Merica

Rating: 8/10 (1 December 2008)

Real-life American hero Harvey Milk had a dilemma around the time he hit his 40s: though he had a fervent passion to help people, he couldn't quite figure out what to do with his life and where he belonged. All of that changed, or so says the valiant dramatization of Milk's tumultuous rise to political icon, when he unfettered the shackles of his longtime corporate job to hit the streets of San Francisco and became the first openly gay man elected to major political office in the history of our country.
We've all heard of the deplorable and nearly obstructive rigmarole Spike Lee had to go through in order to make his highly influential Malcolm X a reality. Milk director Gus Van Sant no doubt had to go through similar travails to tell such a story... only he had a great deal of help, what with a cast including Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, a surprisingly versatile and accomplished James Franco, Alison Pill, Diego Luna, and--of course--Harvey himself: Sean Penn. There's no doubt about it: however he did it, Gus Van Sant got it done, and he did it with his prototypical flair.
It's truly awe-inspiring the way that Van Sant so effortlessly vacillates back and forth between slightly more conventional, if not deftly constructed, fare such as To Die For or Drugstore Cowboy and his far more intimate artistic experimentation of the ilk of Last Days and My Own Private Idaho. He, unlike any other filmmaker I can think of, is truly able to delve deeply into the realm of the Academy Award audience and cable viewership at large, then come back for another round of Gerry or Elephant. I'm just glad to see that there's proof that you indeed can step back and forth between popcorn and caviar.
Milk opens, not too surprisingly, with a gut-punch. This is a movie about a very homosexual man who lived, at least in Van Sant's vision, a very homosexual existence. Within the first five minutes of the film, Milk is already hitting on a far younger James Franco in a subway, they mash faces before knowing the other's name, and seconds later are already naked and rolling all over each other, later sharing some birthday cake in bed. From here, the rest of the film grants us the equally unapologetic vibrancy, tenacity, and vivacity of Harvey Milk's final years, of his near-decade in the public eye as he helped to define and embolden the American homosexual community, particularly in the San Francisco Castro district. Employing techniques utilized by fellow biopic directors Lee and Oliver Stone, much of the film is a beautiful and ethereal tapestry of stock footage and news reels melding with the well-crafted dramatization itself.
And with a perfectly haunting yet subtle score by Danny Elfman--back with Van Sant for the first time since his equally stunning work on To Die For--the movie, as if often the case with Van Sant's corpus, allows you to completely transcend, to lose yourself in the moment, and to become one with the images you're watching on screen (no matter your sexual preference). In fact, the pastel colors of the gay community and mid-late 1970s Frisco environ allows the film to further pull you into its phantasmagorical dream as you drift languidly through time and through some rather heady incidents in our nation's tempestuous contemporary history.
Milk is as much about the history of the Gay Rights Movement, particularly the development of Castro Street and San Francisco as a hardcore gay haven, as it is about Harvey Milk the man. At one point, our protagonist admits to a potential financial backer that he's not a candidate but a movement. It's an apt quote, to be sure, as the real conflict with the film is less about Milk vs. The Machine and more about Milk the political pundit vs. Milk the man, a very seemingly gentle, generous, and loving man who sometimes has difficulties making enough time for his various friends, lovers, and hangers-ons as he does for his political rallies... even after one especially tragic event that befalls one of his most cherished partners.
Still, throughout I kept a bicameral mindset: easily lost in this magical tapestry of volatile history and dreamlike wonder, while forever contemplating Van Sant's singular style. As with Elfman's score, undoubtedly his best to date and finally of a slightly different flavor, Van Sant has reached back into his bag of tricks fine tuned through his ambrosial "Death Trilogy" to come back with something that is both popcorn and caviar, that is both intimate experimentation and accessible commercial fare. Much as with his main character, Van Sant has truly found his knack for combining his personal flair with his public composure.