User reviews

Disturbing, powerful look at a few days in the life of a gay Greek-Australian man named Ari. He's very handsome, muscular, young (21), lives unhappily at home with his parents, is closeted, addicted to drugs and prefers anonymous, degrading sex. He can't find a job or any escape. Then he meets hunky, attractive Shawn who loves him. Will this change his life? The answer may surprise you.

This is NOT a feel-good gay film. It's bleak and depressing but just great. Alex Dimitriades is very good in a difficult role--the sex scenes are degrading and brutal and there's a humiliating interrogation scene by the police. Dimitriades deserves credit for appearing nude (a great body, by the way) and showing frankly how much Ari hates himself and feels he deserves all the pain he's taking. Obviously this is not for everyone but I find it an incredible portrait of a thoroughly destroyed man.

Truly a great little movie! The story moved at a good pace through-out and kept me very interested to see what would happen next. With so many movies these days, I keep checking the time because they are so terribly uneven and my interest is not held. Not with this one--very riveting and moving story. It did an excellent job of "showing" what our young protagonist (someone used the term anti-hero for him--I like that) was going through. Really liked the way the drug highs were portrayed. The voice overs were sparse--this film did not talk me to death or insult my intelligence by explaining everything. How very refreshing! Visually you went with Ari where he was going whether you liked it or not. I also really liked it because it was at times raw and visceral--life is like that sometimes for us, and for others like Ari, it's like that most of the time.

Hurray for the male frontal nudity! It's not only women that have beautiful bodies. Johnny only had a couple scenes, but he upstaged Ari in every one. What a remarkable character to throw into the mix! I would be friends with him in a heartbeat.

If you like movies about real people trying to figure out their place in the world, do yourself a favor and see this film.

Culture clash in modern-day Australia, as a 19-year-old Greek named Ari, handsome but feckless--and prone to snorting and shooting drugs--rebels against his hot-tempered papa, a man of values and culture but perhaps stuck in the past. Ari's inner-anger is all-encompassing; he lashes out at his family, at his diverse neighborhood (which appears to be an otherwise peaceful agglomeration of working-class Asians and middle easterners) and at girls who find him attractive. Ari's father is shown as disappointed with his wife and children, but even in the flashbacks there aren't any clues as to what would've made this man happy (he and his wife protested for Greek rights, but does he want his son to continue this fight--and what would the fight be about, the same issues the father fought for?). As Ari, Alex Dimitriades struts and preens like the next John Travolta (in fact, some of the home front squabbles, particularly one around the table, seem lifted from "Saturday Night Fever"). It's a risky role for the actor, who must keep up a perpetually ill-mannered demeanor, complete with lusty, angry homosexual activities which Ari keeps secret (his father hates 'poofters'); yet, Dimitriades, self-enamored and intense, makes the part work for himself and the audience. He's helped a great deal by director Ana Kokkinos, who also co-adapted the screenplay from Christos Tsiolkas's novel "Loaded" with Andrew Bovell and Mira Robertson. Kokkinos keeps the camera busy and free-flowing, although she stumbles when attempting artiness, which in this case is akin to dreariness. Some marvelous moments emerge in what could have been just another coming-of-age melodrama. **1/2 from ****

Head On is an amazing film. Its beauty and treasures lie in not judging the journey taken in the film but opening up to the experiences of a young man lost and hidden. Its not a bright, gay film but rather a fiery drama which doesn't offer answers but depicts a painful truth which many would prefer to disregard. This is a film about the loss of hope in the jaded nineties.

It is very much a local film (shot in Melbourne) and an Australian film, but I think it offers up wider and more general issues.

Few films capture the mood of the 1990s quite like Head On. It is a film embedded with characterisitics which intuitively identify the strangely blank decade that edged up to the 21st century. If the eighties was - though simplistically - regarded as the decade of high paced materialism. The 90s can be seen as a time of conservatism and cautiousness - again too simplistically - which could be regarded as the tired decade. A time imbued with a feeling that everything had already been done. Grunge embodied this, as did the increasing popularity of pastiche and remakes such as the way television shows were more and more the source for films. It was a time where even moreso than in previous decades - the answers and ideas were sort in ready-made forms. Reused, resurrected and exploited. Sarcasm and cynicism became law. Pettiness became more and more common. Many of us were just tired out.

