Jason Sondhi
Short profile documentaries have become such familiar part of our online media diet that the form is fertile ground for subversion. Mockumentary has a long proud history as a genre, but Gregory Loser’s scripted film, while aping the tell-tale sign of short docs (and also being on occasion quite funny) isn’t a mockumentary. Instead it is a character mediation, steeped in nostalgia, though not oppressively somber about it. It replaces interview for monologue, but like a good short doc it vividly brings to life a portrait from a by-gone era, an indelible character who is trapped out-of-time and yet fascinating to behold.
The Vale of Cashmere, a long abandoned Victorian garden famous now as a cruising spot for gay men in the 70’s has been exerting influence on the imagination of a younger generation of filmmakers. This film is the 3rd I’ve seen in the past year to reference the spot. As the gravity of creative New York has moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn it makes sense that the borough’s Prospect Park begins to create a mythology of its own that matches its more famous sister, Central Park. The Last Leatherman of the Vale of Cashmere uses the location as a lens to depict the vanishing subculture that brought it fame, via the reminisces of an aging cruiser who has a hard time letting go of both his youth, and the thrilling sexual excitement that came with it.
This new myth-making is intertwined naturally with nostalgia. Every generation of New Yorkers (so many of us are transplants) feels like we were the first to miss out on the real New York, and there exists a vicarious thrill when encountering second-hand testimony of when the city was rougher, more dangerous, more alive. Yet Loser also wants to plumb the unique application of this feeling as it pertains to gay culture. The mainstreaming of homosexuality—the extraordinary gains made in recent decades in terms of acceptance, civil rights, and popular representation, has been phenomenal, and certainly laudable. Yet Loser is interested in the flip side of the gay community’s absorption into the broader society, what is lost. The particularity of lives in the shadows for one—the customs and habits that emerged from segregation and ostracization. Loser certainly does not want to turn back the clock, but writes “to not acknowledge that it was, and remains, a good deal of fun for many men relegates the practice to a realm of sadness and depravity and that feels equally unfair. I think it’s possible to be pleased by a more inclusive world but also miss the bond, and the behavior, that come from being confined to the woods.”
Maybe I’m strange for mistaking the film upon first viewing as a documentary—certain elements like its handheld photography, and the way our leatherman looks directly into the camera during his opening introduction I realize are not devices unique to non-fiction. Certainly elements like CG strutting birds hidden in the background of certain shots should’ve given pause to my evaluation. Yet my mistake I think is a compliment to Loser and the authenticity of his Leatherman. He is so wonderfully realized I assumed he couldn’t be a creation. He both illustrates Loser’s larger aims of eulogizing a vanished subculture, but embodies a distinctive personality and backstory that elevates him above avatar for a message. His conflicted relationship with middle-age women who are now his primary social circle, develop an empathetic portrait of loneliness that would resonate even without the titillating top-level subject matter.
The Last Leatherman of the Vale of Cashmere was created through Room 5 Films, a fresh production company based out of the city. Loser and much of his team cut their teeth working on Ethan Hawke’s feature length documentary Seymour: An Introduction, and has started to expand their individual creative voices through shorts. This film had a notable festival run in 2016, with high profile inclusions in the programs of TIFF and the New York Film Festival. Loser is currently developing his first feature.