WHEN BOYS FLY
Directed by: Stewart Halpern & Lenid Rolov.
Produced by: Kevin Weiler.
Director of Photography: Clay Westervelt.
Edited by: Halpern & Rolov.
Music by: Robert Wayne Johnson & John Swihart.
Released by: TLA.
Country of Origin: USA. 62 min. Not Rated.

DVD Features: Additional Footage: Audition Tapes. Brandon (2 years later). Tone (2 years later). Interview with Kevin Weiler. Deleted Scenes. Selected Commentary by: Halpern & Rolov. Scene Selection.

Watching scenes from the 2000 White Party, the viewer may feel like the designated driver in a roomful of drunks. This voyeuristic documentary follows a group of men at a gay circuit party, an underground dance event in Miami, capturing both the escapist euphoria and that morning after feeling. Tone, a 19-year-old party boy with a self-destructive streak, constantly plays up to the camera while Brandon, a judgmental and aloof mama’s boy, wastes no time in stripping off his shirt on the dance floor. Todd, 35 and formerly married, promises his boyfriend, the wide-eyed Jon, 19, that this weekend will be all about him. But almost immediately we see him strutting around on the prowl.

Talking head interviews are nicely interwoven with scenes of the South Beach scene, the pre-party primping, the dance, and the post-party crash. The sex and drug-based camaraderie, the bittersweet search for physical perfection, and the rampant insecurity are unabashedly revealed, as when one muscle boy confesses that to be “Forty and gay-it’s really pathetic.” But thrown together by the directors, the interaction between the men is often awkward, lacking in spontaneity and occasionally repetitious.

In the DVD extras, the audition tapes feature men who didn’t quite make the cut. Keep an eye out for the guy with the teddy bear. Both the brief producer interview and commentary offer occasionally entertaining observations, but because the directors have done a good job shaping and pruning the material, are mostly redundant. KT
July 1, 2003