French Cinema has for many reasons (sociological in the main) made a lot of very bad Gay/Queer films. Even the best, and in recent years there have been a quite a few, have been tainted with murder, self-hatred and negative endings. I have given positive reviews to them, and I feel a certain sense of shame in doing so. This wretched film made me put things into perspective. It has all the above themes in abundance, and despite the talented actors and a director I have admired (to a certain extent) it is a film to be utterly ashamed of. The story has been told by reviewers here, so I am not going over that again. I just want to highlight a handful of elements that condemn it for me; a drag act that looks like a parody of lesbianism made strictly for jaded heterosexuals; a male prostitute who is maybe bisexual, or maybe fakes it; a revolting scene of male rape that makes homosexual acts look physically disgusting, and I could go on with this list. All these tropes have been used in far 'better' Gay/Queer cinema from Patrice Chereau's 'The Wounded Man' to the very recent film 'Sauvage'. I have justified both films on their artistic merit, but sadly this tawdry 'Dry Cleaning' somehow sums up the (perhaps) intrinsic distaste towards homosexuality in French film for far too long. Admittedly it was made in 1997, but that is recent in comparison to the history of cinema. Directors, actors and yes the public have colluded in this and it is profoundly something to be ashamed of. I have mentioned Rohmer as my favourite director in French cinema. He never went near the subject, and I have judged him by avoiding it, but despite that, no French Gay/Queer film has shown the glory of love and its beauty as he did in 'L'Ami de Mon Amie' (My Girlfriend's Boyfriend). Why ? I can answer that with one image. Homosexuality is a third class passenger riding on a first class train for heterosexuals.
Review of Dry Cleaning
