Paris Is Burning

It is strong, sardonically funny, sometimes shattering stuff.

Half sad, half exuberant.

The earnestness of the competition is what holds this film together.

There is a lot of common sense and natural wit behind the role-playing. Yet there is also a terrible sadness in the testimony.

[The film intercuts] ball scenes with interviews with the participants in less hectic, more reflective moments. It is those personal, humanizing moments, much more than the hectic, eye-catching hubbub of performance, that truly linger in the mind.

If the wit, glamour and mind-boggling outfits of Paris Is Burning are disarming, not far beneath the film's surface is an immensely moving quality.

It’s a documentary that demands to be seen.

Jennie Livingston’s time capsule look of LGBT balls is an acknowledged classic, inclusively incisive in its portrait of a NYC diaspora of a marginalized community...

...it is most importantly a story about the power of chosen family — the solace that can come simply by finding other people in the world that can relate to your struggles and will love you regardless.

In this gritty but celebratory documentary produced and directed by Lesbian filmmaker Jennie Livingston, it is not the fashions but the characters that stay with the viewer.