Even if Pride Month is coming to an end, queer celebration is only just beginning!

To keep the Pride celebrations going this year, consider indulging in these underrated queer films from across the world!

The Victoria Voice would like to present:

An Amateur's Guide at Navigating the World of Vitally Underappreciated Sapphic Films.

Rafiki (2018)

Deepening the impossible struggles of Romeo and Juliet, Rafiki shows the love between two young girls, Kena and Ziki. Despite the political turmoil surrounding their two opposing families, their love for one another triumphs all else.

Directed by Wanuri Kahiu, Rafiki is a controversial film set in Nairobi, Kenya. Upon its release, the film was banned by the Kenya Film Classification Board, despite protests from the creative team. Later that year, theaters showing Rafiki were swarmed by Nairobi residents, following a temporary lift of the ban.

Early scenes of Rafiki are rich in colour, ranging from dark pink to bright oranges and endlessly warm hues. As the narrative progresses, the audience begins to see a muted, pastel palette emerging during Kena and Ziki’s time together.

Developing alongside the flourishing colour palette is the cinematography, which shifts in complexity and style as each relationship in the film is established. Awkward, unflinching and complex, the cinematography of Rafiki highlights their idealizations of love, as well as the reality of their lives. In the moments when Kena must have her ‘spirit cleansed’, she stares emotionless, just off centre of the frame.

Some scenes are shot through windows, half-split by the boarded edges. Others, simply seen in the reflection of a hand-held mirror or through glass shelves. Occasionally, when the frame becomes half-veiled in curtains or cloth, silence overcomes the film and erases everything behind it in a burning trail of memories.

Rafiki is ultimately a greater exploration of human relationships - whether based in spirituality, childhood, community or otherwise. It expertly represents themes of passion, hardships, mob mentality, and the stubbornly irrational complications of love.

Above all else, it demonstrates the pitfalls of community, and the human need for solidarity.

By the end of the film, dreams have been left unfulfilled, abandoned and waiting. It leaves on a vague gesture of a future - a soft outline of a happy ending.

“Let's make a pact:

That we will never be like any of them down there.”

Grandma (2015)

Grandma is an American film written, directed, and produced by Paul Weitz. It follows the complicated lives of Elle Reid and Sage, as they travel through the memory-ridden streets of Los Angeles.

Elle Reid, a retired, disillusioned, widowed writer is visited by her granddaughter, Sage, following Elle’s breakup with her recent girlfriend. Sage tells her grandmother that she's pregnant, and needs $630 for an abortion. The two, both broke and becoming increasingly desperate, search Elle’s past for an opportunity to acquire the money. Sage is scared, desperate, naive, and unwilling to compromise her views. Elle is loud, angry, unpleasant, and unapologetic. Contradicting the chaotic lives of these complex characters, the film is poetically split into distinct, labeled sections:

beginnings
ink
apes
the ogre
kids
dragonfly

Each of these phases showcase aspects of Elle’s past, and depict different relationships. “kids”, the longest chapter of the film, delves deeper into the family dynamics of the three generations: Elle, Judy, and Sage, and explores the heartbreaking nuances of family. The last chapter, “dragonfly” is about making amends, the downfalls of cynicism, and the importance of sincerity.

Grandma explores themes of motherhood, childhood, growing up, and loss. Unlike others in this list, Grandma is not a queer romance, but instead centers the cruel consequences of being a person; the aftermath of family.

“That's a really horrible thing to say.”

“Yes, well, I'm a horrible person.”

Blue (2002)

Blue, a Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Ando, depicts the lonely lives of highschoolers Kayako Kirishima and Masami Endō. Based on the manga of the same name, Blue is a coming of age story that depicts the gut-wrenchingly isolating trials and tribulations of young love.

Kayako Kirishima is mesmerized by a strange outcast shroud in mystery and quiet intrigue: Masami Endō. The two become friends, as both express a deep loneliness and dissatisfaction with their lives. As their hesitant friendship evolves, Kayako begins to fall in love with Endō. Kayako finds meaning in the way her love lights a cigarette, or the simple way she knows about the world. As Kayako becomes more and more entranced by Endō, the audience, too, learns more about her painful past, and the fears she harbors.

The steady, lingering shots of this film instill a greater feeling of consequence, something akin to eternity. Even in their fleeting romance, the cinematography reinforces a somber expression of permanence.

With a stylistic symmetry to rival that of Wes Anderson, Hiroshi’s Blue is truly a collection of masterpieces. Every scene is delicately unnerving; each frame poetically calculated. Where Anderson finds solace in shades of pale yellow and burnt orange, Ando finds it in hues of blue, gray, and pale brown. The cool, deep hues of the film only rest after Yamako’s first real conversation with Endō: the sudden warmth of Yamako’s yellow blanket, which lays draped over her shoulders. She is clothed in the warm delusion of young love, as she thoughtfully flips through the pages of the art book Endō gave to her.

Eventually, the narrative shifts to one of lonesome heartbreak and pain. Weeks pass: long, summer hours full of sunny clouds, all spent lying motionless on the hardwood floor - simply wishing. The still silence of wallowing, as days pass and the gut-wrenching hurt perseveres. The film becomes an expression of the lonely, rotting strain of pining that roots its way through one's very being.

Personal and quietly endearing, Blue depicts themes of queer love, longing, sorrow and hurt. The slow ache of losing someone so viscerally lovely: a heartache so deeply, profoundly, unendingly painful. Until, eventually, it must indeed end.

“Endō… Do you like being with me?”

“Yes, I do. Why do you ask?”

“…I don’t know.”