The digitally remastered 1991 drag-scene documentary "Paris Is Burning" (⋆⋆⋆, rated R) shows how far society has come — and how far there's still left to go.
This look at "voguing" — called such because participants struck poses both emulating and ridiculing the high-fashion models in Vogue magazine — was considered provocative at the time and drew calls for a boycott from conservative Christians.
Now the practice is so commonplace that there's even a TV series about it, "Pose." But not everything has changed. In interviews, many of the subjects talk about their biggest wish: to be accepted by mainstream society as who they are and be able to live a "normal" life like everyone else.
The film could use a little more analysis — especially when seen three decades in retrospect — but one has to remember that then-29-year-old director Jennie Livingston was making her very first film — she hadn't even made a short film before that — and, under those circumstances, this was truly remarkable. (Showing at the Lagoon.)
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