Ari, the central character in Head On played with brilliant vibrant vividness by Alex Dimitriades, is the embodiment of this tired feeling. He reacts to the world by going to extremes in an attempt to register some feeling, a momentary intensity. Since there is nothing new to be found, he embraces fleeting bursts of passion and uses anything that helps him escape the exhausted sensation whether through drugs or sex, people or music. Anything that he can do to keep himself isolated and inside his own individual mind, he races toward. Head On. He's gay but not proud. He's Greek-Australian but not interested. He's young but may as well be old. History is an excuse to crap on and foster negativity. Ari can't contemplate love because he's lost between the cracks of a society he doesn't care for and doesn't want to contribute to maintaining. He doesn't trust but he yearns, somewhere deeply, for some sense of security or truth. The film follows his search for reason in the chaos of his life in a world of silences and charades. But for Ari, there can be no reason. He feels doomed. Sensation is his only food, the only way to quench an indiscriminate, blind thirst.

Dimitriades puts his body and soul into the role of Ari. Its the performance of commitment and intense passion for the role. He doesn't flinch at the frontal nudity or gay sex scenes as other actors might have and hence brings to the role an authenticity which is the spine of the film. But the supporting cast are equally well cast and powerful. Paul Capsis radiates every scene as Toula/Johnny, Ari's gender-bending cousin. Julian Garner is perfectly contrast as the one person who loves Ari enough to try and show him hope rather than dismissal. In fact, the script ensures even the smallest roles are provided with weight through the powerful and serious screenplay. The book from which this film was born - Loaded by Christos Tsiolka- is an excellent expansion of the films vision.

The soundtrack is split between roaring alt-rock and techno-pop with some interesting surprises. The whole film comes together with a precision and ease which never feels unnatural or artificial. This is a raw but tight film. It deals with issues intelligently and strongly without judgement or fear. The loss of hope shown here is left to be dealt with in our own lives, and with the people we meet. I think the film provides a welcome opportunity to reflect on the destructiveness of notions like identity and truth in a world which increasingly blurs examples that aren't suitable or fashionable.

The kettle is on the boil and 19 year old Ari is about to burst with a combination of his culture, sexuality and drug intake, colliding to create a mixed up youth with a cause. His parents migrated to Melbourne, Australia, from Greece and with them they brought their strong culture that they hang onto while back in Greece the culture changes with the times. This we don't see but it is the fact of life for every second generation immigrant who has to fight the ignorance and hypocrisy of their parents and social surroundings. This creates a monster Ari carries on his back, a destructive energy within him that is wasted in back street alleys, public toilets and where ever he can get it. And when people don't come to his side of life, he manipulates them with sexual advances, testing their moral grounds. Through his love of Greek dancing, Ari yearns to keep part of his ancestral culture intact for identity purposes, but with his own freedom of passion. Can the two mix? That's what he's journey is. A journey for self expression without any rules of repression. This is Alex Dimitriades' cake as he eats Ari up and plays the character with conviction. Director Ana gets right into the heart and soul of Ari, via the camera with a confronting script dealing with issues aimed at any migrating culture.

Wow! What a powerful film! I have seen it twice and am amazed at the grip it holds on the viewer. The cast performs brilliantly. The themes are difficult and honest--our hero (who really is an anti-hero) recognizes his faults but cannot overcome them. No comic book, Hollywood film this! It is brutally honest with all its characters and so rich in acting and Greek music that I must say it ranks as one of the finest films I have seen in the past 10 years. Yes, the ending is sad, tragic, but real. Four stars for this excellent effort.

This film about Ari, a handsome, muscular, young Greek man living in Australia is a thoroughly depressing film.

