From the edge of the city was probably the first film of the ones we’ve watched that I genuinely didn’t understand or connect with. The plot felt rather vague and disjointed, all the white Russian men looked the same to me so I struggled knowing who was who, and the portrayal and treatment of women made me fairly uncomfortable. This is not to say I hated the film, but as I watched it I knew it was not made for me.
The lack of representation, and the male point of view the film was told through, were apparent to me the entire time. However, the reading about New Queer Cinema really put this in context. At the beginning of the reading, I was pumped about a movement that questioned norms and was defiant to society. I personally love defiance. But when it became clear to me they were only defiant to the parts of society that didn’t include them, and not to the patriarchal and racist side, I feel like it lost any actual edge it had. This is not to dismiss the important influence of NQC, as it helped queer cinema at the larger scale and I acknowlegde that, but that I understand and agree with the critques it received from within the queer community.
The role women were given in this film made me uncomfortable and frustrated on multiple levels. Obviously it sucks when women are used and depicted as pawnwable objects at the discretion of mens decisions, the reference to them in the film as “it”, “whores”, etc, sucks. I understand this happens in real life, and real life women are caught in sex traffic rings, and have to prostitute themselves to stay alive. The portrayal of real women’s struggles in not something I gripe with. I struggle with the utter lack of female perspective or justice given to the female characters in the film, along with the strong presence of male gaze. I just once wanted to hear how a woman was feeling, I wanted at least one complicated female character that didn’t serve as an extension of a man or was viewed through male desire. The women in this film were spineless wet paper towels, their existence in the film was purely to serve men, and they deserved even one redeeming moment. I acknowledge this issue is obviously not isolated to this film or this time period, but it still warrants commenting.
I commemorate this films dedication to, (excuse my french) fuck a positive portrayal. I like the idea of rejecting positive representation because queer people should not have to be wholesome, upstanding civilians to get respect. We need queer characters where their queerness is apart of their identity and not just their entire narrative purpose and definition as a character. I think there is a defining line between positive representation and realistic representation. Solely positive representation washes over the humanity of queer people, it says they cannot be real and also acceptably queer. Characters should not be vilified or glorified because they are queer, but queer people should be given the justice of being human.
