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They met on
Santa
Monica Beach. Chris was 46 and Don was 16. For a few months, Chris
slept with Don’s 18-year-old brother, Ted, but it soon became
obvious that the real attraction was between Chris and Don. That
would be Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, of course, the
subject of Chris and Don: A Love Story. Sensitively directed
by Guido Santi and Tina Mascara, this ninety-minute documentary of
one of the world’s most beloved and admired gay couples tells a love
story as captivating and inspiring as any of the Hollywood films
that Don Bachardy cherished as a boy in Southern California.
With Bachardy providing his point of view as
the camera follows him through his daily routines, and Michael York
reading in voiceover from the diaries of Christopher, the film is
fleshed out with gorgeous home movies from the couple’s first
flirtations on the
California beaches. To see Don Bachardy as a youth with his coltish
spirit and his gap-toothed smile is to recall the days of Athletic
Model Guild models—and to better pinpoint the antecedents of Bruce
Weber’s pulchritudinous work for Abercrombie & Fitch.
More than titillating, however, the film’s true
focus remains on the depth of connection between Chris and Don. And
the use of animated cartoon animals to highlight the individual
natures of the two men, as well as their interdependence, is both
charming and deeply touching. It’s all but a certainty that any
LGBT person viewing this film will feel a renewed sense of respect
for those who have helped pave the road before us, as well as a
desire to live one’s own life with the courage of one’s own
convictions.
And where better to celebrate the likes of Chris and Don and
everything else fabulous than the Setai, the setting for the
post-screening party, sponsored by Edison Farrow’s Sobe Social
Club. The signature ‘tini of the night was called the
Chris-and-Don, a bracing combination of gin, brandy, Cointreau, and
Benedictine, with as much color as a Pacific sunset. Here’s to
Chris and Don—and the MGLFF! |
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