A Very Natural Thing (25th Anniversary Edition)

"A Very Natural Thing" is an important early gay film by a gay man documenting the gay scene of its time (early to mid 1970's). The documentary interviews are not as integral a part of the film as the director apparently thought, but that may be more apparent due to the passage of time since its release (1974). the human story told by the film comes out in the interaction of the characters as they search for what they want in life. The lesson of the film seems to be that at different portions of your life you want different things in your life. I don't know that I COMPLETELY agree with this view, but that seems to be what the story tells the viewer.Now the problems:1) The packaging & the info from IMDB / Amazon get the basic plot & identities wrong. In reality, the monk / schoolteacher is named David (not Jason), the advertising executive is named Mark (not David), & the photographer is named Jason. The official info says that the teacher & the ad executive learn to respect & love each other: in the film, however, they can't live with each other, and end up breaking up because living together causes too many problems and winds up being psychically toxic for the teacher. After that (& after giving up on trying to fix the relationship with the ad exec), the teacher meets / gets together with the photographer (who is not even mentioned in the official summation). He is this time reluctant to jump into a commitment with guy he's with, while leaving that possibility for the future (& admitting that it would be a possibility).2) The bathhouse scenes are visually pretty dim, & it is sometimes difficult to tell what's going on. That may be realistic and true to fact of the actual reality of the time, but it makes for difficult viewing. Since this is a psychically "dark" part of the plot, however, so it may help for it to have been filmed in dim light.In spite of the problems listed, the plot of the actual story still holds together to give some cautionary lessons: make sure where you stand before you commit to a relationship (& as best as possible, that you are both defining the relationship the same way), then work on problems TOGETHER as they come up after you commit to be with each other so that your life situation doesn't end up becoming psychically toxic for you. From my experience, that lesson is vital for all human sexual relationships, gay or straight!

Considering this movie was made in the early 70s, some of the issues that it tackled about relationships in general, or male to male relationships in particular are still very relevant today: monogamy, open relationships, commitment, communication, sex, and openness. Even though the film was a fictional account of male relationships, I really appreciated the historical documentary elements of what it means to be gay that were interwoven into the film at the beginning and end. The struggles that David and Mark face, are inevitable in any gay relationship, and it was beautiful to watch how the men grew from the many challenges that they faced in their relationship. The blunt sexuality of the film acted like a time capsule transporting us to the days of what gay sex was like, pre-prep, pre-AIDS, and pre-gay marriage. The actors were not only great to look at for their 70s sexiness, but their acting performances were solid, realistic, and very much in the style of how people acted in the 70s.

For the era in which this film was made, it is one I would consider pretty good overall, but by today's standards, It is not something I really want to watch again. It is a rather confusing story and doesn't deliver on the promises it's description would imply. Perhaps a second viewing would fill in some gaps and shed a little more light on some of this. The acting is alright, but could be better. The content is disappointing and the lighting throughout is not very good. It does have a few high spots and the actors aren't bad looking, and the ending IS surprisingly pretty good. I was not impressed real well with the casting on this one, and felt they could have found better people to fit many of the parts. It does deliver a little nudity which gives it more appeal, but also done tastefully as not to turn the film into a porn flick. It starts out with a whole lot more appeal than it ends with, and kinda loses steam as it goes along. This is an openly exposed look at some of the difficulties of the gay life, and finding love, versus shallow sexual fulfillment. It is also a historic look back at gay life in the 1970's which exposes a few differences to gay life today and how much it has changed. It does have some fun and entertaining moments here and there, especially in the ending. I would have to say I really do like this film up to a certain point, but there's just something missing that makes it a little disappointing as well. In it's time, this film was probably satisfying to it's audience, but I think maybe it's time is too long gone, and we've progressed today to much better films, which puts this one in it's own little time capsule, making it more suitable for history, than entertainment. I'll give it one thumb up and rate it with three stars, but I honestly wouldn't recommend buying it unless you just can't find anything else. If you're looking for something special about this being the "25th Anniversary Edition", you can stop looking. It is different from the original only in format as it is now on DVD. I found nothing else about it to differentiate it from the original release. Pretty good, but pretty disappointing overall.