Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)

Much more than a cult film -- a poignant and engaging story of love and loss
I won't repeat the summaries of this film -- I only want to say it is much more than a cult film but is more exciting and intriguing and fun and sad than most films out there. Unfortunately even New Line decided to market this as a niche product -- comparing it to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Without knocking that film, which is a phenomenon of its own, Hedwig is in a different league. While the style of Hedwig's band owes a lot to camp and to glam rock the film itself is never campy. It has the music and power and vision of some of the great musical celebrations like The Wall and The Commitments, but has a more intimate feel than either of those. It is, in style, closer to a documentary, and after watching this you will swear that Hedwig is not merely an invention of the actor and director John Cameron Mitchell but has a life of his own.

Apart from enjoying the film quite a bit, I was also quite happy when I noticed that the song "The Origin of Love" is a retelling of the story Aristophanes tells in one of the most exciting of ancient books, Plato's Symposium -- of how in the beginning we were created as a unity of two and the gods saw that the contentment this generated made us too powerful and divided us, so that love is the longing for our other half.

You Kant Always Get What You Want
Sing along, now: My sex change operation got botched; my guardian angel fell asleep on the watch; now all I got is a Barbie doll crotch; I've got an angry inch!

And there you have it. Some of the wittiest, most outrageously delicious lines fall from the lips of Hedwig, the loveliest Eastern Berlin glam-Bloc girly boy to ever fall in love with an American soldier, only to become the angriest inch in the Junction City, Kansas trailer park. Abandoned by hir new husband, Hedwig becomes a sensation in hir own mind, touring local restaurants with hir band comprised of Korean Army wives. Along the way Hedwig meets and befriends a young Christian boy. Hedwig falls in love. The boy, Tommy Gnosis, steals all of hir songs and becomes a sellout rockstar.

If that thread of the story wasn't sad, humorous and compelling enough on its own, the animated interweaving of Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium is beautifully spun. It is that smooth rendering against the garish and, angry world of Hedwig that the real story of transformation emerges. Resting solely on the fluid dynamic of sexuality, it's easy to go into this film with that in focus as the prevailing theme. Hedwig's effort to recreate hir desired body shape results in a state of being that requires perhaps even more self-acceptance than the original did. However, in hir relationship with Tommy the question of acceptance becomes one of a more intangible nature: can one live without one's soul complement? If not can one make the changes in oneself in order to live with one's soul complement?

So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

You Kant Always Get What You Want
Sing along, now: My sex change operation got botched; my guardian angel fell asleep on the watch; now all I got is a Barbie doll crotch; I've got an angry inch!

And there you have it. Some of the wittiest, most outrageously delicious lines fall from the lips of Hedwig, the loveliest Eastern Berlin glam-Bloc girly boy to ever fall in love with an American soldier, only to become the angriest inch in the Junction City, Kansas trailer park. Abandoned by hir new husband, Hedwig becomes a sensation in hir own mind, touring local restaurants with hir band comprised of Korean Army wives. Along the way Hedwig meets and befriends a young Christian boy. Hedwig falls in love. The boy, Tommy Gnosis, steals all of hir songs and becomes a sellout rockstar.

If that thread of the story wasn't sad, humorous and compelling enough on its own, the animated interweaving of Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium is beautifully spun. It is that smooth rendering against the garish and, angry world of Hedwig that the real story of transformation emerges. Resting solely on the fluid dynamic of sexuality, it's easy to go into this film with that in focus as the prevailing theme. Hedwig's effort to recreate hir desired body shape results in a state of being that requires perhaps even more self-acceptance than the original did. However, in hir relationship with Tommy the question of acceptance becomes one of a more intangible nature: can one live without one's soul complement? If not can one make the changes in oneself in order to live with one's soul complement?

So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.