Stories of Our Lives is an anthology of five short films with LGBT themes from the East African republic of Kenya. It was made by the Nairobi-based art and activist group The Nest Collective, many of whose members prefer to conceal their identities to avoid possible persecution under Kenya’s notoriously draconian anti-gay laws. The film is still banned in it some country. The five dramas are mostly personal and domestic inspired by true incidents. ASK ME NICELY Kate, a rebellious young high school girl, meets first-love Faith, a fellow student. They begin a secret relationship, until the school principal takes action to separate the two by suspending Kate from the school. Back at home, Kate impulsively has a sexual encounter with a boy in her neighborhood. Two weeks later, Kate and Faith have an awkward reunion leading to their separation. RUN After negotiating a business deal, Patrick stumbles upon a local gay bar with his homophobic best friend, Kama. Patrick later returns to the clu...
Duffer is an aimless young man who enjoys the company of two lovers, but likes to be on his own sometimes, spending time down by the riverside under the bridge, reading, watching the world go by, that sort of thing. HIs male lover is an older man, who physically abuses him because that is how he gets pleasure but according to Duffer, he also loves him very much. It's times like these he get to his female lover, where he visits her at her place, have casual sex and they chat. Duffer excuses the actions by his abusive lover by claiming that while he feels victimised, he can console himself with the thought that Louis-Jack is gaining pleasure from this, which in his mixed up mindset constitutes a good and helpful thing. This gets ever more bizarre as the elder buggers the younger in the hope that they will produce an "infant", apparently jealous of women and their ability to do what men cannot, although Duffer doesn't have the heart to break it to him that is unlikely to change any time soon. And then the film just keeps getting weirder and weirder.
The film ha son direct dialogues and conversations and is mostly told to us in the form of a running commentary of what is meant to be going on provided by Duffer, but accompanied by interruptions from the voices of both his older abusive lover and the female. This is a very experimental film , trying to push boundaries in the way it tells story and also in the innovative ways that the older lover come sup with to abuse Duffer, but despite this, the film failed to hold my attention. We are not sure of the lover is real, or is just a figment of imagination from Duffer's troubled mind. In fact both him and the female lover could simply be a twin idee fixe representing Duffer's slowly loosening grip on sanity and stability. In the end we're never sure if the whole thing is simply the last crazed reflections of a psychotic episode as the film concludes with the image of a prone Duffer on the riverside. Duffer is a unique view of London and a weird study of the moral, gender, social and political obfuscations of the times. A bizarre study of desires, want and obsession with an awkwardly placed narration, this film definitely did not do anything for me, except just get familiar with yet another experimental narration style. (3/10)
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