No rabbit, this Harvey

Rating: 7/10 (5 October 2014)

This film portrayal of the life and times of Gay Rights campaigner, Harvey Milk, while sometimes difficult to watch, nevertheless seemed to catch the zeitgeist of an important time in American politics when the homosexual lifestyle was under attacks from Bible-thumping zealots such as Anita Bryant and Higgins. I personally think some of the claims made on the DVD extra features comparing Milk to Martin Luther King and Gandhi are a bit overstated but then I'm not San Franciscan or gay and certainly admire Milk for the stand he took not only against the political but indeed physical threat that same-sex people had to endure even from the local police.
Director Gus Van Sant captures the era using an almost fly-on the-wall documentary approach, intermixed with actual footage of the original time and almost without exception picking actors with strong resemblances to their real-life counterparts. It helps considerably having Sean Penn throw himself as one would expect, whole-heartedly into the lead part, although I suspect some concession to the box-office with gay love-scenes relatively underrepresented in the actual movie. That said, there's no escaping the campness and effeminacy of most of the lead characters which for me took a little getting used to until I realised Milk's central point that gays were being discriminated against just like any other minority just for being different.
Milk is presented in a warts and all manner, including his predilection for falling in and out of love / lust with usually much younger men, his terrible fashion-sense and frequent bad- hair days. Nevertheless setting up his Camera Castro shop on a San Francisco main street and then standing up for his fellow-gays as their charismatic leader against police and then political oppression in the less than politically enlightened 70's unquestionably took guts and he sure had plenty. His tragic demise, along with his right-on town mayor by a surprising assassin's bullet at the film's climax came as a shock, if like me the viewer wasn't aware of the details of his life and death but this of course plays up Milk's martyr status and triggers the 30000-strong midnight procession by his supporters in direct response to his death, ending the film on an inspiring, positive note.
I enjoyed this film more than I thought I would, ultimately sympathising, if initially unwillingly, with this irascible, contrary but ultimately likable character who stood up rather than be put down and I think his memory was well served by a capable director and a committed and talented lead actor.