WAYNE VIRGO AND TOM PAYNE IN CAL

Coming of age in Bristol is crude for a gay dude

Cal is a sequel to gay UK filmmaker Chistian Martin's 2009 film, Shank (co-directed with Simon Pierce). Young protagonist Cal (again played by Wayne Virgo), now 23, returns to Bristol after five years in Europe because his mother is in hospital; his attempt to sign on to the dole and a visit to his mum don't go well. Economic unrest is rampant. "Occupy" demonstrations blend into street violence and his mum's council house is unreliably minded by his drunken "auntie" (not his real aunt) Jane (a campy Emily Corcoran), who tries to rape him on his first night back. The inside of the house gets trashed the next night by rioters after Cal has tangled with a mean gay-exploiting Russian pimp named Ivan (Shakespearean actor Daniel Brocklebank) who steals his passport and leaves him with a younger gay guy, Jason (a deliciously swishy Tom Payne), who's totally down on his luck and under the control of Ivan. Rude cross-cutting during the depiction of this first "fucked up day" for Cal may seem too calculated to shock and there is a blending of hard knocks with physical violence almost non-stop through much of the film. The method enables Martin to sketch in a lot of material rapidly but at some cost of verisimilitude and of subtlety in presenting the main characters, who don't get to develop as much as they might and often tend to telegraph their ideas and plans in short sentences (not that that isn't likely). Certain elements, like the violent rioters and the trashing of the council house interior, are blasted at us without quite adequately relating them to Cal, again with dubious edits. On the other hand, Martin and dp Jack O'Dowd provide plenty of excitement and some beautiful images, often tinged with blue.

Cal is original in its depiction of young gay romance (as the initially resistant Cal gives in to the attraction of Jason and they become lovers and allies against the world). This is a setting that's even more unglamorous than the tragi-comic world of college youth found in the BBC's series "Skins" (also set in Bristol). Likewise one writer called Martin's Shank, in which Cal (played by Virgo when five years younger), as a gang member is forced out of the closet into a grimly homophobic environment, then fleeing to France, a "blistering attack on the coming out genre" and this opinion has been frequently expressed. The writing in Cal hasn't the wit and invention of "Skins" or its range of characters, but it blows away the often sweet and low-keyed world of much conventional gay niche filmmaking. Cal deserves credit for daring to use a radical new approach and doing its best to deal with the real world as it is today in working-class England, such as picketing and the real "Occupy" demonstrators encamped in the Bristol town square. A lot of gay cinema happens in a bubble. This doesn't. It's meant sincerely and it points in a new direction, Ken Loach meeting up with Derek Jarmon.

Whatever's good and bad in the editing and cinematography goes to co-director Jack O'Dowd.

Cal, 81 mins., written and produced by Christian Martin and Bernie Hodges and directed by Christian Martin, debuted theatrically 21 February 2013 in the UK and was released on DVD there 9 September (TLA Releasing). It comes out via Artsploitation Films on DVD and VOD in the US 18 February 2014.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.