Metrograph

Inspired by Frank Ripploh’s Taxi zum Klo, Van Sant’s smudgy black-and-white debut, planted firmly on the cracked concrete of the filmmaker’s hometown of Portland, Oregon, prophesied and broke ground for the ’90s New Queer Cinema, while also anticipating its filmmaker’s career-long exploration of issues concerning gay life, class, and race. White liquor store clerk Walt (Tim Streeter), living on the city’s tattered fringes, seeks erotic ecstasy in the arms of the undocumented Mexican teenagers who hang around his shop—but any attempt at honest connection with his objects of desire is necessarily complicated by the barriers of language, money, and more. As achingly honest and as uncomfortable a film as Van Sant ever made, addressing the myriad complexions that arise when love and lust face gaping divides.

Distributor: Janus Films