Swan Song: NZIFF Film Review

If you're not won over by the moment Udo Kier's fabulously coutured Pat Pitsenbarger holds up traffic while trundling along a highway in an electric mobility scooter, then you may need to check yourself for a pulse.

Director Todd Stephens' curiously haunting and affecting tale of the aforementioned Pitsenbarger dawdles somewhere in the middle of a true story and an almost effete fable as it spins the story of a hairdresser on the brink of death coaxed out of hospital to perform one last makeover on a once-beloved client.

Embracing a truly more gentle side from a back catalogue that's promoted ferocity, a fearless Kier emerges as Pitsenbarger, a character based on a true icon from Stephens' own past. Hospitalised in Sandusky in Ohio in the US, Pitsenbarger is on the edge of the end of his life, living haunted by characters from his past, and consumed with quiet rage over a former business partner's behaviour. 

But when he's asked to makeover a dead client from the past, like a Liberace Lazarus, Pitsenbarger rises from his hospital bed to reclaim his rightful place in a community that's seemingly moved on from him.

In truth, Swan Song is nothing short of an utterly melancholic and utterly compelling gentle story that gets under your skin without warning, and is blessed with moments of utter clarity of human purpose and tenderness that you can't look away.

It helps that Stephens' script is bathed in a love for his characters, their journey and Pitsenbarger's life of regrets are ones of universal fears writ large. Granted, there's the added edge of the gay fight in small towns and the spectre of AIDS in the background, but not once does Stephens ever wallow, choosing to paint Pitsenbarger in a glorious light and paint his story in pathos.

Deadpan laconic dialogue laces moments of Swan Song, and there's joy to be had in a scene where skipping rope kids beckon over Pitsenbarger to join their game as Amerie's anthem 1 Thing blasts in the background, but Swan Song belongs solely to Udo Kier.

Kier makes Pitsenbarger and his foibles feel real, lived in, and lamentable - but not once does he ever reduce the character to a weaker stereotype. An understated performance from Kier makes Swan Song soar, and consequently elevates this film to one of the very best on offer at the 2021 film festival.