Wild Tigers I Have Known (2006)

Wonderful character development!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Cam Archer's "Wild Tigers I have known" is a story about Logan, an unpopular, awkward and insecure kid that gets bullied every now and then. He takes it all in and he lives in a world of his own, in some sort of ill-induced stupor state. Until one day he meets an older boy named Rodeo. He is rebellious, rough-edged and scruffy. Of course Logan falls in love with him. They're both marginal figures at moments but for different motives. Rodeo decides to ditch his girlfriend to spend more time with his younger friend, while Logan has no choice but to be rejected by everybody except Rodeo.Despite the initial happiness rush, Logan starts fantasizing about death. Neglected by his mother, the only true conversation she has with her is about ghosts and reincarnation. He wants to know if she would hug him if he were a ghost.There are instances in which Logan doesn't seem to be aware of his body. The only way in which he can inscribe himself into the world is by marking his chest and stomach. Writing, thus, creates the object. Writing creates or recreates him. But it's only symptomatic to witness Logan's fascination with women's clothes, lipsticks and long, blonde wigs. He's constantly dressing up as a girl or pretending to be a girl in order to obtain the love of a boy. It would be interesting, then, to contrast Hélène Cixous views on women writing that breaks the linear logic of male counterparts. Certainly, the entire film seems to defy this linear logic either from a cinematographic or a narrative perspective. In writing his own body with a red lipstick Logan makes us think of Ann Rosalind Jones "Writing the Body: Toward an Understanding of l'Ecriture feminine" because, ultimately, there is an unresolved sexual charge in Cam Archer's characters.From the very beginning of the story Logan is interested in mountain lions. These felines are beautifully designed animals, almost as gorgeous as the tangle-lined tiger. Logan's high school is constantly threatened by these animals that the principal considers very dangerous. Students are told to run as soon as they see a mountain lion. Logan, nonetheless, feels compelled to approach them. He goes into the woods with Rodeo trying to find them to no avail. Only unaccompanied will he be able to fulfill this wish. The mountain lion is beauty, it's beauty in an Apollonian way as Nietzsche would understand it. It's the beauty of light, of appearance, that covers the horror within. Fear of death can only be overcome by Apollonian beauty. But it's also through this beauty that Logan summons death. He will put his life at risk partly obeying Freud's Thanatos urge, and partly because the only way to face live is to uncover the horror of existence. Because facing life is also accepting one's own mortality. And by reaching out to this wild animal Logan is only unveiling what lies beneath.

I haven't actually finished the film. You may say that in this case I have no right to review it, especially so negatively. But I do, only because I stopped it on account of I couldn't watch anymore...I got over halfway, and I only got there by promising myself something good was just around the corner. This film is so tiresome, so lackluster that I was actually insulted. I haven't read many of the other reviews, so I'm not sure if there are other homosexual teens who have suffered through it, but I am homosexual, and I did go through "similar" revelations, day dreams, issues etc etc. There were maybe two moments where I actually felt this film could go somewhere, where I felt it may have some inkling of meaning, or relativity, but these hopes were dashed the moment the next set of cliché-ridden narration came on. I mean, just look at the quotes on the IMDb page. Unfortunately you're not able to hear the scratchy play back, nor the echo-ey fades if you're just read the quotes, because they are just too painful/ridiculous/stupid to miss. I did give the film three stars, and all three of those stars go to the films cinematographer who did a fantastic job attempting to transform Archer's tired "concepts" into something watchable. Mind you, I pray he wasn't the one who decided to include all the long shots of TV closeups...another unnecessary cliché already over done in films such as Korine's Gummo... I think it is extremely fitting that this film premiered at Sundance (only because Archer had connections in the festival via volunteer work he did, by the way...) because Sundance seems to be the one festival where cliché heavy drivel like this is still accepted as "arthouse". No, it's not art house, I'm afraid it's just plain s**t-house. Do not watch.

Instead of making a fascinating film about the development of a "crush" in adolescence, the filmmaker has managed to create a hollow story that goes nowhere, develops none of the characters, and is apparently attempting to be poetic and arty about the subject of sex involving a boy's obsessive love for a fellow classmate.The dullness begins with the opening credits which are so blurry that you're left wondering just what it is we're supposed to be observing. Unfortunately, that feeling never lets up even as the slim story moves forward, never letting us see or feel what the main characters are thinking or even doing. Instead, we get a series of close-ups, dull conversations, and it becomes painfully obvious that the abstract subtleties will continue in the same vein throughout without ever giving any real glimpse into the childhood fantasies gnawing at the central character. The attempt is made but it fails to involve the viewer.None of the performances are worth commenting on--not the mother (whom we never understand or get to know), nor the boy playing the maladjusted youth. Only PATRICK WHITE shows some semblance of understanding his role as the handsome, open minded youth who doesn't mind being the target of infatuation and is open to an approach by the most unpopular kid in class. He registers the correct mixture of surprise and rejection in the cave sequence where he has been led to believe that a girl wants a sexual liaison with him. Other than his one note performance, all the others are even less impressive. The doting mother is a character that is never fleshed out by the script or the performer.The self-conscious artistry of the whole work is wasted because there is no real story, nor is there a satisfying ending.Summing up: A total waste of time on a subject that should be explored in a more serious, detailed and sensitive light by a good independent filmmaker.

Any of us who had to deal with the awkwardness of early adolescence in Middle School will certainly be able to at least appreciate this film. Anyone who is/was gay & dealing with the same angst will be able to strongly relate to the central protagonist. This is a quiet,slow moving film that seems to channel the kindred spirits of Gus Van Sant (who, by some chance is one of the executive producers of the film),Kenneth Anger (mostly known for his experimental films with a gay theme back in the 1960's),and Derek Jarman (another openly gay film maker that we sadly lost some years back from AIDS),who like the two former,had a strong gay theme running through his films (there was almost always full frontal male nudity in his films),and was no stranger to experimenting with film (his final film 'Blue' was his most boldly experimental film that was ballyhooed by critics & audiences,resulting in it's distributor pulling out). 'Tigers' seems to be a first film for it's writer/director, as a certain level of self indulgence is obvious. Wild Tigers I Have Known would probably be a contender for a film festival that is targeted at a (mostly)gay audience, although one doesn't have to be gay to appreciate it.