Like his recent Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sant's first feature Mala Noche is a Burroughs-like study in persistence of lifestyle. Shot in stark and moody black and white on Portland's skid row, it tells of a young homosexual, Walt (Tim Streeter), whose unending optimism toward the jaded street environment helps thwart its more insidious effects. A clerk in a seedy corner grocery (which is to say, liquor store), with a weather-worn comeliness and a poetic intelligence, Walt has one tragic flaw: a passion for migrant Mexican teenage boys who, for the most part, are resolutely, phobically heterosexual. The first-person narrative follows his growing obsession for 18-year-old Johnny (Doug Cooeyate), whose pouting beauty and feral qualities are enhanced by the fact that he either doesn't or won't speak English. Walt's pursuit of this ephemeral character-a migrant in every sense of the word-takes comic turns, but the overall effect of Mala Noche is as Walt himself describes the love affair: "sad and absurd." Shot through with energy (and well-placed splashes of color), it is also beautiful and moving, one of the most human depictions of gay sensibilities ever put to film.