Arizona Sky a neglected treasure
Shakespeare said in Romeo & Juliet that "the course of true love never did run smooth" but I always felt the point of that play was more that "love will out".
It certainly IS the point of a superbly written and acted film called Arizona Sky made in America in 2008.
For like a steady stream of water in the desert that can carve out vast grand canyons in a rock hard hostile environment, the love that Arizona Sky's, Jake and Kyle, have for each other carves out a space for itself in a hostile small town in Az. The land of Oz it isn't. And easy it isn't, either.
Where Brokeback Mountain looked at the tale of two thwarted same sex lovers with a focus on the community's resistance the cowboys' relationship, Arizona Sky focuses more on the lovers' resistance to their own natural tender feelings for each other. Both men, Jake and Kyle, were naturally reluctant to go down the road closed to it by decree of the heterosexual dictatorship. Growing up in that small Arizona town, they knew what prices would be asked of them if they did. So one moved to Los Angeles while the other stayed behind, celibate and lonely. When years later the LA refugee comes back to find his lover and the part of himself he left behind, its suffering time all over again.
The characters' silences, hesitations, and awkward moves should not be mistaken for bad acting or poor script writing. On the contrary, they are evidence of the pain and confusion of their two sad heroes. Not to mention manifestations of the fear which comes from trying to gracefully face the harmful treatment society can mete out to men who love men. That several sympathetic straight figures shine in this picture--the small town boy's aunt and the big city dude's straight roommate--appropriately makes the point that not all straight members of the dictatorship buy the party line.
For the stars of this indie feature, Eric Dean and Jayme McCabe, particular kudos should be awarded. It is all too rare for actors in gay-themed films to convince us they are regular Joes dealing with their fates (as versus actors playing regular Joes) To convincingly play the roll of your average confused-and-conflicted non-gay identified homo cannot be easy or we would see it more often. Which is why Jake and Health were so appropriately celebrated for their portraits in Brokeback Mountain.
Arizona Sky is, then, a little known, badly neglected (and judging by the bulletin board's comments) often misunderstood film-gem that should be short listed with that small handful of films true to the gay experience--My Beautiful Laundrette, for example, made in the UK and The Man I Love, a wonderful French film.
Give it a little patience at the start and pay attention to the main characters' visceral portraits of men in the grip of fear, frustration, and love, and the movie will amply reward you. Arizona Sky isn't set in the land of Oz, but after all its where real men in real boots must walk, well or badly, again and again.