In 1924, during the heady days of Prohibi­tion, suffragettes and newly-published works by Freud and Nietzsche, the two precocious 19-year-old Jewish intellectuals kidnapped and murdered a 10-year-old friend of Loeb's younger brother (the original plan was to kid­nap the brother). They were arrested shortly afterwards, their 'perfect crime' foiled by jum­bled alibis and obvious clues they left behind. Even more sensational than their crime was the trial, where they were represented by the infa­mous Clarence Darrow (immortalized by Orson Welles in the film Compulsion), who refused to make any distinction between their homosexuality and increasingly violent behaviour. Paradoxically, Darrow's defence spared them from the electric chair.

Although the film is based on court tran­scripts and extensive archival research, Kalin's film eschews the standard methods of histori­cal reconstruction. Rather, the film opts for a fractured narrative, playful characterizations and rich black and white photography that help frame the event within cinema history (Hitchcock's Rope is the other obvious refer­ence) and general history. Says Kalin: "Swoon is concerned with the reordering of history as it was reported and the despair inherent in this history (specifically queer) when it is reordered as something other than itself."

• Paul Kalina