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Tuesday, 12:05 am in Archive

Yup, finally got around to seeing Hedwig and the Angry Inch today after lusting at it in the Blockbuster for the better part of a year. It was… really good. I cried a lot, because I cry a lot whenever there’s sappy homoerotic romance involved. Aw.

And to anyone who thought the ending was confusing… what are you, on drugs? Or just asleep during the entire “Origin of Love” song? Pfft. Besides, it’s adapted from a (musical) play. Plays don’t have to make sense; it’s like the law of the universe. Not that it didn’t. Not make sense, I mean. Man, I need to play Warcraft and stop trying to type. I guess my only problem with the plot is that Hedwig is still very obviously male (castrated, but still male); yet s/he has apparently passed the “physical examination” to get from East Berlin to America? But, like I said, it’s a play and hey, if I didn’t have a problem with Gozu I can hardly complain. After the scene in which “Wig in a Box” plays – with Hedwig watching the fall of the Berlin Wall with that total “Well… fuck. All this for nothing.” kind of expression – I’ve decided that’s definatley my favourite song. Watching Hedwig be jealous of a city finding its other half while she is left with… an angry inch and a wig in a box. Good stuff.

Probably the oddest thing to me when watching the film was because I listened to the soundtrack beforehand, so it was really obvious to me that Yitzhak was actually played by a woman (‘he’ has a woman’s voice; sorry, but beard aside it’s really obvious) and it actually confused me for most of the movie until the ending, and until I read about the deleted scene of how the pair met. Actually for most of the movie I was thinking, “Maybe he’s also a transsexual, but the other way… who knows, ooh I like this song. [sing, cry]”

John Cameron Mitchell gives a great performance on and off stage as Hedwig; total mad props. (~Random [h]; this kind of campy manic-depressive energy is exactly right for You Know Who, as well.) Plus, he’s been in Law & Order! What a legend!

So yeah, if any of you out there enjoy, say, fun, genderbending cult musicals a la Rocky Horror, I recommend this film.  (Though, to be honest, I think Hedwig is a helluva lot more cerebral than Rocky Horror; not to be interpreted as dissing either movie, though.)