(Welcome to Movies Are Gay, a Pride Month series where we explore the intentional [or accidental] ways Lgbtqia+ themes, characters, and creatives have shaped cinema.)
Isaac Julien might not be a household name to even the most vocally self-professed cinephiles, but he certainly should be. As an installation artist and one of the founders of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, Julien is a pillar of Black cinema history. His breakthrough feature is the docu-drama "Looking for Langston," which focused on Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. But it was in 1991 that Julien debuted the masterful, Semaine de la Critique prize for Best Film at the Cannes Film Festival-winning "Young Soul Rebels" which helped bring him to a wider audience.
Set during the 1977's Silver Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, "Young Soul Rebels" is a beautiful, poetic, at times devastating coming-of-age romantic dramedy, and also a thriller about a horrific homophobic hate crime.
Isaac Julien might not be a household name to even the most vocally self-professed cinephiles, but he certainly should be. As an installation artist and one of the founders of the Sankofa Film and Video Collective, Julien is a pillar of Black cinema history. His breakthrough feature is the docu-drama "Looking for Langston," which focused on Langston Hughes and the Harlem Renaissance. But it was in 1991 that Julien debuted the masterful, Semaine de la Critique prize for Best Film at the Cannes Film Festival-winning "Young Soul Rebels" which helped bring him to a wider audience.
Set during the 1977's Silver Jubilee for Queen Elizabeth, "Young Soul Rebels" is a beautiful, poetic, at times devastating coming-of-age romantic dramedy, and also a thriller about a horrific homophobic hate crime.
- 6/2/2023
- by BJ Colangelo
- Slash Film
Part thriller, part drama, part comedy, Isaac Julien’s urban pastoral set in the aftermath of a homophobic murder still feels fresh, buoyant and likable
Isaac Julien’s feature from 1991 is rereleased after more than 30 years and it still feels fresh, buoyant, likable and emotionally open. It is a paean to diversity and intersectionality set in east London during the 1977 Queen’s silver jubilee, with some cheeky jibes about middle-class outlaws and “St Martins” art-school types (St Martins being Julien’s own alma mater). Young Soul Rebels takes the form of an urban pastoral, but is also a kind of romantic comedy, a coming-of-age drama about friendship and a thriller about a brutal homophobic murder – and there’s actually a clever plot twist about the victim’s tape-deck which another type of film might have made much more of, maybe in the manner of Francis Ford Coppola.
A young black...
Isaac Julien’s feature from 1991 is rereleased after more than 30 years and it still feels fresh, buoyant, likable and emotionally open. It is a paean to diversity and intersectionality set in east London during the 1977 Queen’s silver jubilee, with some cheeky jibes about middle-class outlaws and “St Martins” art-school types (St Martins being Julien’s own alma mater). Young Soul Rebels takes the form of an urban pastoral, but is also a kind of romantic comedy, a coming-of-age drama about friendship and a thriller about a brutal homophobic murder – and there’s actually a clever plot twist about the victim’s tape-deck which another type of film might have made much more of, maybe in the manner of Francis Ford Coppola.
A young black...
- 4/26/2023
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
The Guardian's season of British cult classics continues with a double helping of youth pop culture set in London in the 60s and 70s
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This week is pop culture week in our British cult classics series – well, sort of. Our double bill is a pair of films that turn fresh eyes on two different London youth tribes of the 60s and 70s: the black street soul of Notting Hill is celebrated in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, while the white working class suedehead world of Stratford is the focus of Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog. The former was a flagship production of the BFI Production Board, costing around £1.7m in 1990; Bronco was a rough-and-ready £18,000 shoot in 1970, taking off from Joan Littlewood's youth theatre workshops. But both show equal affection for their subjects, and from this distance are each a fantastically revealing...
Reading on mobile? Click here to view
This week is pop culture week in our British cult classics series – well, sort of. Our double bill is a pair of films that turn fresh eyes on two different London youth tribes of the 60s and 70s: the black street soul of Notting Hill is celebrated in Isaac Julien's Young Soul Rebels, while the white working class suedehead world of Stratford is the focus of Barney Platts-Mills's Bronco Bullfrog. The former was a flagship production of the BFI Production Board, costing around £1.7m in 1990; Bronco was a rough-and-ready £18,000 shoot in 1970, taking off from Joan Littlewood's youth theatre workshops. But both show equal affection for their subjects, and from this distance are each a fantastically revealing...
- 11/23/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
It plays more like a letter to, or a snapshot of a time and place, instead of your conventional narrative. But I don’t think it’s striving for the latter anyway. That specific time and place is London in the late 1970s. I certainly wasn’t there, but black British filmmaker Isaac Julien’s allegorical tale helped capture it for me.
Sure, there’s the plot involving the murder of an interracial couple, but that’s not the story’s heartbeat. The film is as much about the crime, as is the killing in Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blowup.
Parliament’s P-Funk Wants To Get Funked Up erupts over the opening of Young Soul Rebels, as an interracial sex act in the bushes turns into a murder, setting off a police investigation and waves of controversy in London’s black community. The year is 1977, and while some people are busy...
Sure, there’s the plot involving the murder of an interracial couple, but that’s not the story’s heartbeat. The film is as much about the crime, as is the killing in Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blowup.
Parliament’s P-Funk Wants To Get Funked Up erupts over the opening of Young Soul Rebels, as an interracial sex act in the bushes turns into a murder, setting off a police investigation and waves of controversy in London’s black community. The year is 1977, and while some people are busy...
- 3/8/2011
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
It plays more like a letter to, or a snapshot of a time and place, instead of your typical narrative. But I don’t think it’s striving for the latter. That specific time and place is London in the late 1970s. I certainly wasn’t there, but Isaac Julien’s allegorical tale helped capture it for me.
Sure, there’s the backdrop of an interracial couple being murdered, but that’s not the story’s heartbeat. The film is as much about the crime, as is the killing in Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blowup.
A kaleidoscope of characters, who give mostly convincing performances, the film centers primarily on best friends, Chris (Valentine Nonyela) who’s bi-racial, somewhat effeminate and heterosexual, and Caz (Mo Sesay) who’s black, macho and gay. They run an independent radio station called Soul Patrol, which allows them the freedom to play the kinds of music...
Sure, there’s the backdrop of an interracial couple being murdered, but that’s not the story’s heartbeat. The film is as much about the crime, as is the killing in Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blowup.
A kaleidoscope of characters, who give mostly convincing performances, the film centers primarily on best friends, Chris (Valentine Nonyela) who’s bi-racial, somewhat effeminate and heterosexual, and Caz (Mo Sesay) who’s black, macho and gay. They run an independent radio station called Soul Patrol, which allows them the freedom to play the kinds of music...
- 3/18/2010
- by Tambay
- ShadowAndAct
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