沙漠妖姬

Revisiting this 90s flamboyant drag cult made from Down Under, a trio of drag performers, two drag queens, Mitzi (Weaving) and Felicia (Pearce) and a trans-woman Bernadette (Stamp), embarks on a road trip on their titularly coined bus,from Sydney to the outback to perform their routines, en route, they meet multifarious people (whose reaction ranging from beneficent, gobsmacked, impassive, miffed to violent, and the juxtaposition between the aborigine and the white hicks is piercingly sharp) and each has his/her own generational revelation to cope with by the time their four-week-stint ends.

Felicia, a sassy whippersnapper played by a sinewy Guy Pearce in his breaking-out cinema role, who constantly squabbles with Bernadette and has to learn his lesson in a hard way after he has a narrow escape of hate-crime induced mutilation, and Pearce is barnstorming to a fault, as if he is too self-aware of his orthodox masculine appearance, which he compensates with a patina of effeminate affectation and posturing that runs to distracting, as we know that queer and masculine don’t necessarily exclude each other, perceivably, he is the weakest link in the fold.

Hugo Weaving’s Mitzi, acting more natural in his persona’s stage/private distinction, carries a more weighty responsibility when we realize he is married to a woman and they have an eight-year-old son Benji (Holmes), the burden of guilt and shame is what weighs down on every nonconformist being’s soul, his tentative attempt to reconnect with Benj engages with a tender vulnerability that precariously avoids becoming saccharine, which says a lot about the performer’s emotive strength.

Nevertheless, the best performance is unequivocally from Stamp, whose Bernadette is long in the tooth, but she proves that wisdom, dignity and snide quips are amassed through years of hardened self-preservation against side-eyes and brandishing fists, Stamp embodies her with superlative poise larded with subtle cynicism and utter phlegm, which makes Bernadette’s romantic kindling with a rough diamond Bob (Hunter) more like an unexpected boon than a hackneyed plot maneuver.

The show must go on, and for a drag troupe of three, lip-syncing of queer-friendly iconic hits (Charlene’s I’VE NEVER BEEN ME is an infectious show opener, which would be dusted off in Lynne Ramsay’s YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE 2017, and rendered an idiosyncratically poignant effect) is just a one trick pony doesn’t offer much variations, so their pageantry lives and dies with its gaudy, zany, eye-popping, varicolored, Oscar-winning apparel, particularly when being put into use against the vast topography in the middle of nowhere, and the crowning moment on the top of King’s canyon, that majesty feeling of being unique in a cosmic world is so refreshing and life-affirming.

Lastly, one cannot stress this enough, it is an unqualified relief that director/writer Stephan Elliott sticks to his guns with a less dramatic leitmotif to anchor his tragedy-prone subject matter in the most gracious way one can probably conceive,PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT is truly,ahoot and a half.

companion pieces: Beeban Kidron’s TO WONG FOO THANKS FOR EVERYTHING, JULIE NEWMAN (1995, 6.0/10); John Cameron Mitchell's HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001, 7.1/10).

如果是几年前我肯定无法欣赏这样一部影片，色彩饱和的像太阳的调色盘，人物都吵吵闹闹，也没有完整的故事。

没有事情会让我觉得无法忍受，但还是会疼

果蔬说这话的时候我就跟着被刺了一下。

公路片。简单引入将三个人聚在一起后，本就疯癫的旅途中插入更为诙谐的闪回补充一下过去。

以前社交账号上地址总会写澳大利亚。别人问起，我就说以后想去澳大利亚生活，牧场、荒岩、古老的生物……其实我对澳大利亚一点也不了解，那只是一片遥远的陆地，一个可以让我把所有举目悠远的梦都想象出来的地域象征。

很多镜头都太美了，随手一截就是壁纸。

真真诗情画意的月

碎碎火星飞向静谧的夜

玫瑰色落日

fucking freak 异装癖姐妹团 舞台感十足的电影，华丽绚烂的服饰。从头秀到尾。

夸张的造型下面也有疲惫的内心，越是费劲力气去证明的，往往越是社会缺少的、价值不认同的。

从大城市走进小乡镇的演出之路注定不平坦。反而是土著人的音乐聚会更为包容多元。

性感歌姬 灵魂舞者 颠覆认知男做女 华服道具 世界舞台 天地苍茫怅寥廓 对自身性别的反复确认 对自我认知的不断求证 对世俗伦理的强烈冲击 对传统观念的道德宣战