Pride month is over, but it’s really not. Resilience and resistance are key to our survival as LGBTQIA+ people, especially during a time where we are in grave uncertainty. And our stories should never stop being told, no matter what they are about. Acclaimed filmmaker Lisa Cholodenko made her debut with indie, lesbian classic High Art (1998) is a great cinematic story, one where art, difficult human relationships, and personal ambition dangerously intertwined.
Buy High Art (Criterion Collection)Radha Mitchell stars as Syd, a low-level editor of a New York photography magazine, who discovers that her neighbor Lucy Berliner (Ally Sheedy, in a career-best performance) was once a prominent photographer and is now living in retirement with her heroin-addicted lover, Greta (the great Patricia Clarkson), a faded German actress. Despite being in a hetero relationship with her boyfriend, Syd finds herself falling in love with Lucy, where she is eventually led into her world, one of newfound pleasures (but expected pain) as addiction and ambition threaten to destroy Syd and Lucy’s lives.
Although the story leads to tragedy (a cliche in queer cinema), the film tells a very involving and realistic tale of messy people doing messy things, and the emotional toll that takes on all of them. It’s also very accurate on the degrading side of the art world, where sometimes real talent is overshadowed by rejection and excess.
While Mitchell is amazingly complex and Clarkson is funny and charmingly boorish, Sheedy’s performance is the film’s heart. She is sexy, seductive, edgy, and radiant. This isn’t the Ally Sheedy you know from her Brat Pack days, this is a whole new Ally Sheedy, one with grit, edge, and without fear. Her Lucy is a real standout and a brave turn from her.
Criterion does Cholodenko’s film justice on Blu-ray, giving it a solid new 4K restoration. Cholodenko’s fascinating 2004 commentary is included, and the new supplements are also great. They include a new conversation between Cholodenko and filmmaker Karyn Kusama; new interviews with Sheedy, Mitchell and photographer Joan Whilden; and Dinner Party, a 1997 short film by Cholodenko. There’s also a wonderful new essay by critic B. Ruby Rich.
High Art is a must have for both queer film afficionados and indie-film buffs. The film itself is a blunt, insightful chapter in LGBTQIA cinema history.
