Light Up is an intimate documentary that focuses on the lives of five people in Atlanta—four Black gay men and one Black transgender woman. It’s a really personal look at their backstories and how they’ve dealt with prejudice and mental health struggles because they felt they had to hide who they truly were. The big thing they all share is that every person interviewed has found a way to push through those hard times. Now, they're all at a place where they feel totally comfortable being themselves and speaking their truth. The five people sharing their journeys are Simone Tisci, Derek Jae, Octavius Terry, Obio Jones, and Benjamin Carlton. Derek Jae is already pretty well-known from reality TV, while Simone Tisci is a successful makeup artist who is now working on breaking into acting. Then there’s Octavius Terry, who used to be a record-breaking track and field star. He actually cut his athletic career short because he was so scared his coaches and teammates would find out he was ...
February, 1983. Detectives are called to a residential address in the London suburbs following reports that the drains have been clogged by human remains. One of the property’s residents, Jordan March is called in for questioning. Slowly he accounts for how he lured young gay man, mostly homeless and jobless, got them into his apartment and eventually kill them. He would bury them under his floorboards and take them out and sometimes sleep with them or just sit with them till the bodies get too smelly.
The film is shot in a very documentary like style without any high production thrills. In fact the photography is often grainy and dim, but it does capture the sleazier late eighties London night life with a raw beauty. The film looks much older than it really is and I am told that this was done on purpose (I wonder why since personally for me , that doesn't work). One thing that's missing here is any overt reflection on the homophobia prevalent at the time. We encounter it only through its secondary effects: the number of young queer men drifting through life with no-one to look out for them. The interrogating officer goes from plain mad to somber to arrogant, which I presume was the situation of the detectives those days in dealing with a criminal like this man. Also we do see trippy flashbacks to Jordan’s childhood where he witnessed the death of his grandfather, presumably triggering his various morbid fascinations that we never really get any background on. Something seemed to be missing in the film, since it never really went deep into the why's and psyche of the characters. Interestingly, even the victims were not shown as likable characters for some off reason.
I would recommend to give this one a miss and watch Des instead. Brilliant acting with a detailed account of exactly what happened, this experimental film instead leaves a lot to be desired. (3/10)
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