The Brown Bunny

The infamy surrounding The Brown Bunny is something that will always define it. I remember the dark days surrounding the film’s premiere at Cannes, where actor/writer/director/director of photography/editor Vincent Gallo was criticized as misogynistic, narcissistic, artistically and morally misguided. Roger Ebert slammed the film, having allegedly made audible jokes during the screening (which was eventually booed by its conclusion).

Its controversial sex scene, involving graphic, questionably pornographic fellatio performed by Chloe Sevingy onto Gallo, brought up a debate about decency and art. Gallo’s control over almost every aspect of the movie made it seem like he had an agenda of his own, whether it be chauvinistic or intimately personal. I remember Gallo’s apologetic defense of the film, where he was hurt by the vile negativity of his critics, which made him recall harsh teasing in his youth for being “ugly.” The whole ordeal of the film’s wide panning at Cannes seemed like a nightmare and a day of reckoning for Gallo, who claimed he would never make a movie again.

But then he re-edited the film, got a great distribution deal, got some rave reviews and actually made money from it. Ebert himself gave the movie a “thumbs up.” For all its controversy and negative implications, The Brown Bunny somehow evolved into a legitimate, and even respected, cult film.

A complete contrast to the cinematic, inventive, densely dramatic Buffalo ’66, The Brown Bunny is stark, fragmented and aimless in structure. The movie opens with a long, shaky handheld shot of a motorcycle race which dissolves into the second-place loser Bud Clay (Gallo) recuperating and packing up. The DIY style, which feels like Gallo is the sole crew member behind, is reminiscent of Mario Van Peebles’ authoritative blaxploitation film Sweet Sweetback’s Baaadass Song. The ultra-minimalistic production values give the film a raw, truly independent energy like an inspired, experimental thesis student film. Probably half of the film is some kind of an interior car shot, which bridge a barely existing narrative about Bud’s lonely limbo of guilt and disbelief.

Gallo’s performance is strongly subtle, with his quiet voice and mousy presence effectively carrying out his character’s torturous inner existence. Because the film is guiltlessly indulgent, I started wondering how it would have played had Gallo cast another actor as Bud. To Gallo’s defense, he is pitch-perfect in the role to the point where casting anyone else seems pointless.

Although the movie is airy in dramatic substance, it is always compelling and never feels flimsy or gratuitous. For having a comparatively non-existent crew, the movie holds together well as a character study and a meditation on remorse. As far as the notorious ending, it is disturbing and shocking in a way that undoubtedly finalizes the narrative. The incestuous nature of sex in art is troubling in itself, but despite one’s possible moral objection to the material, the impact of the scene is appropriately troubling and consequently powerful.

My Brother's Wedding

After making his vibrant and momentarily celebrated, but ultimately under-recognized, student thesis film at UCLA called "Killer of Sheep," (which wasn't given a proper DVD release until late 2007, when music rights could finally be secured) young director Charles Burnett seemed to have a limitless amount of things to say about lower class marginalization and interpersonal relationships. Unlike his dramatic first feature, "My Brother's Wedding" is told as a lighthearted comedy, despite tackling issues like responsibility, generational disparity and class division.

Stark production values aside, the movie carries itself with an apparently effortless tone. Its hero is a good-hearted, but developmentally-arrested 30 year old man named Pierce, who lives with his parents, works at his family's dry-cleaning shop and feels somewhat betrayed by his lawyer brother when he decides to marry into a wealthy family. His old buddy Soldier is fresh out of prison and raising hell again, which is troubling to Pierce after he promised Soldier's mother to keep him out of trouble. The bittersweet story walks a fine line between its fluffy, heart-warming comedic bits and some very heavy plot elements with so much natural competancy that the film shifts into its dramatic scenes seamlessly.

One of my favorite scenes is indicative of the film's balance of comedy and hard truth, where Pierce's strong-willed mother stands up to two men who seemingly enter the shop to rob her. After they cautiously walk in and nervously eye the store, she impatiently yells, "If you got somethin' to do, you better well do it!" The strength in her voice sends the men sheepishly out of the store, and the scene concludes with both hilarity and poignancy.

