Pissoir (1988)

Directed by

John Greyson

Genre

drama film, LGBTQ-related film

Country

Canada

Runtime

1h 38m

Rating

4.3 of 10 from 7 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An unnamed man asks dead artists and writers for advice on how to respond to police raids on gay sex venues in Toronto. The film mixes fictional scenes with real documentary clips about civil liberties and public morality.

thoughtfulpoliticalcerebralexperimentalpoignantstylizedearnestinventive

What happens

Pissoir, retitled Urinal in some countries, was the first feature film directed and released by John Greyson. Released in 1988, the film's central character is an unnamed man who conjures a circle of dead literary and artistic figures, including Sergei Eisenstein, Dorian Gray, Yukio Mishima, Frida Kahlo, and Langston Hughes, to help him formulate a response to police crackdowns on gay sex venues in Toronto, blending fiction with documentary as Greyson also includes quotes from real Canadian journalistic and political figures, including Barbara Amiel and Svend Robinson, about civil liberties and public morality. The film's cast includes Paul Bettis, Pauline Carey, Lance Eng, and Olivia Rojas. The film premiered at the 1988 Toronto International Film Festival. It was subsequently screened at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival in 1989, where it won a Teddy Award for Best Essay Film. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Boy, Girl (1987)
• Straight for the Heart (1988)
• The Everlasting Secret Family (1988)
• Fun Down There (1988)
• The Fruit Machine (1988)
• The Grace of God (1998)
• Dead Ringers (1988)
• Bruce and Pepper Wayne Gacy's Home Movies (1988)