At long last, Provincetown has gotten the stylish and thoughtful cinematic representation it deserves. You can forget the trashy and formulaic law-and-order series Hightown and chuck the mean-spirited and woolly depiction of the town in American Horror Story: Red Tide, with its tired metaphor of writers and artists as vampires.
Provincetown has produced some noteworthy homegrown films, which range from earnest to embarrassing, and it has inspired some significant documentaries (such as In the Whale) and literary concoctions, such as Norman Mailer’s wildly idiosyncratic films of yore. It has shown up in great movies, from Warren Beatty’s Reds to Todd Flaherty’s Chrissy Judy. But no one has captured the essence of the place the way Marco Calvani — an Italian actor-writer-director who found safe haven here during Covid — has done in his new feature film, High Tide. It screened at the Provincetown International Film Festival in June and is now receiving a genuine art-house release in theaters, including the Waters Edge Cinema locally, as of Friday, Nov. 1. (Star Marco Pigossi is scheduled to do a Q&A at the 1 p.m. screening on Saturday, Nov. 2 at Waters Edge.)
People have come to Provincetown over the centuries for a variety of reasons, from early British settlers to families of fishermen from Portugal. But during the 20th century, it became a mecca for artists and writers and bohemians of all stripes, especially the queer community, which has journeyed here en masse from the 1970s on. Locals have sometimes compared the town to the Island of Misfit Toys (from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), a refuge for square pegs and pariahs, and visitors celebrate its serene beaches and dunes and the unique light of its skies. Provincetown is all of that, and it’s also a place to live and work: it offers personal freedom and a healing, beautiful environment.
The main character of High Tide, a Brazilian émigré named Lourenço (Pigossi), came here with an American lover in hopes of somehow creating a life for himself far away from his closeted existence as a small-town accountant. Before leaving, he told his overbearing mother that he would be studying at Harvard, and even after his American lover leaves town and stops returning his calls, and his work as a house cleaner and his tourist visa reach their end dates, Lourenço continues to give his mom daily phone updates of this false scenario.
Filmmaker Calvani does not view Provincetown through rose-colored glasses. Instead, he sees it as a playground for the bourgeoisie. He carefully observes its patronizing attitudes and inescapable racism, particularly when Lourenço hooks up with a handsome Black tourist named Maurice (James Bland). As much as Lourenço embraces the freedom of gay life in town, he also can’t escape the shallowness of party culture and the sleaziness of casual sex. But that’s not enough to make him want to return home. Everyone there, he says, is afraid of Jesus.
Lourenço, like Calvani, is a romantic. He can’t give up hoping for the return of his American lover. The film opens with him attempting suicide, running out to the ocean naked. It’s a jolt that propels the story forward, though it actually jumps backward in time, revealing the romantic spiral that Lourenço has sunk into.
But he’s also a realist and a survivor, and his story is not hopeless. Instead, it’s full of joy and the poetry of yearning. It’s profoundly queer yet deeply universal. And most of all, it’s crafted with consummate artistry and intelligence.
High Tide is writer-director Calvani’s first feature, but you’d never know it. The storytelling is never awkward. The tempo is not so contemplative that impatient viewers will get itchy, but it’s also not too peppy and glib, a tic of many first-time filmmakers. Calvani builds his story solidly and creates indelible characters along the way. Bill Irwin is perfection as the owner of the cottage colony where Lourenço is staying: an older gay man, a widower of the AIDS era, who dotes on Lourenço but not always in the most helpful ways. Marisa Tomei plays a local artist whose house Lourenço helps to paint, and Bryan Batt is a flirty visiting lawyer who patronizes him with useless immigration advice.
Then there’s Maurice’s group of queer friends — including Todd Flaherty (Chrissy Judy) and Mya Taylor (Tangerine) — whom Lourenço meets on the beach. The gay banter isn’t overly bitchy or stereotyped, but it’s clearly not Lourenço’s style. He prefers Maurice’s gentle masculinity, and James Bland delivers a lovely and touching performance as a young gay man of color still trying to find his way.
The cinematography by Oscar Ignacio Jiménez is subtly lit and exquisitely framed. The plaintive score by Sebastian Plano is the ideal hedge against the club dance music and torch songs that so often characterize queer life. Calvani brings passion to the screen with grace and restraint.
And his movie is a fair reflection of Provincetown today. The town may have lost its funk but not its heart. Money matters a lot, but so do relationships. High Tide holds back from judging people harshly, but it never shies away from moral dilemmas. Most of all, it’s a beautiful film, as befits the natural wonder of the Outer Cape. It’s a movie to be proud of, without qualms.
