More than I expected

Rating: 8/10 (10 January 2006)

I was pleasantly surprised by Priscilla, Queen of the Desert when I watched it for the first time yesterday. Having expected something very light and almost fluffy, I liked the fact that there was a little more depth to it than that.
The beginning of the film suggests the humour that comes later in the film, but it doesn't stop the first five minutes or so from having quite a sad and solemn feel. What I particularly like about this film are the fantastically well-crafted lines - they can be intentionally very funny, but at the same time there are just as many funny lines that aren't specifically meant to constitute punchlines - they're just there and they're funny.
An aspect of the film that I especially liked was the use of colour. As an art student, I have always found that colour appeals to me and I love the visual impact that the colours - the pinks, the lilacs, the jades, even the zebra prints - make on the screen, perhaps more so than the fabrics the costumes were made from. Who said over-the-top automatically equalled tasteless? These costumes are over-the-top, but the film is all the better for it.
Little details within films also appeal to me - the blink-and-you'll-miss-it Barbie doll mobile hanging up in the tour bus, for instance, or the reactions of the local people they walk past in the streets - as much as the larger details. I think the landscape shots are brilliant, and the scene where the three find themselves lost and stranded in the middle of nowhere and the camera pans out to demonstrate this is just fantastic.