Amazon.comPortrait of a Marriage opens with deceptive calm– a husband and wife working in a garden look up at planes flying overhead. But the planes are off to bomb Germany and moments later a phone call thrusts the wife–poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West (Janet McTeer, Tumbleweeds)–into a bittersweet reverie from the previous war. Five years into her marriage with Harold Nicolson (David Haig, Two Weeks Notice), Harold confesses his affairs with men–but swears his only true passion is Vita. She accepts this, but when her childhood friend Violet Keppel (Cathryn Harrison, Clarissa) arrives, the two women begin an affair. Soon Vita and Violet find themselves deeply enmeshed, traveling through the gay demimonde of Paris with Vita in men’s clothes. The affair becomes all-consuming and starts tearing at Vita and Harold’s marriage and the lives of their two children. Portrait of a Marriage practically bursts with revealing psychological details and startlingly steamy sex sc (more…)
Claire of the Moon- Lesbian Movie (1992) - Female authors gather at a small northern coastal retreat to work on their writing skills. A first-time guest who lives for the moment finds herself struggling with her sexuality after discovering her roommate is a lesbian.
Every stereotype in the history of lesbian movies applies in this insipid piece of coitus interruptus from Portland, Oregon, director Nicole Conn. Not only doesn’t she have the courage to write and direct something that is uniquely her own–she pulls almost verbatim from Donna Deitch’s better, more masterful lesbian drama Desert Hearts–but she banters to every inane heterosexual cliché, including slow-burning looks, endless cigarettes, and long, slow-motion walks on the beach. This horribly acted love story between legendary writer Claire Jabrowski (Trisha Todd) and sex therapist Dr. Nicole Benedict (Karen Trumbo) unfolds as the two (gulp) become roommates at a New Age writers workshop. The romance then relies on flirting and inane banter to involve the viewer. After an hour of scary lesbian dyke drama, we’re all ready to change sexual preference. It’s poorly acted, silly, and titillating in that it will provoke bored straight women more than gay girls. In the (more about Clair of the Moon at Amazon)
Review
The first 45 min of this movie is straight out of Murder She Wrote style of directing and acting *Rolls Eyes* Hence only a 7 vote for me… However – skip past the first 45 minutes of plain bad acting, directing and script etc etc etc and the remaining hour is actually well worth the watch! The plot will not suffer any for skipping this first 45 min – indeed this would have been better as a short movie.
Directed by a lesbian this movies has some good stuff to say about both hetero and lesbian relationships and the dynamics of each from a woman’s perspective. It was all good sound stuff and I found it thought provoking and it held my attention. The romance and seductive scenes are also quite sensuous and ‘worked’ for me *smile* They show how a lesbian relationship may grow and develop for a hetero woman who has become bored of men being so ‘easy’ when it comes to sex. She finds that her ‘power’ simply doesn’t work that way when it comes to women. Lesbian relationships being based upon very different dynamics to those of hetero relationships…
