Gus Van Sant's debut Mala Noche on DVD

Tartan Video releases two films by award-winning director Gus Van Sant on DVD on 28th April 2008. His latest film Paranoid Park, also released on Blu-Ray, explores teenage angst, whilst unrequited love is the focus of debut feature Mala Noche, never previously available in the UK.

Walt (Tim Streeter) is working in a liqueur store when he encounters two handsome new Mexicans, Johnny and Pepper. Immediately, Walt develops an obsession with Johnny, who is an illegal immigrant with little knowledge of English. The desire may be one-sided but it becomes a friendship of mutual needs and desires.

Made in 1985 on a shoe-strong budget and based on a novella by Portland poet Walt Curtis, it’s a gritty celebration of the outsider, a world male hustlers and immigrant workers, which feature in some of his other movies, such as Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho. Long before the emergence of New Queer Cinema directors such as Todd Haynes and Gregg Araki, it explores male desire with honesty. Shot with grungy, poetic camerawork that he’s distinctively developed in subsequent movies, MALA NOCHE delivers a dramatic poignancy and a genuine affection for its characters. A visual triumph of unrequited love.

DVD extras include: 2007 interview with Gus Van Sant (26 mins); Preface – introduction by Stéphane Delorme (5 mins) ; L’Objet du Desir – opening sequence analysis by Stéphane Delorme (6 mins); trailer.