Eclipse of the Sun Virgin by George Kuchar

Eclipse of the Sun Virgin opens on an image of Jesus Christ. This fades into a graduation photo of a young George Kuchar. Over these two images is music and a voice over, a woman's voice reciting what sounds like something biblical. "He that shall loose his life for me shall find it. If thou were to be perfect, go sell what thou hast, give to the poor and come follow me."
This then cuts to George Kuchar's character pouring wine into a large mug. He takes a swig then gags on it.
Eclipse of the Sun Virgin seems to jump around a bit, as any good Kuchar film does, but it seems to touch on something throughout the film: the meaning of manhood in the context of sexuality and religion.
Kuchar's character in the film is tied to his mother. One of the first scenes is one of the two playing piano together in the same room. She picks up a photograph of the two of them and sobs over it, as if she has lost him. Kuchar looks over to her with an expression of longing and guilt.
This cuts to Kuchar confronting an attractive young man of a similar age. First the young man turns to him in a bedroom, a silver cross around his neck. Then, in a red button up, the man turns to him again in the bathroom. This shot is repeated a few times throughout the film. The first time, the audio is a heart pounding.
The film continues and Kuchar's character finds himself a girl, a girl who looks like a younger version of his own mother. Kuchar from then on is clad in black and leather and sunglasses in an apparent attempt to renounce his boyhood as well as any inkling of homosexuality that might have been a possibility. At one point, he is sitting with his girl in her bedroom among a crowd of fluffy pink and white stuffed animals in his getup.
What really drives this film with conviction is the attention to detail, particularly in costuming, set design and the audio. Everyone within the film is pretty distinctly put together:
Kuchar is nerdy and feeble, then seems to have been dipped head first into a bin full of motorcyclists.
His mother is in some kind of floral house coat and is topped with a cloud of impossibly orange hair.
The young man he is confronted with is consumed in simple clothes, ones that don't distract from his body and draw attention to it simultaneously. The cross around his neck also challenges the feelings the audience can infer Kuchar's character holds for him.
The young woman he becomes involved with is of a larger build with a larger nose, just like his mother. But she's young, dresses in pink, dons flippy 60's hair and spends time with Kuchar, the time his own mother seems to have lost.
The audio is a mix of biblical verses and 60's pop music. From scene to scene, there are shifts between what seems to be moral, expected and proper and what seems to be fun. There is set of lines which is repeated twice. "We will have exercises to develop charity, oberance and humility and tests to destroy love of self. Two of these tests is the culpa and the penance. The degree of humiliation will tell you how much pride is still alive in you. Only as your pride slowly crumble will you get the first glimpse of true humility." This seems to be speaking directly to Kuchar's character's possible homosexuality as well as the internal conflict it drums up.
The sound and the image work together flawlessly in Eclipse of the Sun Virgin. They together convincingly tell the story of a young man searching for both freedom and recognition while grappling the expectations and restrictions fostered by his upbringing.