299: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a road movie through and through. Three drag queens begin a journey across the Australian Outback for a month's residency at a hotel owned by one of the drag queens' wives. On this journey, the three companions stumble upon oddballs, homophobes and new loves whilst discovering things they never knew about one another. Appearing first in 1994, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert burst into cinema's in all it's finery and won an Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

The central trio of the film consists of Tick (Hugo Weaving), Adam (Guy Pearce) and Bernadette (Terrence Stamp) played by very fine actors, but none of whom are actually gay and as such have little idea of what it is to be gay. As such Weaving, Pearce and Stamp seem to be playing their parts with as much flamboyance as possible in order to try and distract the audience with pretty colours whilst covering up any moments of emotion or character interaction that fall flat.

The colours are very pretty indeed, with the film deserving it's Academy Award for Best Costume Design. At the very least it can be said that writer and Director, Stephen Elliot has visual flair. The pivotal moment where the three friends climb Kings Canyon in all their finery is a moment of real beauty. Elliot chose well to switly move any moments of strife, anguish or desperation along in order for the script to get around to another ABBA joke or the next village on the journey. None of the actors seem fully capable of creating any kind of performance that is believable, the only thing that resonates is Guy Pearce's shrill manic laugh.

As it becomes so evident at the beginning of the film it is essential to remember that this film is best seen as a comedy, when approaching the film it is better to just go along for the ride and to not question or invest too much in the characters. Even if some of the jokes don't hit the mark or become tired towards the end of the film, Priscilla is at certain moments very funny. It appears that Elliot is influenced largely by John Landis, one scene in particular where Bernadette walks into a bar to eerie quiet recalls The Slaughtered Lamb in An American Werewolf in London. Elliot's combination of music and comedy seems to echo Landis' The Blues Brothers too.

Priscilla, Queen of the Desert may be in the list of 1001 Films To See Before You Die, but how long it will remain there is another question. No longer as shocking as it may have been 16 years ago, Priscilla almost seems irrelevant, the multitude of films that have been released since that concern similar themes are vastly superior to this quickly aging pantomime. Priscilla definitely has moments of hilarity and of cinematic scale, but these no longer seem enough to keep the film in the 1001 Films To See Before You Die.