TMC Reviews: Here Come The Girls 3 – drama, bad sex & a few gems in the lesbian short film collection

by Kendal Mint Cake

Short films are really difficult to get right. If you cram too much in, the audience feels swamped. If you opt for minimalism, you run the risk of boring everyone. Past experience has told me that it’s easier to mould factual content into a shorter time span, but I’ve always been put off making a 10-15min drama because of how easy it is to leave your audience feeling dissatisfied. Or worse…confused. In such a short space of time, the dramatic arc of your film is all out of whack- things have to happen really quickly AND it has to make sense. Nightmare!

So I was apprehensive about Lesbian Short Film Collection Here Come The Girls 3. But hey, lesbian life is sort of built for the short drama format isn’t it? Stupid things happen really quickly all the time, like moving in with your girlfriend after two weeks, or having sex before you know each other’s surnames. So there was hope. Anyway- I watched all nine of these shorts with a bottle of wine and a healthy dose of cynicism. And away we go!

We start with ‘Public Relations‘; two personal assistants (one stud from NYC and one cute girl next door type from Hollywood) flirt like crazy over the phone trying to plan their bosses’ schedules and finally get the chance to meet. They do, with STEAMY results! Kind of. It’s a lighthearted comedy, and reminds us all not to take our jobs too seriously and live a little. Hell, it was sweet.

Which had me warmed up for ‘Trophy‘, the next little offering. It unfortunately fell victim to short film chaos, based on that wet dream all lesbians have about seducing their father’s sexy new fiance(say what?) I think we’re supposed to find the father annoying, and therefore the fact his own daughter is making a cuckold out of him is funny? Or something. The actress who played the fiance is hot though, so if you just like watching girls make out without any sort of believable plot, this is for you.

The next film, ‘Birthday‘ was my personal favourite.  Shot in Sweden, it had a real understated crispness to it and is worth a watch for the aesthetics alone. We meet a lesbian couple and their daughter on the morning of one of their birthdays. They’ve been trying for another child, but it transpires that they’re not quite on the same page on how best to go about it. The film asks a lot of questions about unconventional families, with an ultimately positive conclusion. Thumbs up.

This leads us into ‘Looking For‘- the longest film in the collection. It clocks in at the no-mans-land of 24mins, and frankly we switched off after fifteen. A middle aged butch lez joins a dating agency to find a partner (you’ve lost me already- just get on gaydar if you’re that bothered!) Cue scene after scene of unsuitable partners and all the obvious bad blind date jokes that come with it. Snooze.

If I’d been putting this DVD together, I wouldn’t have followed ‘Looking For’ with ‘Lucha‘, as they are arguably the two weakest films in the collection. The film is set in the backdrop of the insurgency in El Salvador. Possibly you need to know more about the history of El Salvador to really engage with it, but I also think it’s foolish to grapple with very serious subject matter in the short film format. You have to do it really well. Anyway, it’s a claustrophobic little film about the love between two women surviving in a warzone and features perhaps the least sexy sex scene I have ever seen. See it just so you can agree with me.

Having just said that short films aren’t great at conveying serious political subject matter, ‘Mosa‘ succeeded admirably on this front (and earned itself a screening at Fringe! Film Festival).  We meet Mosa as she embarks on a new career in London, having escaped from a very fraught situation in South Africa. The film draws some interesting cultural parallels (with eerie colonial overtones) and doesn’t flinch at showing us the full extent of the issue of homophobia in South Africa.

The DVD takes a change of tone next, with the at times brilliantly surreal ‘Organism‘. It’s a lesbian coming out story set in an American high school. We’re immediately immersed in that all too familiar world of suffocating group dynamics & raging hormones. In other words, typical lezzie film fodder. All it takes for a film like this to work is great chemistry, and luckily I think the two main characters have it and that makes it an enjoyable watch. It was also nominated for the IRIS Prize, take note!

Perhaps the quirkiest film of the collection follows, with the German ‘Fresh Air Therapy‘, about a frazzled lesbian couple’s bid to reconnect with one another and a jaded therapist’s unconventional methods allowing them to do so. It’s only five minutes long, and although it wasn’t quite my humour, I think it says a lot about intimacy and the different forms it can take.

And finally, we end with the bittersweet ‘I Am Jin Young‘, from Korea. It reminded me a little bit of ‘Amelie’ in the way that it was narrated. Jin, a thoughtful pre-teen, is introduced to her mother’s new girlfriend. We watch their relationship unfold through the eyes of Jin, who also reflects on wider truths about sexual identity and the roles of men and women. Through a series of sharp, ‘from the mouths of babes’ style observations, we too are encouraged to think about how our childhoods have impacted the opinions we hold in adult life.

All in all, I’d say more than half of the films included in Here Come The Girls 3 are worth a viewing. You can purchase the collection in DVD stores near you from the 4th April. Go forth and form your own opinions!

Films on Here Come The Girls 3
1) Public Relations; 2)Trophy ; 3) Birthday; 4) Looking For; 5) Lucha; 6) Mosa; 7) Organism; 8) Fresh Air Therapy; 9) I Am Jin Young

Here Come The Girls 3 is released by Peccadillo Pictures, available from Amazon for £9.69