TOM OF FINLAND BD

Tom of Finland has to be regarded, I think, as an important character in modern gay history, sitting alongside Divine, Orton, Crisp, Milk, Peter de Rome (and others) of whose lives films have been made. This film, starting with Tom's war service in the 1940s, the vile oppression of Tom and his kind in Finland after the war, the altogether surprising light of Rock and Roll America and the vileness of its 80s AIDS reaction is a most worthy contribution to this history. While, to one, there is a certain attraction in a well tailored military uniform (eg some Soviet uniforms), especially as outrageously worn by certain of the physically endowed, I cannot say that I ever really appreciated Tom's drawings. But, of course, an awful lot of people did. And, a major question I am left with at the end of the film is the extent to which Tom found pre-existing, created or helped evolve the particular, exaggerated and/or unreal US uniform/leather scene. And, how should we be viewing this scene? Perhaps not so much through the lens of serious sex as reactive humour, that is, coupled with the diversion of the natural hormones in conditions of oppressive blocking.

This is not only a story of a traumatized war veteran trying to cope with life by contemplating a world of imagination, nor a persecuted homosexual that’s trying to be true to himself, nor a man that has a fetish for hot butch men in uniforms or a penchant to draw them, or a guy that wakes up one day deciding to champion a movement and change the World for better. It’s all of these …and more.The talented handsome Nordic actor Pekka Strang gives an Oscar-worthy performance as Touko Laaksonen, or Tom of Finland. The film, under the direction of Dome Karukoski, is detailed (well-researched), appropriately pornographic, and extremely absorbing. Tom of Finland is unapologetically bold, courageously persevering, and eternally self-loving, a combination rarely attempted by other filmmakers to reflect the gay conscience.The Peccadillo Pictures release includes deleted scenes (one of which should have been included in the film in my humble opinion), and a very revealing monologue by Durk Dehner, the Co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation and former model.

You will not enjoy this film unless you are interested in Nazi and Russian occupied Finland where Tom was a lieutenant during the Second World War. The film does not celebrate his well known drawings but concentrates on post war years homophobia, then the artists success in California and the global gay community and the film terminates with his contribution to the AIDS crisis. The film also contains a moving love story. I am not into leather myself but congratulations to the writers and producers who were able to get finance for a commercially unviable project

Excellent portrayal of a particular area of gay history. A must-see for any gay leather/fetish fans. I found some of the flashback sequences confusing at first, particularly jumping to and fro between the 1940s and 1950s, but they become clearer later on.Subtitles for the first part of the film until Tom leaves Finland and travels to wider Europe and America. I actually liked this aspect of the film. There are some slight embellishments for "dramatic purposes", though I wish they had stayed closer to the true story. If you don't already know much about ToF you can detect the discrepancies by watching the extras interviews with one of Tom's real-life lovers. My only quibble is that the trailers before the main film are repeated at the end along with (too many) others, so the fast-forward or skip functions on your remote will come in handy.

A good story treated in a thuddingly obvious manner. The first hour is interminable, as the oppressive nature of post-war Finnish and German society is exhaustively detailed and Tom vacillates between secretly drawing and making dumb decisions which see him arrested. After a brief interlude in the day-glo fantasia of the US, where his drawings are famous, Tom returns to his dying lover and everything gets really serious again. And AIDS arrives. But then Tom attends the Mr International Leather contest in the US and everyone cheers while Sylvester sings "Take Me To Heaven" over the credits. What to make of all this? Tom's drawings are barely glimpsed and the movie contains none of the transgressive joy of his work. This movie has no edges.The so-called "leather look" of the limited edition is simply black plastic with no embellishment: a fairly accurate reflection of the contents.

Enjoyed

Forced into sneaking about at night it shows how hard it was being gay back then, not only that our would be artist friend has to deal with his own particular bad post war nightmares and yet we've all seen his work and remembered it for its uniqueness. a big thumbs up as a true story.

This is advertised as having a 'soft touch leather effect slipcase'. It's card. Just card. Black card, but not leather effect. Otherwise great.