Ari lives at home with his parents but has not, and probably never will come out to them. It seems from parts of this movie that in the Greek mind being gay and being a transvestite are almost interchangeable. Given the way that Greek women are treated (at least in this film) it's a wonder that any man would willingly don women's clothes. Ari is into drugs and prefers anonymous, degrading sex. He does meet a non-Greek man who offers him a more romantic existence but the self-loathing and self-destructive tendencies of Ari have stacked the deck against any happy outcome.

There are interesting bits and some of the skin scenes are quite erotic but beware this is not intended as a feel good movie.

I've just come back from the cinema, and having read the book ('Loaded' by Christos Tsiolkas) and being British/Greek and gay I thought it was excellent. It is a rarity for a start: a very good adaptation of a book, with amazing performances from an all-Greek Australian cast, including the gorgeous Alex Dimitriades himself who, incidentally is straight. I was particularly impressed about the cinematography (I looked it up later - by Jaems Grant and no, it's not a spelling mistake), all moody and dark like the plot.

The whole point about the film is encapsulated in the scene where Ari is having oral sex with Sean. He was selfishly roughing up and gagging Sean who had just said that he loved him. It was the ultimate brutalisation of sex by a brutalised closeted youngster in a hopeless, brutalising society. At that moment we wince, as Ari consciously rejects love for the anonymity of the street corner suck-off, but we *do* understand why he is unable to form a relationship: in his own way, he acts according to type, obeying his family's and society's homophobic and racist insults and conventions. Symbolically he looks up from his knees in the end, just as his TV friend Toula pushed him a few scenes before dismissively. The moral of the film as she says is that if you don't stand up for yourself you spend your life on your knees.

That moral may perhaps be irrelevant or far gone for gays who have come out and have asserted themselves in society by rejecting the hypocrisy of a double life full of compromises, but it is nevertheless still relevant for a large number of people in many different cultures.

Was this supposed to be a realistic film? The main character goes around having sex with every single walking being he sees. Now, would one be able to carry so much horniness after doing all the existing drugs in a space of 24 hours? I don't think so. And then again, what's with the character doing e, heroine, joints, coke, speed, all in one day?!? This film is absurd, cliché and it shows what people want to see - gay people being libertine and junkies. On top of this the filming itself doesn't help much. There isn't anything I hate more in film then hand-held cameras (von trier seems to be one of the only people who can do that without being pretentious). It makes the whole process self-conscious and you just know too easily the message the director wants to pass. Bad, bad, bad.

Head On is almost certainly the best film I'll see in 1998. I saw The Travelling Sydney Film Festival on the same weekend. So Head On is in exalted company indeed. And Head On is an Australian Film! Our strongest artistic expressions are cross cultural; those mergers and clashes that result from our second and third generation migrants growing up in Australia. Until the last few years we Aussies have tried to kid ourselves that we are exclusively Anglo Saxon people on the big screen, conveniently forgetting Eastern European and Asian migration, not to mention our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. So we've tended to wallow in vague Dad And Dave rural soapies, Horse Operas of the Phar Lap type or nostalgic, ANZAC and Breaker Morant homages to the mother country, ignoring the fact that we are one of the most urbanised countries on the planet, and that most of us have parents who weren't from within five hundred ks of London. Head On is about Ari (Alex Dimitriades), a 19 year old homosexual Greek Australian living in St Kilda Melbourne. He's a lost soul, enveloped in a broiling sea of parental conflict, drugs and sex. He's "not proud to be Greek. He just is." A myriad of urban dilemmas are raised in Head On, nearly all of which are profoundly realised, but only through the briefly attentive eyes of a spaced out malcontent like Ari. I was reminded of that masterful scene in that early Scorcese film called Mean Streets; a scene which has never been bettered at showing what it is like to be drunk. But Ari isn't only drunk, he's on a cocktail of speed, cocaine and God knows what else and he's full of resentment. There's a scene in Head On where he and another unhappy soul, his cousin Betty (Elena Mandalis), slump in a toilet together, sharing their unhappiness, in a brief interlude before the madness resumes. It's a poignant, sad scene, where we realise just how desperate and empty lust and drugs alone can be. But when Ari is offered love he rejects it, violently. And that's a pattern repeated in Head On. People lurch in and out of Head On who have yet to, or one suspects may never, achieve a viable feeling of self worth. They strike out against commitment and self worth, indulging in hedonism because they can. Their parents have made the sacrifices. That looks boring to the children. Materialism is as easy as the next drug deal. Love is as easy as the next screw. Head On (the alternative title Hard On is a particularly apt Freudian slip, one that I've been guilty of) is about the alienation of youth, particularly homosexual youth. It's also about the generation gap, magnified by Ari's Greek migrant parents. And Head On is about a dozen other, contemporary urban issues. Racism is addressed with some feeling, in the film's weakest segment, but Ari's not too concerned really. He's reasonably happy just if he gets stoned and laid; sad but true of so many. Writer/director Ana Kokkinos has masterfully introduced us to the Ari's turbulent St Kilda world. Her film is fascinating and world class. Alex Dimitriades (Heartbreak High) is fantastic. Head On is spot on.

