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Film Review by John Demetry
These are the guys the dominant gay culture objectifies (in ads, movies, and the sex industry) while pushing for "positive role models" that reflect economic, racial, and historical privilege. Playgirl-model-turned-gay-filmmaker Dirk Shafer wants to liberate gay culture from self-exploitation. Circuit combines in-your-face sexuality with unabashed melodrama. Incredibly (and thankfully), there's as little camp in Circuit as fat on the chiseled bodies of its circuit-boi cast. Like the dance-music score by Tony Moran, Shafer's characters are entrancing, unpredictable. A running motif in the film has the characters looking into mirrors ("Hello, gorgeous"). Narcissism? Yes, but they're also measuring the spiritual toll of "the life." Each character reflects Shafer's own healthy self-criticism. New to the L.A. circuit scene, Johnny (Jonathan Wade Drahos) is a former small-town police officer ("Aren't you lonely?" asks his superior. "Yeah. . ."). Johnny's partying puts stress on his relationships, especially with ex-girlfriend and roommate Nina (Kiersten Warren) - the quintessential struggling comedienne, she performs in gay burlesque shows. Johnny falls in love with Latino prostitute Hector (Andre Khabbazi), who only has sex for money, and with Gill (Brian Lane Green), a veteran of the sexual revolution. Gill's partner, Tad (Daniel Kucan), leaves him for circuit DJ Julian (Darryl Stephens) while making a documentary on the circuit scene. Tad's documentary primarily focuses on HIV-positive circuit superstar Bobby (Paul Lekakis).
A circuit promoter, played with effortless evil by William Katt, plots to
capitalize on his investment on Bobby's life insurance policy. This
explicitly links the film's emotional conflicts to an economic chain. The
personal traumas feed the excesses of the circuit scene: a vicious circle
trapping each character. They desperately need a break 4 love.
To break it down, Shafer enlists Nancy Allen, despairing over her unhappy marriage to Katt. Reminding of her great, sexy performances in the late '70s/early '80s, Allen exudes an uncanny compassion for outsider characters - as when she looks up at a movie screen at the end of Circuit. You can read it on her face: the party is over. Allen's forgotten compassion puts the movie's cold Hollywood milieu in relief. This is probably one of the rare times when the director had little choice but to shoot on DV. You need Hollywood money to expose Hollywood-closet corruption on celluloid. Shafer takes advantage of DV to begin to develop a language of storytelling inspired by the music of the culture he examines. That catalyzes the collaboration between Shafer, photographer Joaquin Sedillo, and editor Glen Richardson. Especially important is composer Moran, whose production/re-mixing on Michael Jackson's Blood on the Dance Floor revealed a remarkable pop-political imagination. Such experimentation makes sense when dealing with stories new to popular movie screens. Examples: the montage of Billy's erection-by-injection, the strangely poignant collage of Billy and Johnny hooking up scored to a "White Rabbit" re-mix, and the shots of bare asses everywhere.
Crosscutting the stories feels more like a DJ set than a soap opera. As with Moran's work on Blood on the Dance Floor, each situation flows melodiously or discordantly with the next. That's Shafer's genuine - if not as profound as Jackson's - social vision. That vision spins around Johnny. Drahos is right for the role in iconographic terms: think porn star Tommy Cruise on steroids. Like all the actors in this low-budget movie, he exhibits an ample emotional reserve. But when Nina describes Johnny as "Not only nice; he was kind," it just hasn't been dramatized. However, when Hector says, "I love you, Johnny" - a heartbreaking scene inventively staged - you believe it! Word up: Khabbazi gives the most exciting performance in an American movie so far this year. (Oscar? Yeah, right!)
Khabbazi makes poignant the line that typifies art-house elitism: "I don't feel anything." Khabbazi suddenly explodes with the feelings pulsing through Hector's veins - so intense they threaten to dislodge his facial implants. It's a ferocious, beyond-sexy performance - seducing the audience to share Khabbazi's compassion. There's blood on the dance floor, all right --and it's Khabbazi's blood. |
Circuit proves that drug-abusing, sexually promiscuous, muscle-obsessed
party boiz working and living for the next color-coded party have dreams and
lives worthy of pop drama and collective catharsis.
Shafer comes up with some daring new ways of staging dramatic scenes,
especially Gill and Tad's domestic squabble. The movie spectators witness
the sequence through the point-of-view of Julian, blissed out on his own
techno spin.
