As managing editor of Past the Popcorn—a publication aimed squarely at a mainstream Christian audience—I have thus far studiously avoided covering Queer Cinema.  Yet my sensibilities are decidedly aligned with critic Dmetri Kamki, who has written:

I have never liked this segregation of films into gay or non-gay categories. However, for the record, my strict definition of a gay film is a film made by, for and about gay people. Anything that falls outside of that is, strictly speaking, not a gay film. Ultimately, however, for me, a film is either good or bad. It makes a whole lot more sense to engage with a film on an emotional, intellectual or aesthetic level and, no matter what the sexual proclivities of its makers, to view the unfolding drama in terms of our complex responsiveness to universal human experience.

In the spirit of Kamki’s sentiments, I have also never liked the labels “Black Cinema” or “Christian Film”—even though Past the Popcorn has covered plenty of films in both of those categories.

So when invitations (repeatedly) arrived to cover the documentary Chris & Don: A Love Story, I passed and passed again… until my conscience got the better of me, and I figured I at least owed it to myself to discover whether the buzz about this film were accurate, whether it indeed portrayed something of the “universal human experience.”

I’m very glad I did.

At the same time, I can say with utter certainty that not everyone who views this film will be glad they did so.

This is due primarily to the fact the film’s central characters—British expatriate and Hollywood screenwriter Chris Isherwood and his to-the-death partner and artist Don Bachardy—were openly and almost flamboyantly gay.  Bachardy, in fact, is proudly queer to this day, and is of a type that makes even some of my gay friends cringe.  He’s that proudly “out,” aside from his work almost wholly defined by his sexuality.

His devotion to Isherwood, however, is profound.  I was not much moved by the story of how Bachardy and Isherwood—thirty years Bachardy’s senior—initially got together; it so represents an indulgent artiste’s tragic and self-absorbed sensibilities that I found it tedious, much as when I witness (or have participated in) such things in real life.

But as Bachardy and Isherwood mature together—and particularly as we watch Bachardy’s development as a painter and long-suffering caregiver for Isherwood through his fatal struggle with prostate cancer—the film develops another dimension entirely.  It’s no longer about the unique foibles and charms of two particular men; it’s about the grand and profound lessons that we can learn as we abandon self and truly live for another.

Personally, the film helped me see that in order to die with Christ, we must first learn to walk with Him.  We mistakenly assume that when we are “buried with Christ, and raised to walk with Him in newness of life”—as they say during many a Protestant baptism—that we’ve learned everything we need to know about dying to self at the point of baptism.  And this is hardly the case. 

Jesus cautioned His disciples about counting the cost of following Him—not merely accepting Him—and told them, “he who would find his life must first lose it.”  Think about it: if dying to self happens before we walk a lifetime with Christ, what “cost” is there involved?  Who wouldn’t want to leave the old, sinful self behind in favor of the “new man”?  There’s no real cost there, only gain.

No, dying to self means dying with Christ, walking with Him, really becoming one with Him and truly understanding His pain and His suffering, not merely our own pain and suffering as sinners—just as Bachardy, through his artistry, ultimately became one with Isherwood at the point of death… and only then, as Isherwood sensed, becoming ready to really live.

So there it is.  I have learned something valuable and pithy from Queer Cinema.

But will you?  That all depends.  If you know gay men, love them, and want to love others and Christ more deeply, you may find something rewarding in this film.

If this is all too much for you—well, we all have things we just can’t bear to witness, and I don’t blame you a bit.  So by all means, give this film a pass if that’s the case.

Chris & Don: A Love Story is unrated.  The dramatized re-enactments of Isherwood’s and Bachardy’s courtship pander just enough to the gay community to at times be off-putting.  There’s nothing graphic here, however, so I would only caution audiences about the very obvious thematic material… something in the neighborhood of a PG-13.  It’s probably worth pointing out that Bachardy’s and Isherwood’s lifestyles are a bit whitewashed here, and that might prove a bit misleading to younger audiences.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg viewed a promotional screener of Chris & Don: A Love Story.