After getting thoroughly discouraged by the (lack of) quality of films that hit the gay circuit/film fests, this one reaffirmed my faith that a film can include gay subject matter and shed light on the human condition without compromising artistic vision. GLAAD's bevvy of media Nazi's hasn't completely destroyed cinema, but you do have to look outside the US to find it. Of course, the fact that it's a straight woman from Australia that directed this gem should surprise no one. In fact, it seems that the only good films that include homo themes are made outside the US. Most US films on this circuit are made & consumed by bourgeois gay men, for whom the ideal life & dramatic interest is replaying "The Big Chill" but with a gay twist (the straight version wasn't any good, why would a gay one be worthwhile?). Head On succeeds because it presents its subject matter (the pain & difficulty in dealing with one's sexuality as an ethnic minority) honestly. In spite of the existence of many social & political organizations, the gay "community" (a misnomer if there ever was one) is hardly a welcome wagon for ethnic minorities, suffering the consequences of racism, economic disenfranchisement, etc. Let's face it, gay men spend more time in bars & seeking casual sex than they do in helping someone find a job or housing, so any comments that this portrayal is "negative" are clearly missing the point of the film.

In spite of the development of many organizations in this day & age, men have become sexual objects more than ever before (moreso for ethnic minorities who are often fetishisized for their ethnicity). This makes Ari's character quite appropriate. The world of gay running clubs & PFLAG meetings are just as invisible to Ari as he is to them (except of course if he were to take his shirt off).

He bounces back & forth between the world of johns & drag queens/drugs with the world of his family........neither of which he finds comforting. In such a scenario, sex is more of a release of frustration or an attempt at bonding which was doomed before it started. He blows the one chance he has to change this precisely because he never had the tools/experience to handle a relationship. Though the film is emotionally draining (not necessarily a bad feature), it is true to its subject. Anyone who denies this is not being truthful to themselves.

I just can't believe the acclaim for this film that tries so hard to say nothing. OK, the actor is gorgeous, but that doesn't make a movie. Everything is sordid in this mess of cultures. Straight audiences watching this would agree that homosexual life is a dark, full of drugs, animal sex, party all the time kind of life. I think gay community should be aware of how negative these type of films are. Depressing, dark

Alex Dimitriades is stunning as a nihilistic young Greek-Australian on a wild binge. This talented actor pretty much carries the film on his broad shoulders, having totally immersed himself into the antihero's persona.

Dimitriades leaves no stone unturned in responding to Director Ana Kokkinos' explicit direction. One may feel revelation or revulsion, but one cannot easily dismiss the impact of Kokkinos' graphic images and depictions. How one values this film will depend on personal taste. At the foreign film series in which I saw it, the audience was completely drawn into the drama, responding to subtle lines, and one could feel the deep involvement of all the viewers.

