BEN AND ARTHUR
US, 2002, 85 minutes, Colour.
Sam Mraovich, Jamie Brett Gabel, Michael Haboush, Bill Hindley, Julie M.Zimmerman, Gina Aguilar, Arthur Huber, Richard Hitchcock.
Directed by Sam Mraovich.
This film was made in 2002, at a time when same-sex marriage was being discussed and beginning to be legislated for in various American states. It is a plea for the widespread possibility for same-sex marriage. It also tackles the subject of homophobia, especially in a religious context and religious fanaticism.
This might make Ben and Arthur more important and more significant than it actually is. In fact, the IMDb bloggers suggested it as a strong candidate for the worst film ever made. It certainly is not quite that bad, although the acting is rather amateurish throughout, the direction straightforward, the editing rather laborious. The person to have responsibility for this is the writer, Director, star, along with a whole lot of other credits, his name being repeated extensively during the initial credits, Sam Mraovich.
He plays Arthur, a gay man who is in a relationship with Ben, married, trying to get a divorce from a very angry wife. They are advised by a lawyer to have a ceremony in Vermont, which they do (rather stilted) and come back to California and fight their case.
In the meantime, Arthur goes to visit his alienated brother, Victor, to borrow money for a college course. The brother is quite fanatical, homophobic, drawing on the gospel and declarations of faith in Jesus, very much in an evangelical vein. So, it is a surprise, when we find that he belongs to a Catholic parish. He goes to visit the parish priest who has to be seen and heard to be believed! Conventional in some ways, he is rabid homophobic, declaring that all homosexuals will go to hell, Vhurch because of Victor homosexual brother, causing him anguish. Victor hires a private detective to get information about his homosexual brother, then colludes with the priest to hire a hitman, deciding that it is better for his brother to die than to live his gay life. There is an absurd episode with holy water being stuck to the gay men’s door!
It becomes highly melodramatic by the end, the angry Victor being revealed (or we thought this initially) as a repressed homosexual, murdering the lawyer in her car in a parking area, confronting Ben and shooting him, initially failing, but returning to kill him confronting his brother, stripping him naked and baptising him in the shower. And then, each kills the other.
In many ways, there are touches of the absurd despite the good intentions of all those involved, especially the multi-credited Sam Mraovich.
