“So fuckin’ delicate, people…they die so easily,” says a supporting character to the titular Boy A, whose barely audible two-word reply — “She didn’t” — collapses his violent past into his remorseful present with offhand poignancy. Boy A knows that people don’t always die easily, but he’s haunted by firsthand…

A glint in his eye and a grin on his lips, artist Don Bachardy looks into the camera and explains the dynamic of his three-decade relationship with the late literary icon Christopher Isherwood as if it were a fairy tale. “His role,” says Bachardy, “could be described as that of…