Looking for Langston

A poetic visual fantasy of the lives of black gay men in '20s Harlem, shot in beautiful monochrome and packed with startling images of dream and desire. Scenes alternate between a dark, smoky club where men in formals dance and cruise, windswept beaches, secluded bedrooms, and scary alleyways where the same men make love, while the poetry of Langston Hughes and contemporary black gay writer Essex Hemphill meditates on the aesthetics of sexual desire. It may sound painfully arty, but the images are fresh and exciting enough to sweep away any such reservations.