In Cicada the hypermasculine and the homerotic collide in the decline of the 90s rave scene. Classic.
This is a short film by director Roxanna Stroe. It follows three boys: Gallup (Samuel D Anderson), Tony (Tom Victor) and Jack (Edward Hayter) as they ‘snort lines, shag girls and never let hardcore die’.
The lead’s two friends have decided the lead needs to lose his virginity immediately. During tonight’s night out, this will be his task. A taxi-ride with a silent driver determines the fate of how successful the heavy night will turn out. Tony and Jack are rude to the driver but Gallup tips him. At the club, the lead attempts a two man step and fails (his mate gets with both girls) and he finds himself more interested in another man (Niccolo Besio). The latter two characters are then beat up and bound after an altercation with who I think is another dealer?
My favourite part of this one is the set dressing and the hair and makeup. I love the brief shots of the boys flat/house. Their floral wallpaper is plastered with sleazy images and jacked men. I love the black-eye and the grainy home-video of the boys shaving the Gallup’s head in a teeny tiny aspect ratio.
Thematically the film uses the mindlessness of drugs, sex and rave music to cast a blurred strobe-lit shrug to explorations of identity. There is a carnality and a dirt to the whole film but also a picturesque montage toward the end. Alternating between slushie blue and red lighting. This music video segment mostly includes the character Gallup giving a man head as he smokes a cigarette. It cuts between this and the two other boys looking into the camera scared, afraid and naked. I don’t know how to feel about this section. Sure.
Queerness in the film is intriguingly explored. The night almost camouflages the film’s events in its chaos. And when the boys return in this ‘magical’ taxi they left in, now daylit, the lead smiles as if he has gotten away with something.
Cicada has an interesting place in the Femme Filmmakers Festival. I believe there is so much focus on the men involved that it becomes distinctly female-gazey. The men are spectacle almost, despite the gratuitous nature of their words and actions—it’s almost eye candy or a little fun watching experience rather than a terrifying look at hypermasculinity.
This film is a moral fairytale about being nice to your cab driver on the way to the club lest you wish to pull and instead be stripped to your underwear and bludgeoned in the club bathroom. Heed its warning.
