Dreadfully Boring

Did you people see the same film I saw?

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This movie attempts to show the world through the eyes of young gay men in the early days of Quebec.The movie is confusing, shown through flashbacks with men playing the parts of women. I puzzled with the director would do something so strange. I decided it was to make the straight people in the audience see the female characters closer to the way gays see them, without any sexual appeal. Their flirtations are nauseating but the "women" are unaware of how unappealing they are.It is an honest film. It is about the intense emotional attachments of young gay men, something usually denied in depictions of gays.The film disturbed me, making me ache to relive the days of my own passionate youth.It is a film about being foolish, obeying what you are told rather than what your heart commands you to do.

I have a high tolerance for "serious" gay films, but this one is unforgivable. The story is preposterous; are we really expected to believe that a bishop could be held captive in a prison confessional and forced to watch a play that re-enacts a crucial event in his boyhood? The decision to have the women's roles played by men is just plain ridiculous. And the way it milks the cliché that love between men must always end in death and betrayal does nothing to advance gay cinema. The two boys, however, are quite pretty. But the actor playing the adult Simon bears no resemblance to the young Simon. As a boy, Simon has a peachy, creamy complexion; as an adult, he bears the obvious signs of severe acne. This is just one of many implausibilities in this deeply silly film.

Difficult? In the first dialog in the confessional it is explained clearly which two of the young men in the play are the two old men in the confessional. If you miss this, the plot is difficult to figure out. If you pay attention at that crucial moment, the movie is not difficult to understand at all.Gay? Yes, we see gay young men loving each other. Does that make a 'gay movie'? It is a strong story, and it could not have happened like this in a purely heterosexual setting. If you find this enough to label it as a 'gay movie' (and restrict it distribution to the gay subculture), go ahead!The form. Nobodu has commented so far on the brilliant form. Watching the movie is like listening to a fugue by J. S. Bach. It is light and beautiful, entertaining and touching, but when you start to concentrate on the form you will get more and more excited about how clever it has been put together.We see the martyr of St. Sebastian. No, not what happened really to Sebastian, we see the legend of the Catholic Church. No, we rather see a play about it written by an eccentric priest in 1914. Or rather the play as it had been rehearsed in a Canadian school. No, the play as it is memorized by one of the participants, 40 years later. Or rather a play performed by prisoners who do their best to bring those memories on the improvised stage. Then it blends into the thoughts of another one of the participants, 40 years ago, who in the meantime has become a bishop. And then we see the feelings about it all on the bishop's face.These layers continuously melt into each other in a very artistic way. Sometimes you are in the Bishops brain, sometime in a Canadian hotel of 1914, sometimes in a prison in 1954.

This film stands out in my collection as the most beautiful gay love story on film so far. It's lyrical story-telling is accented by it's Romeo & Juliet-inspired forbidden love theme, while avoiding any political message that plagues today's current stream of gay love stories. With it's gorgeous location, haunting sound-track and surreal moments of simple tenderness, Lilies succeeds at simply being a beautiful film.