Underplayed Gems

Montreal Main (1974)

Montreal Main poster
Directed by
Frank Vitale
Genre
LGBTQ-related film
Country
Canada
Runtime
1h 28m
Rating
5.2 of 10 from 12 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

A filmmaker named Frank forms a close friendship with a 12 year old boy named Johnny. As the community and the boy's parents grow suspicious of their bond, Frank starts to question his own intentions. The movie explores how prejudice can poison even innocent relationships.

intimatecontemplativeambiguousuncomfortabledocumentary-likemelancholicgroundedunsettling

What happens

Montreal Main is a Canadian docufiction film, released in 1974. The film was directed by Frank Vitale, and written by Vitale, Allan Moyle and Stephen Lack. The film centres on Frank (Vitale) and Bozo (Moyle), two friends of ambiguous sexuality living in the bohemian arts community of Montreal, Quebec. Frank develops a friendship with Johnny (John Sutherland), a 12-year-old boy, while Bozo is developing a new relationship with Jackie (Jackie Holden), a friend of Johnny's parents. Although Frank's relationship with Johnny is platonic and non-sexual, the common stereotype of gay men as pedophiles prone to sexually preying on underage boys begins to colour the community's and Johnny's parents' judgement of the friendship, driving a wedge between them as even Frank is increasingly driven to question his own motivations. The film is also a philosophical exploration of the contrast between existentialism and essentialism. The same core group of Vitale, Lack and Moyle also collaborated on the 1978 film The Rubber Gun. The film was rereleased on DVD in 2009, and was the subject of a critical analysis by Thomas Waugh and Jason Garrison in 2011, as part of Arsenal Pulp Press' Queer Film Classics series. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.