An Exploration of the Heart Land

Outfest 2000, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, continues tonight with the accomplished heart-tugger “Big Eden” (Directors Guild theater 1, 9:45 p.m.) by first-time writer-director Thomas Bezucha. This irresistible, serious romantic comedy tackles two dilemmas with honesty and compassion: that of the gay man with an unrequited love for a straight man, and a gay man too shy and inarticulate to declare his love for another gay man.

Arye Gross stars as Henry, a successful New York painter who returns to his small Montana hometown to care for his ailing grandfather (George Coe). He is confronted unexpectedly with the return of Dean (Tim DeKay), the love of his life, recovering from a divorce. Henry is so preoccupied with his unspoken infatuation with the handsome Dean that he fails to notice that even handsomer Pike (Eric Schweig), a monosyllabic Native American, is falling for him.

Bezucha imagines with humor and affection a community so perceptive, caring and enlightened that it’s capable of collectively nudging everyone in the right direction. Bezucha also suggests that a man like Henry, not conventionally handsome, might still be attractive to others, and that a straight man can love a gay man while not being sexually attracted to him. These notions are not so self-evident as they might seem, especially in gay films. “Big Eden,” with its wonderful ensemble cast, is a fine example of the cinema of possibilities.

There still aren’t as many lesbian-oriented films as there are gay male films, but among Outfest’s offerings are two fine examples, Jeanne Crepeau’s “Julie and Me” (“Revoir Julie”) (DGA 1 Friday at 9:45 p.m.) and Robert J. Siegel’s “Swimming” (DGA 1 Saturday at 4:30 p.m.), although the second defies easy categorization in regard to sexual orientation. In the first, Stephanie Morgenstern plays Juliet, an attractive blond who, after a romantic breakup, goes to the country to look up Julie (Dominique Leduc), the woman she has long secretly loved. The result is an intimate, wise and amusing film in which its two stars glow. “Swimming,” written by Lisa Bazadona, Siegel and Grace Woodward and set in Myrtle Beach, S.C., illuminates the crucial summer when the pert, alert Frankie (Lauren Ambrose, a real winner) finds herself drawn to the cool newcomer Josee (Joelle Carter), incurring unexpected jealousy from her scrappy best pal Nicola (Jennifer Dundas Lowe). Frankie is also drawn to a seductive T-shirt-selling drifter, Heath (Jamie Harrold). Accomplished and appealing, “Swimming” offers a perceptive portrait of a young woman exploring her sexuality.

“Outfest 2000” closes Monday at the Egyptian Theater with 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. screenings of Greg Berlanti’s “The Broken Hearts Club,” a sure-fire crowd-pleaser that focuses on a group of stereotypical West Hollywood gay guys, uniformly young, attractive and preoccupied with finding Mr. Right. The film’s edge comes from Dennis (Timothy Olyphant) who realizes that his close-knit group is as restrictive as it is supportive and that he just might have to move on. It’s breezy, but with a satirical bite. Erstwhile TV Superman Dean Cain makes a notable impression as a shameless seducer who gets his comeuppance. (323) 960-0618.

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Joe Gayton’s “Sweet Jane,” which begins an open run at the Sunset 5 on Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m., is a heartfelt but not always convincing story about a young addict (Samantha Mathis), diagnosed as HIV-positive while being treated for a drug overdose. She undergoes redemption when she responds to a 15-year-old (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) dying of AIDS who runs away from the hospital. The film lacks a sense of authenticity, but not in its emotions, and Gayton inspires his actors to such all-out portrayals that “Sweet Jane” winds up far more affecting than you ever imagined possible. (323) 848-3500.

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Didier le Pe^cheur’s “Don’t Let Me Die on a Sunday” (opening a regular run Friday at the Music Hall) has such a daring premise, so full of promise and scope, it’s too bad it’s wasted on this murky sex-equals-death saga. After a night of dancing and drugging, a young woman, Teresa (Elodie Bouchez) winds up on a slab in a Paris morgue, where her lovely corpse sends an attendant, Ben (Jean-Marc Barr), over the edge into necrophilia. This jolts the girl, wrongly pronounced dead, back to consciousness. The incident is not without official embarrassment, but Teresa, grateful to be revived, is drawn to her savior only to discover that he is desperate for salvation himself, having descended into a constant round of bisexual sadomasochistic orgies.

Le Pe^cheur means to portray the fate of a generation caught between the freedom of the pill and the specter of AIDS, but he narrows his range to those who carry their despair to the extremes of sexual thrill-seeking. It’s not that Ben and his pals are not credible or that Le Pe^cheur is exploitative of them--in fact he’s not. It’s rather that his film and characters are relentlessly glum in that bleak, dogged tradition of French filmmaking that can sometimes be profound in effect and sometimes merely pretentious and sometimes both. In this instance, “Don’t Let Me Die on a Sunday” is mainly pretentious.

Le Pe^cheur’s film is, however, a masterpiece in comparison to Isaac Eaton’s “Shadows Hours,” (opening Friday at selected theaters), a heavy-handed allegory. Balthazar Getty plays a recovering substance abuser who works the night shift at a gas station, where he meets a suave tempter and possible serial killer (an insinuating Peter Weller) who draws him into a whirl of discos and strip clubs and then an underground world of fighting and sadomasochistic rituals. Unfortunately, Weller’s excursions play more as numbing turnoffs rather than irresistible temptations; worse yet is the tempter’s nonstop platitudinizing. Unintended laughter results.

Note: Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill Jr.” (1928) screens at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura Hills (on Cornell Road between Mulholland Highway and the 101 Freeway) Sunday at 7:30 p.m. as a “Silents Under the Stars” presentation. (805) 370-2301.

The Orpheum Theater, 842 S. Broadway, presents a “Noche de Surrealismo” Wednesday at 8 p.m. with Luis Bun~uel’s “El” (1952), starring Arturo de Cordova, and “Un Chien Adalou” (1928). (213) 430-4211.