Urinal (1988) User Reviews

Unfortunately, terrible

[sfdphd · 2/10 · 17 May 2019]

I was looking forward to this film but it turned out to be terrible. At first, I actually thought the film must have been mislabeled. I thought 'this can't be the right film." But finally the title came on, and I had to accept that this was the film.

The impression I got was that the writer/director used a lot of drugs and got what seemed like a good idea but the execution was surreal. It felt like a hallucination of a film. They start out back in time in 1937 with a group of famous gay writers and artists who have allegedly been invited to a 7 day conference but then they get told it's really an assignment to figure out how to solve the problems of gay people in the future (via an exploding tape cassette recording). Then they jump forward to 1987 and show the Canadian Mounties going after gays in urinals and then there's a scientific review of the evolution of urinals and all toilet facilities. And one guy who is going to infiltrate the police etc.

At various times there's artistic coloring of the faces, as if someone is drawing on them or imagining drawing colors on the faces. It was just too bizarre for me.

The only good thing I can say about it is the people playing the group of gay artists in 1937 were all good and a good film could have been made of that scene, but it got hijacked by all the other bizarre elements...

Unique mishmash of commentary, history and fantasy

[LuvSopr · 5/10 · 17 September 2022]

The '80s were the decade of everyone from Nicolas Roeg to Steve Allen transporting historical figures into new realms, so it's only fitting to see a more arthouse interpretation.

There are some helpful info-text type screens for each of the historical figures listed, but generally the best bet would be to not care about accuracy for these portrayals. (or some of the cast listings, given what a mess the entry for George Spelvin aka whatever the actor's real name was aka Langston Hughes is).

The film mostly avoids questions about time travel paradoxes, aside from some moments (again shown as text, rather than as actual scenes) where we hear of the group reading biographies or watching films about their lives. The most interesting content is the historical figures dealing with old rivalries, or, in several cases, hooking up. If you want to see Sergei Eisenstein convince Langston Hughes to try out safe sex (or the leadup to it, anyway), this is your film.

There's also some content about Dorian Gray and who is or isn't working with the cops, but that isn't really worth remembering.

The portions of the film about cottaging, busts, entrapment, and the toll taken on the men who are arrested is varied and effective, ranging from an interview with then-politician Svend Robinson to interviews with men who were busted to truly one-of-a-kind images of Eistenstein (or the actor playing him, anyway) pants around his ankles in a toilet stall.

If you run into this film anywhere it's definitely worth watching at least once - you won't find much out there like it.