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Interesting if not award-winning.

Lesbian Nation – a short film collection contains five films that you will either enjoy or be totally turned off.  They’re rather offbeat, sometimes somber and rather laborsome to get through.

Let’s start off with the first of the films on this DVD: Carmelita Tropicana: Your Kunst is Your Waffen.  Three women are arrested during a gay rights protest rally and all of the dialogue and action take place in the jail cell where they join a young woman who was incarcerated for dealing drugs.  Carmelita is the most outspoken of the trio and hogs the camera with her sometimes witty and often dry humor as she and the other “ladies” wait for someone to bail them out.  The trio even bursts out in song during the last few minutes of the film right before they are released from jail.  The only saving grace for this film is their cellmate who injects a lot of reality into the other ladies’ fantasy-ridden nightmare of being jailed.

Jumping the Gun portrays two lesbians who have just met and spent the night together.  The story takes places the morning after as the younger woman starts going through the apartment while her lover sleeps.  She finds herself caught up in the heat of the moment although the apartment is cluttered and filthy.  The sleeping beauty never wakes during the film and leaves the young damsel in distress as to what life is really like once the first flush of romance has withered.

Little Women in Transit is really an interesting extremely short film about three young girls riding in a car with their parents.  The title of the film is a play on words.  Riding in a car with their parents is one meaning while the deeper meaning is that of the oldest girl who writes in a notebook about her feelings and who she wants to be when she grows up.  All gay-themed, of course.  The story is well told and rather interesting because it was filmed in black and white instead of color.  The other short film, Playing the Part, is a narrative of a young teen’s endless efforts to decide whether to tell mom and dad that she’s a lesbian and is having an affair.  Less than 20 minutes long, we get a glimpse of what it might be like to suffer the throes of ambition to please mom and dad versus the goal of being honest with them about her sexuality.

The final short film (56 minutes long) is Lavender Limelight: Lesbians in Film (also available on a separate DVD), a narrative film about lesbian film makers and their struggles to have their films recognized and accepted by mainstream society.  Although sobering in its intent to inform the public about what goes on in the film industry behind the scenes, this short film turned me off.  I am not into 10-15 minute interviews about what’s wrong with society and lack of desire in great part for people to accept films made by lesbians.  Instead, give me a story with plot, actors and scenery.

There are no bonus features on this DVD and the only draw to watch it would be Little Women in Transit and Playing the Part.  If you see this DVD on the shelf, rent it and watch these two films instead of buying it.

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