Tina Kakadelis
Big Bass
Alison Bechdel is most famously known for The Bechdel Test. It started as a joke in her comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, but has since gone on to live a life of its own. Others may know Bechdel for her graphic memoir, Fun Home. In it, young Alison recalls seeing a delivery woman in a diner. This woman had a men’s haircut and wore men’s clothes. For Alison at that age, it was revelatory, even though it would be decades before she realized why this stranger mattered so much. Drew Dickler’s short documentary, Big Bass, is Drew’s own Fun Home moment, but instead of a woman wearing men’s clothes, it’s a squishy fish that sticks in her memory.
When Drew was a child, she was drawn to Cheryl, the gym teacher at her school. In the years after adolescence, Drew kept returning to a conversation she had with Cheryl. They were sitting on the steps at school, and while the specifics of the chat are hazy, Drew remembers a sense of calm from being around Cheryl. In Big Bass, Drew and a camera crew return to that same school, where Cheryl still teaches, to reflect on this small moment.
As a queer person, there are so many small moments that are world-altering for you, but a blip for everyone else. It’s the same for Drew and Cheryl. Drew thinks of it often while Cheryl doesn’t remember the talk, but she does recall what Drew was like as a kid. It’s such a bizarre, strange feeling to attempt to put into words. A connection to someone who is decades older and a total stranger is beautiful in its ineffable nature. Big Bass doesn’t try to overexplain why this one conversation mattered to Drew, but instead allows the two women to speak for themselves. Even those who don’t know what it’s like to find this connection can see what it means to both of them.
Along with its deeply emotional reflection on queer identity, Big Bass is also tuned in to a beautifully quirky ’90s aesthetic to match Drew’s adolescence. The style is pulled off so well that one may be fooled into thinking Drew’s home videos were used in the opening sequence, only to discover that an actor was hired to play Young Drew. Big Bass is a love letter to the people who don’t even realize they’re changing someone’s life by simply being kind and living their truth.
Dancing in Tomorrowland
My part-time college job was at Walt Disney World. Never in a million years would I want to go back to being elbow deep in turkey leg grease, and I’m not particularly interested in visiting as a guest anymore, but I’m always intrigued by the aspects of Disney history that are rough around the edges. When people think of the theme parks, they think of an America that never was. A manicured version of the 1950s that nicely lacquers over the racism, sexism, and homophobia of the time. What interests me are stories like the missing animatronic in Stolen Kingdom and the activism that, once upon a time, unfolded in Tomorrowland.
Jakob Roston’s Dancing in Tomorrowland is a non-traditional documentary about Crusader, an ’80s activist who wouldn’t take no for an answer. In the 1980s and before, the Disney parks would have live bands playing music at the Tomorrowland Terrace. It was a place for young people to mix, mingle, and, most importantly, dance. There was a rule, though, that members of the same sex couldn’t dance with one another. That rule didn’t sit well with Crusader, who took it upon himself to change things.
Anyone who knows Disney’s politics wouldn’t be surprised to hear that they weren’t exactly waving the Pride flag in the 1980s. Now there are Gay Days at Disney, and the theme parks (Disneyland especially) have been more outwardly supportive of the LGBT community. This change in policy can be traced back to Crusader and his refusal to accept things the way they were. Not only is Dancing in Tomorrowland an interesting historical time capsule and a unique take on the documentary genre, but it’s also a reminder of the spark a single person can ignite and the fire that can grow from it.
Crash Season
For much of human storytelling, we’ve been interested in what it means to lose our humanity. Whether it’s body snatchers or supercomputers or aliens, there’s always a force that rips us away from the things we hold most dear. Audrey Rosenberg’s short film, Crash Season, is about the fear of losing oneself in the throes of a relationship. What happens when the person you love might have been replaced by an imposter?
Max (Miya Folick) and Mari (Ayi) are in love. They know everything there is to know about one another, which is why it alarms Max that a scar on Mari’s chin has disappeared. It’s a crescent moon-shaped scar, something Max is used to seeing every day when they cuddle. When asked, Mari laughs it off, saying Max is imagining things. She’s never had a scar there.
Is this a case of an imposter or of a person losing their grasp on reality? What makes Rosenberg’s film so compelling is that it rides the in-between of that question so finely. A small breeze could push things one way or the other, and the film’s strong ending makes the ambiguity worth it. When people are so intertwined in a relationship, how can these perceptions of reality blur beyond recognition?
