Sometimes a hat festooned with plastic straws, Christmas tree baubles and random trash is more than just a hat festooned with plastic straws, Christmas tree baubles and random trash: it’s a political statement – well, sort of. This vivid, effervescent and often moving documentary revolves around David Faulk and Michael Johnstone, two artists who found each other in the middle of the Aids pandemic, fell in love and ended up building not just a life together but a wider community around the drag persona Mrs Vera.
The latter is incarnated by Faulk, clad like a psychedelic Joan of Arc in an armour of upcycled polyester and tchotchkes, under a thick impasto of makeup – not unlike the inch-thick layers of paint he used to apply on canvases back in his days as a New York-based artist. But once he moved to San Francisco and started making art with life partner Johnstone, the expanding Verasphere became about so much more than just performance. It’s a whole multimedia construction, involving Johnstone’s luminous photographs, film-making, collaborations with friends and allies and, most endearing of all, craft workshops where Faulk and Johnstone teach people how to wield glue guns like real pros as prep for the city’s annual Pride march. The couple’s innate kindness and generosity shines bright, while the miracle of their survival (both have been HIV positive for years and Johnstone almost died) allowed them time to become local legends and fairy godmothers for the community.
The entwined subjects are so lovable it’s hard not to warm to the film, even if the direction (by Robert James) is very linear and conventional. Nevertheless, it modulates elegantly as it swerves between the story of Faulk and Johnstone as individuals and a condensed history of the post-Stonewall era, stitching together the rise of HIV and Aids, the Names Project Aids Memorial Quilt, and the queer scenes of New York’s East Village and San Francisco’s Castro Street. There’s plenty of pithy input from Verasphere friends, including performance artist Annie Sprinkle and singer-actor Mark Trevorrow AKA Bob Downe.
• The Unabridged Mrs Vera’s Daybook is released on 1 August on digital platforms.
