Tongues Untied

Those familiar with director Marlon Riggs' superb documentary Ethnic Notions will find that Tongues Untied is a startling departure. Since its release on film in 1989, the documentary has had a stormy history in the media, culminating in the recent refusal of some PBS stations across the country to air the film (though it was selected for PBS's P. O. V. series). Tongues Untied deals with the Black gay experience, not through a rote recitation of facts and stories, but through the use of poetry, experimental filmmaking, and music. A collaboration between Riggs and poet Essex Hemphill, the film sounds an angry and painful note on the treatment of the Black gay community, while including some touching and humorous insights into that community's life. Mostly because of the raw nature of the language used in the film, some people are going to find Tongues Untied uncomfortable to watch. And the experimental aspects of the film sometimes work and sometimes don't. A hilarious sequence featuring a bona fide snap diva and a group of snap connoisseurs demonstrating various snaps highlights the rare playful side of the film, while in other sequences Essex Hemphill's poetry seems to fall flat. My personal reaction- and with this kind of film everyone will have a personal reaction-was that Riggs places too much emphasis on the Black gay experience as the be-all and end-all of humanity. I can't sympathize with people who define themselves by their sexual preferences, because it seems like such a shallow definition of a human being. I liked the film, not because of its subject matter, but because of the way Riggs uses film-as in few other contemporary documentaries I've seen, in Tongues Untied the medium truly is the message. Recommended, with reservations. (Available from: Frameline, 347 Dolores St., Suite 205, San Francisco, CA 94110.)