Jill Belcock's sharp editing and Nikki DiFalco's atmospheric production design certainly enhanced the proeedings. At times one felt one's sensibilities being assaulted under the sheer impact of the presentation.

The value of the film from a personal perspective is a quite realistic slice-of-life consideration of a quintessential "looser," and being able to identify (if not fully sympathize) with his alien plight. It is also an informative dramatization of a subculture which has become quite ingrown in its attitudes and customs. Its community has become so exclusive that its larger Australian setting becomes of secondary importance.

Dimitriades brilliantly depicts the contradictions and confusions of his character, depleted of creative energy by physical and emotional abuses. It is a performance of enormous courage and conviction, which becomes almost hypnotic as the film progresses. "Loosers" are not normally satisfying subjects for dramatizations, especially characters who fail to grow, and who in the end are little or no different from the way they were in the beginning.

It is therefore all the more commendable that Kokkinos' fine cast manages to involve the viewer in an endless series of unforgettable images and scenes, creating a powerful mosaic of lasting impact.

What could have been an interesting love story, with family struggles surrounding sexuality and cultural heritage, was just a story about a very angry, dysfunctional man.

I would have liked to have seen how Ari and Sean's romance could have developed instead of this drug fuelled bender which served no purpose at all, there was no conclusion to the tale and I could not empathise with Ari in any way, despite being played by a very gorgeous man.

I spent most of the time looking through Instagram and only looked up when he got naked.

it is not a comfortable film. because its ambition is not to present the skin of things but the essence of them. it is one of honest movies who represents more a testimony than artistic work. bitter, harsh, cruel, it seems be the film of one actor because the performance of Alex Dimitriades impress at whole. and not only for the talent or inspiration but for extraordinary dedication to do a complex and special role. it is not a gay movie or slice from a Greek community from Australia. it represents picture of a deep solitude of an age, an option, a society.a film who use not reasonable tools for say its story. a movie who can be perceived in many angles but who can be reduced as the powerful need to escape from yourself. it is not a comfortable movie. but that is its purpose - to say what who represents, in many situations, the domain of heavy silence. so, more than a film, it is a cry.

Ari is a young gay man who refuses to accept his homosexuality, and who instead chooses to label himself as a "whore", while demeaning himself with grubby back-alley blow jobs with grubbier partners.

The film is a 24 hour snapshot of Ari's lifestyle where he whores around binging on drugs trying to escape his ultimate life decision while rejecting his Greek parents' code of hetero-marriage, house and children and rejecting his mates who step into the "code". It seems that the only person he respects is his cousin Toula/Johnny who has the guts to be who he is.

Sean, is in love with Ari, who is offering him a real relationship is brutally rejected as a full gay relationship would mean coming out. Ari is a sad case because if the drugs don't get him he will end up an ugly old whore not wanted by many, while his supportive friends would have moved on.

The kettle is on the boil and 19 year old Ari is about to burst with a combination of his culture, sexuality and drug intake, colliding to create a mixed up youth with a cause. His parents migrated to Melbourne, Australia, from Greece and with them they brought their strong culture that they hang onto while back in Greece the culture changes with the times. This we don't see but it is the fact of life for every second generation immigrant who has to fight the ignorance and hypocrisy of their parents and social surroundings. This creates a monster Ari carries on his back, a destructive energy within him that is wasted in back street alleys, public toilets and where ever he can get it. And when people don't come to his side of life, he manipulates them with sexual advances, testing their moral grounds. Through his love of Greek dancing, Ari yearns to keep part of his ancestral culture intact for identity purposes, but with his own freedom of passion. Can the two mix? That's what he's journey is. A journey for self expression without any rules of repression. This is Alex Dimitriades' cake as he eats Ari up and plays the character with conviction. Director Ana gets right into the heart and soul of Ari, via the camera with a confronting script dealing with issues aimed at any migrating culture.

