Sex and the City 2 begins with a very gay wedding and explores the depths of modern relationship concepts in the Arabian desert. In an interview, Carrie actress Sarah Jessica Parker also talks about her very personal views on HIV and Aids.
Sex and the City 2" (SATC 2 for short) has been showing in German cinemas since Thursday and looks set to be just as big a success as the first "Sex and the City" film and the TV series of the same name - even if many critics are not happy with the sequel.
Perhaps it's because the film has much more depth than its predecessor. The Arabian desert adventure of Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha is quite a challenge for the viewer under the guise of 1,000 beautiful veils: SATC 2 is a film about modern relationship constructs and how to live them, even if the immediate surroundings in the form of the best friends want to refer you back to the classic concepts of happiness.
In other words: When you're finally married to Mr Big, that doesn't mean you know how to endure it in the long term.
This applies to both gay and straight people. The film begins with a gay wedding, complete with real swans and Liza Minnelli in the flesh. There, the open relationship between the grooms is discussed just as openly as the fact that "Liza simply materialises when you gather so much gay energy in one room."
Director and screenwriter Michael Patrick King packs a few heavy chunks into the light comedy without ever losing sight of the balance between entertainment and serious undertones. And with this concept, "Sex and the City 2" entertains its audience quite brilliantly.
The director relies heavily on the comedic talent of his four leading actresses - and does well to do so. Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and the openly lesbian Cynthia Nixon know what they have to play. After all, the four of them also live out the designs of modern sexuality and relationship diversity in their private lives.
They are always happy to make a statement on homopolitical debates. In an interview that the four of them gave to the American online magazine "Towleroad", Parker addressed HIV and AIDS as well as calling for marriage to be opened up to homosexual couples in the USA.
When asked about her first gay boyfriend, she becomes thoughtful and explains that he died of Aids in the early 90s. Although her husband Matthew Broderick and she were younger than many of her gay friends at the time, they were very much part of the first generation to be affected by Aids. She very much regrets that even twenty years later there are still young men who are ill or HIV-positive.
"I'm sure that's partly because they never saw how many men died of AIDS back then and how it happened. They never experienced the devastation that the virus caused in my life," says Parker in the interview.
Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick both appeared on stage on New York's Broadway as children and have been part of the New York theatre community for decades.
(Paul Schulz)
