Paris is Burning

Winner of top awards from the L.A. Film Critics Circle last year and the Sundance Film Festival this past January, "Paris Is Burning" is a fascinating, ultimately very sad documentary about black homosexuals in New York who virtually live their lives through drag balls in Harlem.

Balancing natural humor and the pain of these people's unfulfilled lives, but never holding them up to ridicule, producer-director Jennie Livingston shows that they are drawn to the balls, where they dress up to impersonate various celebrities or straight lifestyles, not only because they are accepted but because it allows them a creative outlet for expression.

Livingston intercuts the party atmosphere at the uninhibited balls with reflective interviews where several of her central characters tell their own stories. Invariably, these interviews parallel one another as most of these men who want to be women explain how they've been injured by intolerance, many having been cut off from their families after enduring an unhappy childhood. And in the end, being black (or Hispanic), male and gay takes its toll — several of the film's subjects died before the shooting was complete, one in a hideously violent manner.

It is a frustrating aspect of the film that Livingston leaves a number of obvious questions unanswered, but on her shoestring budget she has nonetheless managed a fascinating look at a subculture that is completely foreign to most of us — and probably offensive to many.

"Paris Is Burning" is certainly not for everyone. It is unrated but would doubtless earn an R for profanity and nudity.