Sit & Deliver: Lighton Assumes Positions in Titillating Debut
There’s a melancholic seductiveness to Pillion, the directorial debut of Harry Lighton, based on the 2020 novella Box Hill by Adam Mars-Jones. Contemporizing the 1970s set bildungsroman to modern day, it concerns the sexual awakening of an aimless young man who enters a rigid, consensual relationship with an irresistible biker as a submissive to his Dominant. Such a blatant, matter-of-fact examination of this specific subculture earns a provocative deference for frankly portraying these dynamics in ways rarely seen cinematically broached with seriousness, the torch bearer of Larry Kramer and a whole slew of queer forefathers whose visibility on the crests of the sexual revolution were decimated by the AIDS crisis.… Read the rest
It’s unclear what the exact purpose of Nouvelle Vague is meant to serve, other than paying irreverent homage to Jean-Luc Godard and the making of his iconic debut feature, “ Breathless,” (1960). But a deference to both the filmmaker and this lionized period of filmmaking doesn’t always feel enough to justify 