I Am Divine (2013)

Directed by: Jeffrey Schwarz
Country: USA

Movie Review: “I Am Divine” is a documentary about American actor, singer and drag queen, Harris Glenn Milstead, known as Divine in the world of showbiz. Directed by Jeffrey Schwarz, filmmaker and president of LA-based entertainment production company Automat Pictures (with more than 100 major releases since 2000, the year it was founded), the film obviously counts with the participation of trash-film director John Waters, whose long-time collaboration with Divine since the final 60’s until the 80’s, brought them some reputation. Without surprise, films like “Female Trouble” and “Pink Flamingos” are referenced, with particular attention to that famous scene where Divine agreed in eating a dog’s turd when Waters asked him to. Mouthy, polemic and grotesquely exuberant, Divine, is addressed here by his mother, Frances Milstead, his High School girlfriend, several friends from the artistic world, other drag queens, members of the psychedelic theater troupe ‘The Cockettes’, among others. “I Am Divine” was entertaining without being outstanding, featuring a person who could never pass as ‘normal’. It never grabbed me completely, and apart from giving the idea of what the wild parties of those times were (LSD was shared by poor, rich, gay or straight people), or how Divine met other celebrities (Elton John and Andy Warhol were just some examples), I got the sensation that its conception was too commercial and much based on what he liked or not liked, what he did or not did, without really going under his skin.