Like "Killer of Sheep," the film chronicles its lower-class family over a series of days that are representative of the collective plights and joys of families in similar economic and social statuses. The ordinary home life of the films characters is painted in a realistic, but warm tone - similar to nostalgic works like Gene Saks' adaptation of "Brighton Beach Memoirs" or Robert Mulligan's "Man in the Moon." One falls in love with the characters and sympathizes with their predicaments, even when the low-budget production values and unprofessional acting get in the way.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

Winner of the Palme D'Or at Cannes and sweeping many other prestigious festivals worldwide, the Romanian drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" found international attention and almost unanimous acclaim. Its pertinent and timely issue of abortion, and the themes director Cristian Mungiu structures his story around it, may be one of the factors of its recognition. Just as likely could be its setting in Communist-controlled Romania, and the consequences of a strict dictatorship on laypeople.

Or, people could have just responded to the film's unpredictable and quietly intense narrative. Using an observational style similar to the the Dardenne brothers, ("L'Enfant") Mungiu lets effective long shots and ordinary dialogue build the story arc. It's amazing how quickly his realistic visual approach takes a grip on the viewer, thus allowing the heavier plot elements arise naturally and without melodrama.

The handheld cinematography and realistic plotting are nothing innovative, but they are used so perfectly that a better approach to the story seems unimaginable. Everything about the movie feels intensely real, and the objective way Mungiu deals with the subject matter forces the viewer to contemplate the many messages far after the film is over.

The Rapture

Michael Tolkin shone brilliantly with his delirious, insatiably experimental screenplay "The Player," (adapted from his novel of the same name) which used a big name movie producer to exemplify the worst of material excess and Hollywood ego. Robert Altman's film plays as a descent from a high-flying career into the darkest depths of human emotion, then into a sort of failed rebound, but inevitably back into pained realization. It was a unique, fully-immersive show biz satire that was topped only by David Lynch's masterful couplet of "Mulholland Dr." and "Inland Empire."

For his first feature film "The Rapture," Tolkin picked hot-topic religious issues as his springboard for cultural and social criticisms. Right off the bat, he picked a steep hill to climb. Religiously-themed movies, regardless of what they say or how they say it, are almost guarunteed to be contoversial. The title refers to the concept of fundamental Christian ideology that God's second coming is edging closer, and Tolkin's film is a fearless study of the truth of such beliefs in physical and metaphysical planes of existence. Unlike "The Player," which ends its arc at the disintegration of its character's inevitable guilt, "The Rapture" explores the process of redemption and the undoings of our own beliefs.

"The Rapture" starts out with a numb, floating longshot through the dark cubicle of an L.A. telephone operator service - cleverly addressing the theme of modern alienation with haunting, Ballardian coldness. We're introduced to Sharon (Mimi Rogers), who deals with her void of existential emptiness through group sex. In one of her escapades, she meets Randy, (David Duchovony) a carpenter who has less a void to fill as he has guilt to escape. He confides in her about a murder he dumbly committed for a thousand bucks, and that has followed him painfully ever since. After a series of chance encounters with religion, Rapture imagery (including a white pearl tattooed on a member of one of her swinger excersions), and her own demons, she decides to be saved.

My favorite scene in the movie is an argument Sharon has with Randy about her newly found beliefs. Randy believes there is no God but one which confused, pained people create for themselves. He represents a classic argument agaisnt spirituality in saying that "Some people do heroin, others do God" to avoid the inherent darkness of our lives. Sharon's defenses reveal her desperate need to believe in a spiritual identity.

The film uses the conversion of Sharon and, eventually, Randy to explore the functionality of extreme spiritual beliefs in modern society. Sharon delves so deeply into her community of fellow believers that she completely rejects the physical world she once belonged to which led her so far down the wrong path. This is a common occurance in "saved" Christians, who see their conversion as a total rebound from the empty lives they previously led. While not judging this mentality, Tolkin does show how such conversions can be equal parts rejuvenating and dangerous.

But then comes the ending - one so unbelievable and shocking that it almost needs to be watched twice. Tolkin boldly depicts the actual Rapture using conventional imagery (and very poor special effects) to end the film jarringly, but bravely. The film's resolution could have come from a Biblical parable, and it very well might have. The simplicity of the film's conclusion is provacative, but doesn't work very well. However, the movie as a whole is hard to evaluate as good or bad, right or wrong because it is both meditative and explanatory. For that reason, it represents the argument of spirituality in its own flaws.

What Tolkin was trying to say is hard to tell, and he absolutely intended it to be that way. The film is not defense for fundamentalist beliefs, but a statement about acceptance and openness. It opens so many doors of argument only to close them with a seemingly decisive ending. An equally interesting, but more effective film is William Friedkin's "Bug" which presents the similar madness of human emptiness and the possible dangers of our own beliefs. Its conclusion is just as provocative, but less open to interpretation and more direct.

