15 Essential Movies For LGBT* Pride Month
3. Carol
American independent filmmaker Todd Haynes emerged in the early 1990s as a leading figure in the New Queer Cinema movement, and has gone on to direct a number of critically acclaimed films since. Noted for his lush, colourful imagery - often compared to the great melodramas of the 1950s by Douglas Sirk, with whom he shares thematic preoccupations - he's noted as the darling of transgressive American cinema.
Carol, starring Cate Blanchett as an older woman going through a divorce who begins an affair with an aspiring photographer working in a department store (Rooney Mara), combines all the elements which makes Haynes's work so compelling. The taboo of lesbian sexuality explored in The Price Of Salt, Patricia Highsmith's novel upon which the film is based, occupies the film's central space, unfolding in late 1950s suburban America, and Haynes fixes it squarely in a particular place and time which offers a stark contrast to the values of contemporary audiences.
As with previous movies by Haynes, Carol features gorgeous cinematography by his regular DP Edward Lachman; a beautiful evocation of the period which is amplified by exceptional production design by Judy Baker, who also worked on another key queer film produced in Hollywood, Brokeback Mountain.