Like Ira Sachs’ Love Is Strange, the Brazilian film The Way He Looks (Strand), the full-length feature debut by writer/director Daniel Ribiero, isn’t just one of the best gay movies of 2014, it’s one of the best movies of the year. Period.

Blind teen Leo (Ghilherme Lobo) and best friend Givoana (Tess Amorim) enjoy the last lazy days of summer lounging by the pool and talking about first kisses before school begins. Once classes start, it’s business as usual. The class bullies are mean to Leo. But things are about to change for Leo with the arrival of new kid Gabriel (Fabio Audi). Paired up to work on a class project together, there is electricity between the boys. Each has an unexpected effect on the other.

Leo, who only listens to classical music, is turned on to Scottish pop group Belle and Sebastian by Gabriel, who even gets Leo to dance with him in Leo’s room. Gabriel becomes increasingly aware of and sensitive to Leo’s needs as a visually impaired person.

Meanwhile, Leo is doing everything he can to be more self-sufficient, something that doesn’t sit well with his over-protective parents Laura (Lucia Romano) and Carlos (Eucir de Souza). In fact, Leo is researching the possibility of studying abroad. This growing desire for independence also threatens Leo’s relationship with Giovana.

“The Way He Looks” is remarkably insightful in terms of the way small, but meaningful details, can eventually amount to something much greater. Leo sleeping in Gabriel’s sweatshirt, for instance, is one potent example. Gabriel’s concern for Leo, applying sun-block to his skin and later rinsing it off in the shower, is another. More than just a story of first gay love, it’s a perceptive portrait of friendship and the eclipses that can occur, whether you can see them or not.

(The Way He Looks opens in theaters on Nov. 26.)

It’s amazing what someone will say when a movie camera is pointed at them. With encouragement from the late filmmaker Shirley Clarke, queer African-American raconteur and hustler Jason Holliday goes about “telling it all” in the pre-Stonewall, black & white film and one-man-show Portrait of Jason (Milestone/Oscilloscope). Answering questions posed to him by voices (including Clarke’s) from out of the frame, Jason begins by introducing himself with his given name and proceeds to tell the tale of how Jason Holliday was created in San Francisco by Sabu. He “dug” being called Jason, a name that suited his personality. Even Miles Davis called him Jason. The name gave him the strength to be himself in NYC.

Jason, who hustles and describes himself as “a stone whore,” will do anything to keep from punching the clock from nine to five. “Ballin’ from Maine to Mexico,” Jason hasn’t got a dollar to show for it, but he sure had a good time. What he really wants to do is perform.

Staying well lubricated in Clarke’s Chelsea Hotel flat, Jason admits he “doesn’t mean any harm, but harm is done.” A “male bitch,” he goes out of his way to “unglue people.” Working as a houseboy for various well-to-do clients, Jason has plenty of stories about his bosses. A born entertainer, Jason utilizes his bag of props, which contains a picture hat, feather boa and other things. Impressions of Mae West and Scarlett OHara, lead to more anecdotes about Katharine Hepburn, Tennessee Williams and “white boy fever.”

Promising to never “get hung up on one of those boy-boy marriages,” a drunk and rambling Jason gives us glimpses of his past (daily beatings by his Alabama-born father, Brother Tough), his present (sexual escapades at the Y, with a muscle man in LA and hustling in San Francisco) and his future (the quest to raise money for his cabaret act), and is never less than beguiling.

Jason, who has “vacationed” on Rikers Island and done time at Bellevue following being arrested for gay sex, maintains his sense of humor throughout. As much a portrait of Jason as it is of the time (1967), Clarke’s film is like an unearthed time capsule. The DVD includes a wealth of bonus material including the film’s trailer, audio outtakes, a radio interview with Clarke, a few of Clarke’s shorts and more.

Follow