Beautifully Bizarre Travelogue

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 2005)

Three gay male performers journey from Sydney to Alice Springs in a colorful bus. I found the story to be contrived and not very interesting, though never let it be said that the three main characters lacked personality. The film's dialogue seemed flat and unimaginative.
But what the film lacked in screen story, it made up for, as a travelogue. What a grand music video. The Australian outback, in its lonesome desolation, with its resident lizards and ants, was magnificent. Amplifying these images was the film's harshly haunting score. The result was a wonderful tribute to the visuals of Sergio Leone, and the music of Ennio Morricone, in their spaghetti westerns. Then, into these emotionally evocative scenes, add a transvestite walking alone to nowhere, or applying lipstick, and you have what amounts to true cinematic art. Just terrific.
I also liked the images of the sleek, shiny fabric streaming back from the top of the bus as it flees across desert badlands, while Felicia sings, with gusto, some operatic aria. And then there is the image of the pink kite flying high, with ethereal music playing in the background. Given the offbeat nature of the story, somewhere, concealed in all these stark images and intense sounds, is a profound symbolism.
Most of the scenes in this film are tedious and uninteresting. But those scenes that do stand out are memorable and hugely successful. I don't recall a film in which the cinematography and the music of selected scenes so overwhelmed the overall story. " ... Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert" is certainly evidence that a film can, and should, be more than a mere script.