Frameline Film Fest: Wild Tigers I Have Known June 18, 2006

Wild Tigers I Have Known

Director Cam Archer offers an impressive debut with this lush, extravagant first feature conjuring the desperate intensity and mysticism of first love and sexual awakening.

Others in school tend to write off 13-year-old Jordan. No one takes the time to understand him as he understands himself: a wild and beautiful animal, out of place in civilized society. Even Jordan’s closest friend, Joey, uses him mainly as a sounding board to rehearse the poses and phrases of male sexual prowess, as yet unrealized. Jordan shares Joey’s curiosity about the sexual exploits of older boys —particularly his dreamboat fellow student, Rodeo —but longs to enter this world through a different door. When Rodeo himself shows Jordan a modicum of kindness, the very air seems heavy with a brotherly love that might blossom into something more. Jordan can’t find a way to express his feelings to Rodeo until a mysterious voice arises from within him, calling itself “Leah” and manifesting the power that Jordan has suppressed for so long.

Archer renders the beauty and feral intensity of this unique story with fine direction of an astonishing cast. Exquisite handling of sound, color and visual texture, as well as a haunting soundtrack, evoke the otherworldliness of infatuation and transcendence. This bold and bewitching film heralds the arrival of a precise and uncompromising observer of the queer imagination.

—SHANNON KELLEY

WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN dir Cam Archer 2005 USA 93 min video

Eligible for the Dockers® First Feature Award

This program is sponsored by Sundance Channel.

Official Website: http://www.frameline.org/festival/30th/filmsevents.html