Chris & Don

Chris & Don

a beautiful love story by Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN Contributing Writer CHRIS & DON: A LOVE STORY VARSITY THEATRE OPENING AUGUST 1 Chris & Don: A Love Story is the type of documentary that sneaks up and surprises you in ways you just don't see coming. As simple and as direct as it is, the film resonates far more strongly than you would at first expect, the timeless nature of the relationship it examines enough to make even the hardest heart soften - if only just a little - in sincere appreciation. The movie follows the three-plus decade romance between noted writer Christopher Isherwood (his Berlin Stories became the basis for Cabaret) and famed artist and portrait painter Don Bachardy (30 years his lover's junior). Starting in 1950s Malibu, these two shared a life together as openly as any you would probably see today, their commitment to one another no less profound or inspiring as any straight relationship you've ever heard stories about in family gatherings or on the nightly news. Directors Tina Mascara and Guido Santi do a nice job of bringing Chris and Don's story to life. The film includes footage shot by the pair, uncanny period era recreations, and features interviews with actress Leslie Caron, director John Boorman, and Sally Bowles herself, Liza Minnelli (among others). But it is Don who does most of the heavy lifting, the filmmakers allowing the diminutive painter with the squeaky voice tell his own tale, the most startling and emotionally affecting moments coming straight from his own mouth. Chris & Don is, at times, a pricelessly moving documentary. There is an ethereal timelessness to the pair's love that really forced me to look again at how I view relationships between people, and for anyone that thinks Gay marriage can't work or is some sort of genetic impossibility, I hereby give you two men who, not only prove that statement wrong, did it decades before California considered it respectable, let alone constitutionally legal. Admittedly, the thought ran through my mind more than a couple of times that this film wouldn't have been made had the two individuals been male and female. More, as brave and as profound as the pair's achievement was, it almost goes without saying it couldn't probably have happened had both of them not been living in Hollywood. Mascara and Santi tend to gloss over these facts almost nonchalantly, the picture containing very few mentions of some of the hardships the duo must have had to endure in regards to their open sexuality. Still, it almost goes without saying that looking at a film like this can broaden a person's horizons and open their eyes to new possibilities. Commitment isn't easy, but if these two could do it in an age when they could have been severely harmed (or worse, killed) it actually gives me hope that I can someday do the same in my life. But it is how they endure the tough times that really crystallizes just how pure Chris and Don's relationship was. Death raises its ugly visage here (and, with over three decades separating the pair, how could it not), and seeing the latter come to grips with it in his recollections and his shatteringly emotional art work is powerfully devastating. This is where the film soars, and by the time it was over it was this final third I just couldn't get out of my head. Chris & Don: A Love Story has a lot to say and it doesn't have to work hard to say it. There is simplicity to the history it recalls, a delicate nuance that defies easy explanation. Which is pretty much the same thing you can say about love itself. The almost mystical influences it exudes upon us all is as timeless and as eternal as the one shared by two brave men who didn't even realize how heroic their heartfelt actions of almost matrimonial happiness really were. Courtesy of moviefreak.com