LAN YU: no surprise that Handong and Lan Yu fall in love; the catch is that Handong's determined to marry and raise a family.

The title "Gay and Lesbian" as applied to film, or anything else for that matter, once suggested transgression, deviance from the mainstream, subversion of the conventional. Now, in the era of Ellen and Rosie and Will & Grace, the edge has been taken off, for better and worse. Sometimes the worse prevails in the 18th Annual Boston Gay & Lesbian Film/Video Festival, which kicks off tonight (May 2) at the Museum of Fine Arts. Tolerance and acceptance do permit filmmakers a range of topics beyond the mere cataloguing of oppression and injustice, but the downside, all too evident in these films, is bland conformity and a deadly homogenization.

Ah, for the good old days of struggle and revolt, as evoked in one of the festivalís best offerings, Bill Weber & David Weissmanís The Cockettes (2001; May 10 at 8 p.m.), a documentary of the legendary drag show spawned in San Francisco in the countercultural í60s. Free spirits with names like Goldie Glitter, Hibiscus, and Scrumbly crashed together in various communes and, as the survivors recall in interviews, saw a world where "a revolution could happen any day," where they were "born to change the world."

Mostly they changed clothes, dressing up in garish finds from thrift stores, gaudy treasures redolent of old movie musicals. And like the heroes of those musicals, they decided to put on a show. The Palace Theater, an avant-garde moviehouse, provided a venue, and the nudity, the psychedelic nostalgia, and the creative chaos of their performances drew everyone from socialites to John Waters, who, fresh from Baltimore, along with Divine (in the Cockettesí Journey to the Center of Uranus she played the Crab on Uranus), became a collaborator. "It was complete sexual anarchy," he recalls. "Which is always a wonderful thing."

Wonderful, but not enough. Success brought the need to have scripts and rehearsals and charge admission ó all contrary to the groupís vying ideologies of Marxism and hedonism. It also brought a trip to New York and resounding rejection from the snobs on the East Coast. Later, drugs, dissension, the í70s, and AIDS would take their toll. What remains, as presented with blithe archness and exhilaration by Weissman and Weber, are shimmering images of sets and costumes reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley, Jean Cocteau, Gustav Klimt, and Kenneth Anger (Hibiscus is featured in Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome). That, and a legacy of boundless excess and self-expression. But from whatís shown of the stage act, Iíd have to agree with the New York critic who said, "Having no talent is not enough."

Having neither talent nor originality, however, is worse, and thatís the case with Miles Swainís The Trip (2002; May 12 at 7:30 p.m., with Swain and stars Alexis Arquette and Larry Sullivan). Itís not a trip any of the Cockettes would recognize. True, Alan (Sullivan), a "straight" Republican writing a book on "homosexuality through the ages," and Tommy (Steve Braun), the gay activist heís interviewing for research, are smoking some dope as the film begins, in the Watergate era of 1973. This opens Alanís mind to his own gay inclinations, but it also leads the film into a relentless litany of clichés, cutesy comedy, and treacly melodrama.

In a moment of pique, Alan writes a homophobic screed that he thinks is forgotten, only to have it resurface years after he and Tommy have settled into a squirmily perfect relationship. Tommy flees as craven, status-seeking Alan cozies up with a sugar daddy, the years fly by (you can tell by the changing hairstyles and obvious archival footage), and The Trip, far from challenging conventions, wallows in them, indulging in stereotypes of Republicans, the elderly, women, and, of course, gays, including a flaming queen played by reigning gay icon Arquette.

The womanís take on this story isnít much better. Helen Lesnick wrote and directed A Family Affair (2001; May 3 at 8 p.m. and May 5 at 3:30 p.m., with Lesnick present May 3), and she stars as Rachel, a Jewish thirtysomething rebounding from a bad relationship into the bosom of her family on the West Coast. Her mother has embraced being a proud gay parent: she runs the local PFLAG, marches in parades, and holds seders for her "GLBT" extended family. Itís all perhaps a ploy to take over her daughterís life, but Rachel finally submits to momís will by letting her set up a blind date. To her horror, she finds herself falling for Christine, a shiksa eager to please, and the possibilities of commitment, marriage, a family ó itís more than she can handle . . . Lesnickís premise that getting your parents to accept your sexual orientation is just the beginning has bite, but the jokes are lame, the acting is wooden, and the dramatics are trite and trivial.

Although feeble, these two films bring up a compelling theme, the conflict between the need for freedom and the urge to conform. That the foreign entries in the festival do a better job of addressing this topic reflects not so much on the quality of gay and lesbian filmmaking in this country as on the state of American independents in general. From Belgian filmmaker Chris Vander Stappen, the screenwriter of the chirpy and overrated Ma vie en rose, comes Family Pack (2000; May 16 at 6 p.m. and May 19 at 3:45 p.m.), a shaggy-dog story that barely controls its whimsies but still manages some moments of poignance and clarity.

