Queer disorientations in Only the Brave, Head On, and Blessed

ABSTRACT In this article, we explore the orientation of queer bodies to the city – and to Lisa French’s (2013) motif of ‘looking from the largely industrialised west at the city’ in particular – in three films directed by Ana Kokkinos: Only the Brave (1994), Head On (1998), and Blessed (2009). In doing so, we take up Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenological approach to focus on Alex (played by Elena Mandalis) in Only the Brave; Ari (played by Alex Dimitriades) in Head On; and Arthur/‘Roo’ (played by Eamon Farren) in Blessed. We argue that when each queer protagonist looks to the city they are not only multiply disoriented, their disorientations are also specifically triggered by earlier enunciations of queer desire. We argue that these physical, psychological, temporal, and spatial disorientations serve multiple purposes across these films. They symbolise the phenomenological disorientations of queer embodiment; disorientate viewers to offer them a queer spectatorial opportunity; and proffer the ‘hope of new directions’ [Ahmed, Sara. 2006b. Queer Phenomenology. Durham, NC: Duke UP] in the depiction of queerness in Australian cinema.