The Happening

M. Night had it hard after "Sixth Sense," because his breakthrough film felt like any director's fifth film. It was a masterful exercise in genre reinvention, using color, sound design, rich themes and inventive scares to weave an unshakable spell of wonder and fright. How could any great director possibly top such anear-perfect work?

It's not easy, but the young director did follow it up with a string of beautifully crafted thrillers, arguably ending at "The Village." "Lady in the Water" wasn't a terrible film, but a very uninvolving and boring one. His effectiveness of tone couldn't save a simply dull story, and the movie was critically maligned on all fronts.

You'd think he learned a thing or two. "The Happening" isn't a disaster movie, it's a disaster. It is a collection of short, poorly-controlled scenes, almost progressively descending into a deeper level of badness and self-parody. His usual control of nuance and classical, sophisticated plotting is curiously gone and the film seems completely unaware of how bad it truly is.

The evil presence lurking in "The Happening" is a neurotoxin that interacts with the environment in unpredictable ways. When humans come in contact with it, they are driven to either apathetic, murderous or self-destructive impulses. The premise could have been used in a kind of neo-zombie way, like the "28 Days Later" movies, but is instead used only to show bizarre acts of random violence. With a darker tone, the idea could have been pretty scary, but in a blandly executed thriller like this, it is just boring.

The film has an eerie opening, but when the real story kicks in, things start crumbling down. Hopeless dialogue results in unfortunately bad performances from a talented cast. Mark Wahlberg is miscast and sadly laughable in most scenes and not much better can be said for John Lequizamo and Zoe Deschannel - who's cutesy presence in most movies is annoying in this one. It doesn't help that the failed marriage of the two main characters really feels more like a failed middle school romance. In this film, M. Night shows no greater insight into human relationships that an unintuitive, inexperienced student filmmaker - which is usually an area he is brilliantly astute with.

There were a few short moments that I remembered the promising auteur M. Night Shamylan once was. There is a scene that takes place in an unsold real estate property, complete with fake TV's, computers and dishes. Needless to say, the irony was clever and almost effective. Within the same scene, Mark Wahlberg's character starts having a conversation with a plant, exemplifying how most scenes in the film are ruined, no matter how promising.

With "Avatar: The Last Airbender" Shamylan will enter commercial territory that could be interesting. Why he fought to make such an uninspired thriller instead is beyond me.

Black Circle Boys

The best scenes of "Black Circle Boys" are of the film's wounded teenagers reacting to their turbulent lives in total isolation. The main character Kyle is a young man with a weak personal identification, mostly likely stemming from the distant relationship he has with his parents. Writer-director Matthew Carnahan allows these revelations to happen periodically and inductively. He directs such scenes in long takes, relying completely on the performances and nuance of the barren surroundings to bring forth the tensions boiling below the story's surface.

These few scenes are peppered in an otherwise flawed film which is melodramatic, implausible and disappointingly underdeveloped - giving the film a mysterious emotional undertone it doesn't follow through on. The opening introduces Kyle and his All-American swimming buddies wreaking antisocial havoc on the top of a building. Carnahan uses the POV of a videocamera, but stages the action awkwardly - rendering the whole approach of the scene useless. One pivotal detail in particular is extremely obscured, and that is the accidental death of one of Kyle's best friend who apparently falls off of the building.

The movie shifts into Kyle's new life in a new town and school. It becomes a traditional juvinile deliquency teen pic, throwing trite plot elements seen in most similar films from "Rebel Without a Cause" to "The Craft." Inevitably Kyle falls in with the bad kids, which in this case is a group of headbanging metal thrashers who call themselves the Black Circle Boys. Its leader Shane (Eric Mabius) is uncompromising, sociopathic, and slitheringly persuasive. The Black Circle boys turn out to be more than a fledgling metal band, and Kyle finds himself uncontrollably immersed in dangerous occult rituals and violent antisocial escapades.

The familiarities and annoyances of the film are largely to the fault of the script. While the style could have been glossy and dull like most teen pics of the time, it transcends the disappointing story with an unsettling conjuction of handheld cinematography and gritty art direction. Carnahan's direction is raw in a way few teen films were in 1997, because he meets the material with at least attempted realism and a very serious tone. However. he’s not consistently on his game throughout the film, and some scenes are bogged down from lazy direction.

The film is helped by a consistent and believable performance by Scott Bairstow. He is brooding, but likable and draws understanding to a character who makes progressively bad decisions. This is a weak, but all-around watchable teen drama that was a precursor to the realistic teen dramas of the 2000’s, like “L.I.E.,” “Bully” or “Mean Creek.”