"Swan Song" Review

Pat Pitsenberger (Udo Kier) was once the toast of the town's high society, a hairdresser to the rich, famous and fabulous. Now he sits in a retirement home, listless and dwelling on the past, and sharing cigarettes with the more frail, forgotten residents - lavishing attention on those forgotten by the world. When a lawyer comes to him with news that his old client, town philanthropist and queen bee Rita Parker Sloan (Linda Evans), has passed away and specified in her will that she wanted Pat Pitsenberger to do her hair, Pat breaks out of the home on a quest to fulfill this final request and confront the petty grudges and various distant memories of his past...

It has been far too long for Udo Kier to get a leading role in something. The man has been a staple of not just the wonderful stuff I love ("Suspiria", "Johnny Mnemonic", "Invincible", "The Editor"), and the trash we all love ("Blade", "Iron Sky") and the worst things ("Far Cry", "Dogville", "BloodRayne") - this has been a long time coming. Do insert your "Story of O" punchline here...
He relishes the chance, truly, and Pat is a wonderful character.
He is played as catty and camp, yes, but still subdued in that Udo Kier way, and all the more heartbreaking for it. His initial interactions with a fellow patient in the home (treating her hair, calling her beautiful and acting just as he would have years ago...) set the tone not just for our hero, but the film itself: a tender, sweet-hearted story free of malice, but still heart-wrenching.
Director Todd Stephens (the stronger of the 2 "movies about a character who lives in a society" directors working today, and the one who isn't a sneering prick) uses the lovely, picturesque, quaint small town backdrops to wonderful effect, almost fairytale in parts, but undercut with the fading architecture, dying businesses and poorer areas. I liked the shot at the start where Pat left his room and turned the sign on his door over, and it lingered on the happy face just a little too long...

Pat is old, but coming out once more, freeing himself. The colour grading is brilliant (pun intended), and amplifies a twist nicely. The stage sections of Pat in a fur coat bookend the film sweetly and with a tight little bow.
The film really hits its stride after Pat leaves the retirement home, and becomes a story of letting go of grudges, but then morphs into a more complex take on what has happened to gay sub-cultures, the erasure of gay spaces, the lessons lost, learned and forgotten by the new generations of queer people, and truly blossoms there. It's touching, sweet, heart-breaking, but also very funny, and a celebration of saying "fuck you" (the catty lines are great without being mean-spirited or having Pat be a dick, and him on the mobility scooter is excellent); though it never gets cloying or sentimental or treats its character with too much reverence. Pat still makes bad decisions, backs out of things, and farts about (though the wine scene is quite funny, actual king that man is...) and it's telling how much both Udo and the writer relish the chance to breathe life into this character as well as use him to explore these dying worlds and the themes of death and loss. It becomes a real triumph in its final act, reaching an amazing use of "Dancing on My Own", yet not even peaking there and continuing to a well-earned, beautiful finale that more than lives up to its title.
It is about letting go of grudges, but also of how much we can impact the lives of others without even knowing it (one of about 3 times I got choked up in the film) and how, at the end of the day, we all want to be remembered but few get to remember you for who you truly are.
Makes a palette-cleansing chase shot to "Red Rocket".