Ben Whishaw and Ira Sachs reunite after the sizzling Passages [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]. If you’re not familiar with Hujar, you’ve likely seen his dramatically vivid black-and-white portraits circulated elsewhere; Sachs doesn’t reproduce a single one here, a bold decision encapsulating his 76-minute feature's strengths and weaknesses. It premieres at Sundance, before showing in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.

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So, Peter Hujar’s Day is all about just two glamorous characters in one tastefully furnished Manhattan flat, although Sachs manipulates realism by inconsistently depicting it both as a windswept and as an unusually balmy November day (one shot sees them slouching on the roof balcony, sans coats), and by including B-roll footage of the actors getting into character before a take, and of the clapperboard slates that would typically be edited out. From this, we feel Sachs is very cognisant of making this conversation-driven material seamlessly cinematic. With the work being spoken of as just an “art project” in the press notes, rather than a marketable “film”, there’s undeniable formalist and academic interest in having Hujar’s testimonies on the cinematic record, yet genuine emotional involvement sparks through, where it’s humbling to witness Hujar’s candidness and vulnerabilities, and the distance between Whishaw’s impersonation and the actual subject collapses.

So, what does our Peter natter about? He is expectedly narcissistic, insecure and judgemental of others, yet the dramaturgy pinpoints him as a key hinge in this ever-relevant artistic milieu, where he flails to redress his lower status compared to more famous friends and colleagues (Allen Ginsberg, Susan Sontag, Lauren Hutton), whilst they covet his lens and viewfinder to look divine, soulful and seductive. Rosenkrantz offers occasional polite prompts, and then gazes at him with (platonic) love; Hujar embarks on several linked soliloquies, encompassing work-day encounters with his subjects (and the deft social martial arts required so that they pose properly), the battle between his feverish work ethic and his slothful tendencies (he has a weakness for fully clothed daytime naps), and his promiscuity as a liberated gay man pre-AIDS, counterposed with heart-bruising romantic near-misses. With the decor’s incense candles and cinematographer Alex Ashe’s smoky crimson colour scheme, the film is often like a séance, reanimating a dead artistic epoch with unmistakable detail and rigour, but blanching from a fresher, and more urgent, new perspective.

Although he's built up an impressive filmography now, and can get personal work like this funded quite easily, Sachs’ oeuvre always betrays an intentional smallness and understatement, mimicked in Peter Hujar’s Day, with its modest goals and efforts equating to modest rewards. Whilst it creditably refuses to mention in any ending titles that he succumbed to AIDS in the late 1980s, thereby not making what we see ultimately a prelude to this fact, its overall impact diverges too far from Hujar’s actual work for us to love him equally as Sachs clearly does. Glance at any arty editorial shoot in contemporary print or online media, the photo subject’s look and mystery burnished further, and Hujar’s legacy is even more inarguable.

Peter Hujar’s Day is a co-production by the USA and Germany, staged by Jordan Drake Productions and ONE TWO Films.