Trulee Hall Creates a Paradise of Lesbian Forest Nymphs
In the artist’s first feature-length film, Ladies Lair Lake, the choice to not have children is presented as valid and dignified.
LOS ANGELES — I’m seated at the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater for the premiere of multidisciplinary artist Trulee Hall’s first feature-length film, Ladies Lair Lake. An orchestra fills the proscenium, and I can see musicians cradling instruments, including a harp, flute, violin, cello, xylophone, and trumpet. The conductor raises their hand. The screen brightens, showing pieces of string on a blue backdrop, undulating like river currents with the help of stop-motion animation. The music begins.
The screening of Ladies Lair Lake this Sunday, February 19 kicked off Platinum, the longtime LGBTQIA+ film festival Outfest’s series focused on experimental film, music, and art. Hall’s musical, which features 16 original compositions, fine-tunes the story she told last year in a physical installation of Ladies Lair Lake at the Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND). The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) acquired the film before Hall had even finished it, providing support that allowed her to add nearly 30 minutes of brand-new footage to the vignettes that were part of the LAND installation.
In an Edenic paradise of lesbian forest nymphs, things have grown too peaceful, so a trio of goddesses decides it’s time to cause conflict by delivering a baby, the first man, to this idyllic society.
Hall describes her aesthetic as “punk rock.” She hand-makes all of the elaborate sets in her film, from the wrinkled, painted backdrops to the pâpier-maché tree sculptures sprouting pipe-cleaner leaves. Her nymphs are covered with splotchy green body paint, but in the scenes where they’re waist-deep in a lake, the bottom half of their bodies are painted blue as a clever workaround for the lack of a pool on set.
The film smoothly transitions from live action to claymation to puppetry to 3D animation. Through montage and fluid sound design, Hall blends the different styles without disrupting the narrative. Though Hall approaches her art with a scrappy, DIY vibe, her professional touch is apparent in the attention to detail that creates an uncanny resemblance between real-life actors and their puppet doppelgängers.
“It's more important to me to get the word out there and express it than have everything be perfect,” Hall told me over Zoom. “That became a philosophy in life, embracing the shittiness. I find it extremely empowering.”
Hall’s eccentric mix of highbrow and lowbrow even translates to the casting of performers and orchestra members. She actively recruits her friends, diverse not only in their sexuality and gender expression, but also in their career paths. “The cello player is a stripper,” Hall said. “I picked people who are not only super talented, but also like-minded and cool humans who are hip and cute.”
Hilariously, the actor who plays the baby is an adult man donning an enormous, plush penis that obscures his real anatomy. Hall’s character design was inspired by Medieval paintings, which often portrayed Baby Jesus as a tiny hunk with chiseled abs. The nymphs, who have never seen a baby before, find him jarring, repulsive, alien, and adorable.
“A lot of it is about not wanting to have kids, and that being an okay choice,” Hall explained. “I’ve never wanted to have kids, and I think everyone should really have a choice on it, not feel obligated.”
Hall began this story before the Supreme Court reversed the constitutional right to abortion and the procedure became banned in 13 states. Now, the message behind her film weighs more prevalently. Though the mother nymph was blessed with an immaculate conception, she chooses to discard her baby, allowing others in her clan to volunteer for motherhood. No one is forced into an unwanted predicament. Eventually, in the film’s denouement, it rains babies, and everyone dances happily as humankind begins.
Though further plans to screen Ladies Lair Lake have yet to be announced, Hall encourages everyone to see her solo exhibition, Plays on Foreplays at the South LA gallery Rusha & Co, which is on view through March 4. After all, she admits, paintings pay the bills.
