Saturday June 20 MILK

128 mins, USA 2008 Directed by Gus Van Sant, Starring Sean Penn, Josh Brolin

Scooping this year’s Oscar for Best Actor, Sean Penn delivers a characteristically powerful performance in Van Sant’s biopic of Harvey Milk, the USA’s first openly gay elected official who was murdered in 1978.

Beginning with his death at the hands of Brolin’s Dan White – a conservative colleague at Town Hall with a deep fear of liberal politics - the film rewinds to chart Milk’s rise to the status of local hero. Having moved to San Francisco, Milk witnessed reactionary official treatment of the large and vibrant gay community, and felt personally and politically motivated to change things. Using his exuberance and a great gift for heartfelt oratory, he was ultimately successfully elected to the board of city supervisors. In a political career lasting only 11 months, he opposed conservative propositions such as a move to sack homosexuals and their supporters from jobs in local education, and earned overwhelming support not just from the gay community but from the city at large.

Using grainy muted cinematography, evocative of documentary style realism, Van Sant persuades us of the emotion, vitality and joyfulness of truly communal politics. He successfully avoids turning the film into a heavy handed tale of liberal martyrdom: it is instead a celebration of equality and tolerance and a tribute to an inspirational individual.

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