World and Time Enough (U.S. 1994)

The Gist:

A gay couple, an HIV positive artist and his partner, an innocent minded garbage collector, live in occupied territory, that is the 'straight world,' as they deal with issues everyone faces, from love and life, to acceptance and death. 

Comments with minor spoilers:

The movie is very much a product of its time. Not so much the actual story which is a ‘universal’ tale of a couple dealing with love, acceptance, family and death, but rather the background of where this is taking place. These two men are not rich “white collar” gays living in a safe sequestered gay ghetto. Rather they live a ‘blue collar” life in the ‘regular’ world, occupied territory as it were, of aggressive heteronormality and enforced consumerism. The mere act of living together in a committed relationship makes their lives transgressive. Having one of the men be an HIV positive artist who specializes in short lived ephemeral art sculptures is another aspect of its time, of when AIDS was still considered a death sentence.

If it were re-set to now, the basic story would be the same, but the world they lived in would not. Consumerism will have won, and be worse in ways, but the fact of two men together, if not wholly and totally accepted, would at least not be too uncommon.  

All this aside, I like the movie, though it has several flaws. The device of interviewing one of the minor characters to serve as a narrator doesn’t really work and feels more awkward than useful. Another issue is that the movie feels lopsided as if it were actually two different not entirely complimentary stories lashed roughly together, a story of men in love followed by a tale of obsession (after the artist finds out his father has died). 

There's also the frankly awkward ending. The movie ends, then a couple minutes later ends again. One ending "artistic" and the other hopeful, which makes it seem as if there was a disagreement over how it should end so "they" just included both versions. 

Regardless of the problems, what does work is the idea that these two men are in love, both physically and emotionally. Going back to idea of the movie being a product of its time this is kind of a radical presentation. The early nineties were Hollywood giving us Tom Hanks as a ‘perfect’ gay man (meaning safely platonic and dying) in Philadelphia, while independent queer cinema was responding with a big F’ YOU to society with angry, suicidal, queer kids in Totally F***ed Up. This movie is neither extreme, neither safe nor enraged, but it ends up being more ‘real’ for this. 

Even with problems, it is worth seeing, though if you do, watch it to the very end.  

Women:

Yes

People of color:

Yes 

Gratuitous nudity: 

No

• Director: Eric Mueller
• Writer: Eric Mueller
• Actors: Matt Guidry, Gregory G Giles 
• 90 min
• IMDB