Sacha (Marie Bunel) has just had a row with her Montreal lover Odile (Macha Grenon), who issues an ultimatum: if Sacha doesnít tell her family back in Belgium about their relationship before the first man walks on the moon, theyíre finished. Since the Apollo astronauts are suited up and ready to go, that doesnít give Sacha much time, but she and the film find diversion with her wacky family, including her sister, the embittered dwarf whose only friend is her goldfish; her grandma, whoís still waiting for a gentleman caller from before the war; her dad, who tells bad jokes from the newspaper; and, of course, mom, whose dream of Sachaís becoming a doctor and marrying well almost makes her forget the lump in her breast. The comedy is cute and sometimes incomprehensible; it ends with a string of mistaken identities and a sentimental notion of extended family thatís not unlike Lesnickís.

That notion takes more realistic, or at least melodramatic, form in Ferzan Ozpetekís His Secret Life (2001; May 9 at 8 p.m.), a solid if flawed follow-up to his brilliant Steam. In an opening fantasy reminiscent of both Dressed To Kill and Belly of an Architect, Antonia (Margherita Buy) wanders through a museum full of giant classical statuary and is asked by a tuxedoíd gigolo why her husband, Massimo, ignores her. She doesnít know the half of it. After her husband has died in an accident, Antonia finds an inscription on the back of a painting that leads her to Michele (Stefano Accorsi), the man with whom Massimo has been having an affair for the past seven years.

Instead of recoiling in rage and horror, however, Antonia becomes fascinated with Michele and his ménage of gays, transsexuals, émigrés, and other outsiders. Sheís also drawn to Michele himself. Ozpetekís own attraction is to the conventions of melodrama, which tend to overwhelm rather than underline the delicacy of mood and emotion, but the fine performances and the tone of detachment make this Life worth seeing.

More oblique and powerful is veteran Taiwanese director Stanley Kwanís Lan Yu (2001; May 5 at 1:45 p.m. and May 10 at 6 p.m.). Thatís the name of the slight, scruffy architecture student (Liu Ye) hired by slick entrepreneur Chen Handong (Jun Hu) as a male concubine. They fall in love, of course, but the inevitable obstacles are not political, though the film takes place in Beijing just prior to the Tiananmen Square disaster. Rather, itís Handongís own determination to marry and raise a family thatís the problem. An abrupt, unsatisfying ending apart, Lan Yu plays with mood and nuance, its motifs of light, shadow, walls, windows, and mirrors evoking a claustrophobia and longed-for release akin to the mood of Wong Kar-waiís In the Mood for Love.

Such ambivalence between breaking out and fitting in gets a more allegorical treatment in Slovenian director Maja Weissís ambitious but overwrought Guardian of the Frontier (2001; May 11 at noon.). Vacationing students Zana (Pia Zemlji<t-75>¥<t$>c), Alja (Tanja Poto<t-75>ˇ<t$>cni), and Simona (Iva Krajnc) take a canoe trip down the river that separates their peaceful republic from war-torn Croatia. Undaunted by rumors of a serial killer on the loose, the trio set off on their distaff Deliverance, events increasingly distorted by the point of view of good girl Simona, whose disdain for her two friendsí anti-patriarchal attitudes and sapphic attraction conceals a taste for the rough stuff. Their heart of darkness proves a little vague, involving a right-wing local politician, a stag-like King of the Forest, and too much schnapps, but the journey is never dull and always visually lush, even if at times it does cross the border between the profound and the ludicrous.

More down-to-earth is Henrique Goldmanís Princesa (2001; May 17 at 8 p.m.). Fernanda (Ingrid de Souza), née Fernando, an émigrée from the Amazon outback of Brazil, is also crossing frontiers ó sheís heading for Milan in the hope of earning the money for the operation that will make her a "real woman." Itís not an easy trip: the customs officer at the border welcomes her to Italy by forcing her to show her tits and give him a blow job. But she has a family of sorts awaiting her in the city; itís headed by Karin (Lulu Pecorari), the tough but elegant madam in charge of a stable of cross-dressing and cross-gender streetwalkers, for whom Fernanda takes the name Princesa. An affair with a married man ensues, whereupon Princesa looks into the void of what it means to be a woman in normal society and isnít sure she likes it. A wrenching, exotic tour of the blurred frontiers within everyone, Princesa is a kind of brighter, Latin variation on Rainer Werner Fassbinderís dour In a Year of 13 Moons.

Fernandaís dilemma is similar to those faced by her counterparts in a pair of documentaries. In Gabriel Bauerís Venus Boyz (2001; May 4 at 7:45 p.m., with a performance by Drag King Dred preceding the screening), various "Drag Kings," women who dress up as men on stage and in real life, too, disclose their adventures with the elusive but tyrannical fiction of gender identity. And in Bombay Eunuch (2001; May 5 at noon), from Michelle Gucovsky, Sean MacDonald and Alexandra Shiva, a film crew pursues a family of hijras, eunuchs who have sacrificed their gender in a centuries-old religious tradition. They fall between the categories of male and female (though they clearly opt for the latter), and lately theyíve fallen into disrepute, largely because of Western influence. Hence they subsist through prostitution and begging, and their lives provide a somber, distorted mirror of the sexist inequities of the ruling, gendered society.

The documentaries shine in this festival, as they do in recent filmmaking in general. When it comes to subverting the mainstream or overturning conventions, nothing works better than a bracing dose of reality.