I think that a lot of people missed the boat with this one. Yes, it was brutal and heart wrenching and seemed to have a sad ending, but it's one story of one person. This film is not representative of every gay man on the face of the earth and it is not trying to be. Ari reaches out and grabs your heart, yanking it out of your chest with his bare hands. At first I found his various sexual encounters repulsive, but then I realized that sex is not just romantic (okay, my film teacher pointed this out). If I found his need to use sex as a power struggle repulsive, then it's my problem, it how I see sex. The ending, I thought, was a step, a jumping off point for Ari. It didn't fit in a pretty box, but he comes to a realisation that he is going to deal with his sexuality in his own way. He is going to unite his traditional family background with his sexuality even if it's not the way the audience would like to see him do it. The point is that he's made a decision, hard as it was or it may turn out to be. Head On is just so visually stunning, so enticing, especially with the Greek music. It's off the beaten track, assuredly, but gorgeous.

...but useful for understand the perception about reality of a young man who use his sexual orientation, the nihilism and the friends as instruments to explore it. a film about frustration. and about freedom. and one of the most impressive roles of Alex Dimitriadis who mix the bitter humor, fury and fear to create a character who gives new perspectives about every day challenges. one of films who use a sensitive subject as way to wake up. and the gray tone becomes a tool for describe long slices of disillusion, fights and need of sense of life. maybe not great. but sensitive trip in heart of forbidden subjects. more actual today than in 1998.

When the booked "Loaded" was released the author explained that the reason he wrote the book was that there were already enough gay friendly movies and books out there to allow him to write an honest portrayal of gay life. It is not negative, it is simply honest.

Ari (played by the Hunk of Australian TV and movies Alex Dimitriades) is a young Greek man who is gay but is definitely not going to come out of the closet.

He desires nothing more than to have a girlfriend, a family and be normal. But he knows he can not.

So we follow on day in his life. It starts with him masturbating in the house he slept the night. He then faces a day of numerous challenges.

Losing his money during a gay encounter (of the wink wink, nod nod, go into the back alley for a head-job type encounter). Getting the money so he can buy drugs, more sex, more drugs, more sex, drugs (surely it would fall off with that much use), police harassment.

But there are ways out. He can be a gay guy and have a loving open gay relationship, he can marry a lesbian and pretend to be straight, he can even go to the extreme and be a drag queen or he can stay the way he is.

This movie is packed with messages. Every scene has a meaning and as a result it is often considered pretentious.

It is a movie about being gay and the issues with it. What makes it different is it doesn't spend the whole movie agonizing over the issues and boring the audience stupid, instead it bombards you with them leaving your head spinning by the time you leave the cinema.

Oh...and if you love big dark skinned, dark haired Greek guys you will love this movie.

"Head On" is a movie I saw at a charity for HIV treatment in Mexico City; I guess a year has passed since it was screened in Australia. Living in a different culture, there were things I could relate to quite easily, while others were more remote. The alienation of immigrants, greek immigrants to Australia in this case, was something I was not aware of; on the other hand the effects of that alienation seemed to me universal, they apply to Mexico as much as they aply to Australia. This is certainly a movie I want to see again, the pace was so fast I left the theater exhausted, and the images I saw haunted me in my sleep. On the one hand, Ari, the gay son of a greek immigrant is such a sensual man and the greek culture in which he lives seems to relish so much bodily expression that my entire body felt stimulated by a thunderbolt. In this sense, Head On is easily one of the most erotic movies I have ever seen. On the other hand, Ari is so terribly isolated and marginalized, he is so painfully outside from the time cycle of his milieu that I experienced a deep sadness at his life prospects. This recreation of human quest to belong (in its most physical expression) and at the same time to find its own destiny (with all the alienation it entails) was so lovingly crafted in this movie that it made me recoil into some of the deep recesses of my heart and ponder at that particular dilemma of the gay soul, in which its alienation prompted by ignorance spurs a heightened desire of the flesh, with all its gut wrenching beauty, only to discover that such ravishing gift makes the soul´s quest for wholeness more arduous. It is, in my viewpoint, this conundrum that Head On so masterfully explores.