By Rebys J. Hynes
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She throws up her middle finger as yet another taxi drives past. Eventually, a driver stops for the drag queen in the bridal dress and the leather jacket. She bundles up her fluffy skirt and collapses into the back of the taxi. Tired silence fills the car, until the driver laughs and says, ‘You scared the drivers in front of us.’
‘Yeah, neither of them dared to pick me up.’ Her eyes light up with her smile as she gazes at the yellow-tinged street.
The driver is still lost in the same laugh. ‘I saw they were afraid.’
‘What’s the matter? We’re all people.’ A manifesto for a life well lived, for trans liberation, in six simple words.
And yet before she can finish, the driver says, ‘It’s all the make-up you’ve got on.’
Her smile drops. He keeps driving.
This moment comes less than 10 minutes into The Last Year of Darkness (2023, dir. by Ben Mullinkosson). A simple, short scene that perfectly distils the trans experience is a society dominated by cisgenderism. The discomfort of interacting with a cis person when one is visibly queer, visibly trans. To just be talking about how people are people, plain and simple, and for that humanity to be spoken over by a person who sees your AGAB and your presentation and nothing else. Ultimately, this is a moment of cis people being awful, but to see this moment on screen – alongside so many of the highs and lows of drag performer Yihao’s life across this film – is joyous because of the complexity with which a queer person can tell their own story on screen.
Feature-length documentary The Last Year of Darkness (hereafter TLYOD) is a neon snapshot of the underground club scene in Chengdu, China. Distributed by MUBI, TLYOD recently had its Scottish premiere at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow - courtesy of MINT Chinese Film Festival. Filmed over five years, it follows a group of friends as they explore their sexualities, gender and identities whilst dealing with mental health struggles. It is largely set in Funky Town, an alternative/queer club in the middle of a concrete jungle and a never-ending construction site.
I want to take a moment to shout out what MINT is doing on the UK festival scene. Only in their second year, MINT have demonstrated what a grassroots festival is capable of – they have had two successful festivals in Keswick at the Alhambra Theatre and TLYOD begins their Scottish tour which will continue in September and October. While it is known for its festival scene, Glasgow has been sorely lacking in a platform for Chinese and South East Asian cinema, especially those films representing queer Asian experiences. This film – and MINT’s screening in Scotland – demonstrates the potential future of queer cinema. Complex, vibrant and intersectional.
While none of the leads in the film align with identities under the trans* umbrella (there is one trans person in the film, but they are never the focus), there are plenty of interesting ideas about genderqueerness, drag, and queer spaces that I want to discuss here.
Queer people and documentaries have a precarious relationship. There has been a long history of cishet filmmakers sticking a camera in front of a us and waiting for us to say something sensational or scandalous or something to be ‘concerned about’. But there is a wealth of queer documentaries out there that put power in queer people’s hands to tell their own stories. Whilst mired with problems and well-founded critiques, it is hard not to find queer ecstasy in Paris is Burning (1990, dir. by Jennie Livingstone), which this film clearly uses as a touchstone. One of my favourite films of the last few years is Always Amber (2020, dir. by Hannah Reinikainen and Lia Hietala), which follows the pretty-average life of a Swedish non-binary teenager. Amber falls out with friends, attends gender confirmation surgery meetings, goes to pride, and it is all so refreshingly normal and vibrant and queer. Queer documentaries have a divine potential to show us our lives and our queer siblings’ lives as they truly are – messy, beautiful, camp, boring, extravagant, banal and, above all else, ours. When approaching a queer documentary, it is this melting pot that I want to see.
In this, TLYOD does not disappoint. The is a beautiful messiness to everything the camera captures that is quintessentially queer and profoundly personal. We watch as two guys stand awkwardly in a stall, 10cm apart, jittery and nervous and unsure – and then smash cut to them making out in the middle of the club – and the true skill here is that the camera rarely feels intrusive. The documentary captures a plethora of moments in Funky Town that feel as if the audience have stepped into the cramped bar alongside its dazzling patrons. We are treated to glimpses of many of Yihao’s shows, performed with passion and extravagance despite the cramped space. It shows absolute talent from the crew to film in such a crowded bar, without making it painfully obvious that the camera is there. Barring a few moments in which the subjects talk to the director, the film largely takes a cinéma vérité approach that suits it perfectly.
The cinematography and editing are exemplary; TLYOD often says a lot with few shots and little dialogue. The film keeps returning to the juxtaposition of the bar – intimate, vibrant and colourful – and the drab sterility of the city scape around it. There is constant construction work, day and night. Funky Town is in a concrete-dominated area of the city, with only more concrete to come. When the camera pulls back, we see how small this queer space is. The battle between the closeness of the bar and the disconnection of the city defines this film. This theme carries us through to the film’s closing moments, which are poignant and thought-provoking.
Content warning: the next two paragraphs contain references to suicide. Please feel free to skip forward to the conclusion.
Director Mullinkosson is queer, and it this crucial facet of identity that completely changes how the camera interacts with the space. Each of the leads is given a space to tell their own story, with no overarching narrative defining the film. Each person talks about their lives, histories and struggles. Consequently, this film deals with a lot of serious topics amidst the party atmosphere. Mental health, substance abuse and suicide are prevalent themes. For the most part, these subjects are discussed with frankness and on the subject’s terms.
However, this is not always the case. Documentaries must straddle an incredibly fine line between intimacy and exposure and whilst TLYOD succeeds for the most part, there is a moment when it falters. One of the subjects has severe difficulties with her mental health. She details her suicide attempt and how she has recovered since. This sequence is told by her, to us, with minimal acknowledgement of the camera or the film as a film. It is profound and it is filmed sympathetically.
This is not true of a later scene, in which the camera lingers on her having a prolonged outburst. This is evidently a result of the trauma she shared with the audience earlier in the film. Contrary to how the camera has interacted with the subjects throughout the piece, here it is detached – watching from afar – and feels less sympathetic, more invasive. The camera – and consequently us, the audience – continue to watch as her breakdown unfolds. As the camera follows her, we become aware of how many crewmembers and other people are present. This moment is too real, too intimate, when compared to the rest of the film. Whilst I do commend this film for its brazen honestly and the complexity with which it treats its subjects, this sequence goes against everything the film has done so well up until this point. It is uncomfortable to watch in a way that I do not believe the creators intended. This is obviously a difficult thing to judge, especially as the subjects were so involved with the building of the film. However, I do believe that in the pursuit of intimacy, this film stumbles into a moment where it goes a step too far.
Content warning over.
Whilst I have some reservations about the boundaries between subject and audience in The Last Year of Darkness, there is much to enjoy in this vibrant queer documentary. I highly recommend you check it out if you have the chance. For those outside of Chinese queer circles, it shines a much-needed spotlight on areas of queer experience. Its depictions of genderqueerness and drag are nuanced and beautiful. And the club scenes are spectacular. They radiate queer joy. And isn’t that just what we need to see on film?
The Last Year of Darkness is available to stream on MUBI now. If you are based in Scotland, I highly recommend checking out MINT Chinese Film Festival on Instagram (@mintchinesefilmfestival). They will be touring around Scotland in September and October.
Have you seen The Last Year of Darkness? Do you intend to? Let me know in the comments below.
Love and solidarity,
Rebys J. Hynes
Follow on Instagram & Letterboxd
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