“I'm a man in search of his true self. How archetypically American can you get?”

– Eddie Jessup

 

A theme park*, or in this case, amusement park.

“Just take it from me I'm just as free as any daughter I do what I like Just what I like and how I love it

I'm right here to stay when I'm old and gray I'll be right in my prime Living in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight Having a wonderful time”

– Tiny Tim, Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight (Al Sherman & Al Lewis, 1930), from God Bless Tiny Tim (1968)

Tiny Tim is a personal hero of mine. A decade after his mainstream TV debut, Tiny's career had taken a tumble but he still was – God bless him – Tiny Tim, and he performed a two-hour-and-seventeen-minute singing marathon at Luna Park Sydney. Just months after that, tragedy hit the park's Ghost Train ride. A fire, arson as it was determined decades later, killed seven. Fellow Tiny-aficionado and OZ artist Don Lane saw a connection between these two events and spend years cutting and editing the musical marathon, nude drunken interview and disaster footage, and Tiny wandering around a mirror maze into a narrative.

 

Lane passed in 2013 and, in respect of his family's wishes, Street of Dreams remains unfinished.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for December has a few dateless themes. This is one of them.

World AIDS Day: conquering fear.

“J’ai mal, mais la douleur me rassure. Son souvenir me donne du plaisir.”

An uptight, white accountant in odds with himself, sees a Black masseur at a Turkish bathhouse. Antoine experiences a relieve – an atonement – through the pain, and forms a bond with the man. After an injury, Antoine must learn to come to terms with his fears. Based one Tennessee Williams' Desire and the Black Masseur (One Arm and Other Stories, 1948).

A heartfelt reunion scene*

“Oh, it's you.”

– Margaret Wheeler, welcoming the viewers to this curious retelling of her life's events

Through an unexplained muddle, the Wheeler and the Rylatt girls were mixed up at the maternity ward. One of the mothers, Mrs Wheeler, had a hunch something was off. Her girl was suspiciously long and skinny, unlike the one that was entrusted to her. Over the years and to Mrs Rylatt's increasing chagrin, Mrs Wheeler kept in touch with that woman from the maternity ward. And was proven to be correct. This film is one breezy yet tense reunion scene. Heartwarming, awkward, and – like all that's nostalgia – slightly surreal.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

A bit – occasionally a lot – Greenaway without the room for interpretation. Lovely though and impossible to make in this overly self-aware selfie universe.

“Purr Francine! Purr, purr Francine!”

– Cuddles Kovinsky

“Oh keiner macht's wie du, Wie du so traut sich's keiner, So wie du”

– DAF – El Que (Gold und Liebe (1981)