Wild Tigers I Have Known

By: Amos Lassen

"WILD TIGERS I HAVE KNOWN"

Coming-Out Young

Amos Lassen

"Wild Tigers I Have Known" is one of those movies you are not likely to forget. It has style and is beautiful and sensitive. It is a movie that can be easily related to because we all have had that youthful obsession for someone. As the movies looks at teen sexuality, it is never obscene-it is not "sexy", it is simply beautiful, intimate and somewhat scary. The direction allows each scene to unfold its own pace with precise, poignant camerawork.Altered Innocence proudly presents a brand new version of Cam Archer's angst-fueled experimental classic Coming-of-Age film Wild Tigers I Have Known. The Deluxe Blu-ray Edition features over 2 hours of bonus features including new HD restorations of much of Cam Archer's early body of work.

Logan is played by the beautiful Malcolm Stumpf. He does not act, he simply is. He is a normal boy who has adolescence thrust upon him. He is an outcast and powerless and searching for an identity that will permit him to act on the feelings that he will not admit to himself that he is having.

We all know that adolescence is not easy but gay adolescence is that much more difficult. There are virtually no role models and no guide to take one through the gay maturation process. Director Cam Archer seems to be telling us that what gay youth needs most are people that they can look up to. The youth of today are exploited by society and must live with a media machine that does not really care about them.

The movie is both unusual and bizarre that is multi-layered. As it shows a gay youth coming of age and dealing with his sexuality, it requires an open mind. When Logan finally comes to realize and accept his homosexuality, he is saved. The film follows his coming-out process and the mood of the film is quiet determination. Logan is alone and has no one to share his feelings. He has a hard time at school as kids can be cruel. The film looks something like a long music video and each song reveals something about the plot. It seems to be a series of vignettes as if they are moments of Logan's life. Without a lot of dialog and plot, the film tells a beautiful story-we are taken on a guided tour of what Logan feels and how he feels and not what he does.

"Tigers' shows the loneliness and isolation we feel when we are surrounded by an environment that is based on heterosexual economics. It shows how we are parallel to the unwanted and feared tigers of society. The movie deals, in reality, with the inner feelings of adolescence. These feelings grow slowly until one realizes that he is different from others, as if he is the only one among an entirely different species.