It’s not everyday I come across a film that I need to “process” before writing about it. I had no expectations whatsoever when I heard about this queer indie movie set in Berlin, but I came away from it feeling a strong desire to find a way to accept myself.
HipBeat is Samuel Kay Forrest's film debut / Image credit: Indie Rights
Billed as being about a “political activist fighting against the system while searching for love in the Berlin queer community”, HipBeat feels like a fly-on-the-wall exploration of a man’s search for not just love, but the meaning of love.
The artistic cinematography adds a kind of poetry to proceedings and while the non-linear aspect of the film can be confusing, it works in the way we get to know Angus and the things that inform his choices through the movie, whether they are choices in love, or more connected with his activism.
You have a man questioning his identity while enjoying the hedonistic delights of Germany’s capital and graffitiing messages of love across the city, but simultaneously facing a scary proposition: Telling his girlfriend about his yearning for gender exploration and polyamorous sexual expression.
This confrontation is without doubt the cornerstone of the whole movie. I watched with bated breath as two people exchanged a dialogue full of confusion, shame, anger, desperation, heartbreak and betrayal. I was hooked. As soon as it was over I swallowed hard and tried to mentally pick apart what that scene meant to me. I truly felt the painful division between two people, which was hard to watch when the chemistry between director/lead actor Samuel Kay Forrest and his on-screen girlfriend played by Marie Céline Yildirim is so intense.
Angus’ quest to bring down fascism is rendered a mere footnote as he learns to release his alter ego Evelyn. Not that this is a bad thing; if you’re going to fight fascism, you must first learn to erase the fascist ideas that exist in your own mind. Ideas about gender and sexuality that perhaps limit your self-expression and force you to conform.
Perhaps the thing I loved most about the movie was how Angus never tries to put a label on his identity. He mentions polyamory, and emphatically states that he is not gay, but other than that, no labels come up. It’s not that labels are a bad thing; they can make many people in the world feel as though they belong, that they aren’t alone. It’s just that sometimes the search for a label can take away from freedom of expression. It can erase individualism.
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Samuel Kay Forrest is a visionary with a romantic outlook on the world, but HipBeat never felt inauthentic and certainly not naive. HipBeat is a film brimming with hope and, in a world ravaged by violence and prejudice, leaves us wondering: Perhaps one day we can all learn to connect without judgment.
HipBeat is available to watch now on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Dekkoo, YouTube and Google Play.