love being torn to shreds. All I wanted was a happy ending, to find out that somewhere, even only as a fantasy in a movie, it could be okay to be the way I am in this world. That I don’t have to end up torn and unhappy. Possibly, that I deserve to be loved as much as the next person despite my own destructive thoughts. But there it was – a girl being torn to bits because her lover decided she no longer wanted to be in the relationship, mostly through not wanting to be viewed as different, not normal. She “went straight”. Hell, hindsight is a wonderful thing. There’s so many parallels there to the way that the relationship I was in finally ended.

It gutted me completely. I remember lying on that futon after the movie had finished with tears pouring down my face. My forearms were wet with them so much that I gave up any attempt to wipe them away. I was screaming wordlessly in anguish and it felt as if I would never be able to break out of it. When I did it was through exhaustion.

Despite the bad experience, it is a brilliant movie, and deserves to be seen by all, not just the lesbian audience who treasure the meagre amount of films available to them. It’s brilliant because it made me feel so much – Dead Poets’ Society had a similar effect on me. Head on out to your video store and walk past all the lovely guy-meets-girl blah blah blah versions of the same happy ending and go find the film that tore me to bits. If you can’t find it, (which is likely), go up to the counter and ask for it. If the place does not stock Lost and Delirious I have one request… Ask the staff why the fuck not?