That’s what I’m talking about when I say “inevitable.” When Robert goes his own way with the investigation, undercover, developing college lad Arek ( Hubert Milkowski) as a source, other “suicides” come to light, connections are made and the higher ups announce that “The case is closed.”Īs his Dad passes on warnings and his partner moves on, Robert digs into the case with a little help from his file clerk fiance ( Adrianna Chlebicka) and we’re left to wonder how far Robert will go to maintain his cover, what makes this case so important to him and where this tangled web will lead him and us. To “make this go away, quickly (in Polish with subtitles, or dubbed into English), they’ll need the help of the “Operation Hiacynt” team, which has files, a record of gay haunts and a squad to help them round up suspects to blackmail or torture for “information.”Īs they wade into this world, Robert is put off by the systemic injustice, and by his partner’s casual cruelty, brutality that leads to one arrested informant’s suicide. That’s how they’re handed a murder case, a “well to do” victim found in a Warsaw park close to “The Mushroom,” the men’s room, a favorite cruising ground for the city’s gay men. But thanks to his connections, they’re the gruff boss’s ( Miroslaw Zbrojewicz) favorites. Robert, son of a government security minister ( Marek Kalita), is nobody’s idea of a tough guy.
Militia sergeants Robert ( Tomasz Zietek) and Nogas ( Jakub Wieczorek) are a crack team, with younger Robert the brains and Nogas the bulk. It’s just reminiscent enough of William Friedkin’s controversial undercover-in-the-gay-community 1980 film “Cruising” for the comparison to pop to mind in anybody watching “Hyacinth.”
The movie director Piotr Domalewski (“Silent Night”) and first-feature screenwriter Marcin Ciaston conjured out of that is an undercover cop chases a conspiracy tale, a somewhat “inevitable” story that invites application of that reviewing cliche, “solid.”Īs in, the execution, acting and chilling Soviet Bloc production design are more impressive than any surprise “Hyacinth” struggles to come up with. But as a monstrous, violent violation of civil rights, it’s hard not to wonder if Nazi sympathizers were never rooted out of the “militia” - Poland’s national police. Some 11,000 names are all they came up with. If it was meant to create a database of Every Gay in Poland, it was a Polish joke. Progress has been made, but there is still work to be done towards proper representation and inclusion.The Polish thriller “Operation Hyacinth” (“Hiacynt”) is based on an infamous piece of Communist history, Poland’s systemic police harassment, arrest, documentation and blackmail of the country’s homosexual population in the mid-1980s. LGBTQ+ representation still largely comes from smaller media companies and independent filmmakers, including the films in this list.
Queer women, queer people of color - and particularly queer women of color - are still missing from the major studios.
GLAAD, an LGBTQ+ media advocacy group, reported that 2019 was a record year for LGBTQ+ inclusion in major media still, the amount of representation is far from optimal. LGBTQ+ representation in film is on the rise in the last several years. This binge-able collection covers the spectrum of genres, meaning there's a movie inside for everyone. With COVID-19 majorly interrupting Pride Month celebrations over the last two years, the community has found unique and safe ways to still celebrate and raise awareness for LGBTQ+ issues. There are thousands of movies on Netflix, but this list highlights the best of the best LGBTQ+ movies the streaming giant has to offer.