Please explain to me why this film was made...
I studied this film in French cultural studies at university. my first essay was given a mark that can only be considered as biased before it was rewritten to be totally middle of the road and took no stance. (the rewriting was actually just taking out a few sentences of opinion fron the conclusion and maybe one other place - 75 words most) This film, in terms of cinematic criticism (which i assumed my module was on as it was french cultural cinema!) had a main character that was gay, half jew, half arab, unemployed, fatherless, has AIDs and anything else I may have missed. 10 years earlier La Haine was a breaktrough in French cultural cinema, but was even at the time considered dated due to its THREE main characters being black, jew and arab(?) and thus an exploitary view of paris. Similarly, the director of Drole de Felix made a significant film regarding the rights of homosexuals in French society. Any selfrespecting critic will never give ANY positive credit to a film which has decided to take the stance of being cultural without progressing the genre in some sense. Kermode will judge a horror film for being gratuitous but gratuitous horror has its place. For a year 2000 film on homosexuality to be a tick box, dated, self parody of important cultural theatre only seams to serve the stereotyped image of drug using promiscuous homosexuality (which his infidelity in the film may substanciate) which may have been useful in the out and proud years, but in the context of cultural cinematography appears dated and the crusade of a director who has not updated his views.
please tell me I am wrong, as after i took out any 'controversial' view of this film within a few words i went from massive fail to brilliant pass; is it 'anti-homophobia' thinking this view is homophobic a reason or have i missed a proportion of the film that, regardless to is basic narrative, its cultural status is misinformed in my view.