Passion is palpable in Mala Noche

Mala Noche is truly a film for the senses. Oregon filmmaker Gus Van Sant has a visual style that not only stirs our memories of unrequited love but also awakens our bodies. The camera literally pursues Walt as he tries, unsuccessfully, to get close to Johnny, a teenage illegal alien from Mexico. Along the way we get to experience the textures of Walt's life - an easy-going gay man who tends a dingy comer store in Portland's skid row district, lives in a roach-infested tenement building nearby and drives a beat-up car. Fabulously shot in black and white, the film has a documentary feel about it that encourages the sense of realism.

This is one of the few gay films where I actually experienced bodily sensations to an on-screen (read public) sexual encounter. Usually when I watch men engaging in affectionate/sexual activity on film, I find myself holding my breath, perhaps in disbelief, my existence in abeyance until the sexual tension has passed. But from the outset of the film Van Sant cleverly stirs our senses with close-up, angular images. This filmic foreplay prepares us for a sex scene between Walt and Johnny's friend, Peppers - undifferentiated folds of skin, full screen, become highly charged and physically stirring.

But this encounter is not as satisfying for Walt as it is for the audience. Sex with Peppers has left Walt with a sore ass - and cost him ten bucks. Mala noche! What a bad night. As angel-face Johnny remains elusive, Walt finds himself tending to the survival needs of Peppers. The film becomes a contrast in lives as Walt mourns another sort of "mala noche" - the ignorance of these frightened boys and the obscurity of their lives. Johnny and Pepper may be living on foreign terrain but compulsive heterosexism keeps them from really crossing borders. Walt, living in the 80s in America, has words to analyze his relationships. Johnny and Peppers do not. In the end, Walt is just putu - a faggot.

Tim Streeter as Walt puts in a superb performance. And Pat Baum's soundtrack combining Mexican and American music completes the cultural contrasts. But the film's strong suit is John Campbell's exciting cinematography.

source: Article 'Passion is Palpable in Mala Noche' by Richard Marchand; NAMBLA Bulletin, vol. 8, no. 7; September 1987; Reprinted from: Angles; May 1987