‘Peter Hujar’s Day’ – Photographer’s biopic brings queer poetry of the mundane

Ben Whishaw in ‘Peter Hujar’s Day’ (photo: Janus Films)

If you ever wondered what it was like to live in the early years of gay liberation in the Mecca of LGBTQ freedom, New York, without over-romanticizing that era, then the new experimental, shot on 16mm film, “Peter Hujar’s Day” (Janus Films) directed by the incomparable gay director Ira Sachs and starring Ben Whishaw, the greatest gay actor in the world, provides that snapshot.

On one level, this film resembles a theatrical monologue, yet it’s a film that calls to mind some of Andy Warhol’s early 1960s films which record almost silent observations of typical daily life, such as a man eating a mushroom or a couple kissing. In fact, “Peter Hujar’s Day” is one ordinary day in the life of an artist in a vanquished time, thriving in a cit