An Unfocused Imagination

Defining art isn’t easy—it’s like pornography in that you know it when you see it, or hear it, or experience it, as the case may be. I’ll be the first to fess up to the core fact that I don’t always know what art is, since the term is thrown around like discarded tissue. I knew an “artist” in the eighties who actually said if he puked on the sidewalk, and called it art, then it was art, since he, as the artist, defines art. Truth is, puking on a sidewalk, no matter how you rationalize it, is not art. It’s puke on a sidewalk.

The problem with artists defining art is it turns the entire process into an opaque little box of self-congratulation, where like-minded sycophants convince themselves that everybody else just isn’t hip enough to understand that sidewalk barf is art because the artist said so.

The indie film Imagination doesn’t take its pretensions that far, but it does take itself very seriously as “art.” And therein lays its fatal flaw. Ostensibly, Imagination is a film about the varying perceptions of reality—a favorite subject for philosophers, quantum physicists and stoners alike. Co-written by brothers Eric and Jeffrey Leiser, Imagination is the story of twin sisters, one autistic, or actually suffering from Azperger’s Syndrome, and the other, legally blind, fated to be totally blind at some indeterminate point. Being twins, though, they of course share a telepathic bond and a form of communication known only to them. What their parents don’t see is that their daughters are linked by the power of imagination, which in no small part leads to the dissolution of the family—the father runs away, retreating to the local speakeasys, and the mother is killed while driving on the freeway during a conveniently timed earthquake. The twins, effectively orphaned, are taken in by the kindly psychotherapist at his institution, where things take an “unexpected”, if telegraphed, turn.

To say the story is thin is being charitable—the basic premise of linked twins has been done many times before, and usually better, most recently in the indie production Brothers of the Head. The acting here doesn’t fare any better, either—the performers walk through their lines bereft of any semblance of emotion, disconnected from the characters they are supposed to portray. Even though the script doesn’t offer the actors many opportunities to emote, and the direction in the live sequences is reminiscent of a 1950’s educational film, the cast, admittedly mostly first-timers merely recite their lines.

The story in Imagination, though, is an incidental anecdote to showcase Eric’s animation skills and Jeffrey’s music composition talents. In those regards, the brothers show a great deal of promise. It’s in the animation sequences that Imagination shines, even though it’s heavily influenced by the work of Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer. The music backdrop shows traces of Philip Glass, but with a bit more meat to it. It’s here that the brothers work seamlessly together, and come close to achieving the avant garde piece they sought out to make.

The problem with Imagination is that the elements of storyline and surreal animation never quite gel. The result is jarring—on the one hand is a terribly played live action drama, and on the other, a lyrical bit of animation illustrated by a haunting score. As much as the brothers Leiser would like us to accept Imagination as an enigmatic piece of art, it emerges more as an animation portfolio. That being said, the brothers Leiser may well be players in the future of cinema. Once they get over their art for art’s sake fixation, they may make a cohesive film.

Imagination is a nice try, but doesn't quite make it.

Try Forgiving the Franklins, Won't You?

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The biggest problem with Forgiving the Franklins is its promotional campaign, which describes it as “part morality tale, part sex romp.” It’s not titillating or puerile enough to fall into the latter category, and it lacks the subtle nuances that would elevate it to the status of the former. More accurately, Forgiving the Franklins is a none too subtle indictment against repression and hypocrisy in Fundamentalist religion.

To make his point, writer/director/producer Jay Floyd paints the movie in broad strokes of bright suburban landscapes and cartoonish characters. At the film’s beginning, the Franklins are stalwart members of their small, religious community—Dad Frank (Robertson Dean) is a lawyer, mom Betty (Teresa Willis) a doting housewife, son Brian (Vince Pavia) a high school football hero and daughter Caroline (Aviva) a star cheerleader. They’re a Norman Rockwall picture perfect family, conservative even by their neighbors’ standards. It’s all a façade, though, masking lives of deep-seeded repression.

Their lives take an abrupt turn en route to a church bake sale when the family car is broadsided by a truck, propelling all but Caroline into a collective three-day coma and an encounter with Jesus himself. In the netherworld they find themselves in, Jesus (Pop Padilla) is nothing like what they imagined him to be. He’s rough-hewn and cynical, spending his time chopping down crosses. The cross is a bad marketing ploy that actually represents the worst day of his life, not the version of salvation the Franklins embrace. Frustrated (or inspired) by their judgmental attitude, he literally plucks Original Sin from their heads, and sends them back to this mortal coil to live their lives. Ominously, three crosses appear on the horizon as they are sent back to Earth. “Those things pop up like weeds,” Jesus shrugs.

Awakening from their coma, (simultaneously, oddly enough) Frank, Betty and Brian return to their suburban home with a new outlook on life. They’re completely uninhibited and happy, which immediately puts them at odds with Caroline, who emerged from the wreck with a bum hip, forcing her to walk with a cane, and ruining her dream of being the perfect cheerleader. The neighbors also find their behavior peculiar, but at first dismiss it as lingering disorientation as the result of their collective coma.

It’s at this point that Forgiving the Franklins morphs from a contemporary send-up of fifties sitcoms to a stab at social commentary. Unfettered from the constraints of religious repression, the Franklins unwittingly challenge the mores of their tight-knit community, merely by being open about themselves and the world around them. This puts them on a collision course with their neighbors, and culminates with insidious, tragic results. Caroline serves as the center-weight in the subtle conflict, and ultimately proves to be the film’s last bastion of hope.Forgiving the Franklins, in

What with its inherently controversial themes, Forgiving the Franklins is the sort of movie that’s the darling of film festivals. It’s also the sort of first time effort that explores its themes gallantly, albeit clumsily, in many spots. That being said, Joe Floyd’s directorial debut also works for the most part. His pacing is unflagging, and his understanding of the psychological use of color signals the coming of a director destined to go places.

When all is said and done, Forgiving the Franklins is a movie worth seeing. It’s a little film exploring big issues, peeking into the contradictions between religion and spirituality. More importantly, it holds up those conflicts to the light, and forces us to laugh at ourselves in the process.

When a Sequel Isn't a Sequal. . .Exactly

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Fay Grim is a fascinating movie, albeit not always for the right reasons. Ostensibly a sequel to 1998’s acclaimed Henry Fool, Fay Grim works more as a cross between the Bourne movies and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. As a result, it can be maddening at times, leaving us to wonder if it’s intended as farce, espionage thriller, social parable, or a combination of all three.

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Writer/director Hal Hartley picks up the story ten years after the events of Henry Fool in a deceptively pedestrian way. The characters from the original film return intact, if a bit altered. Henry is presumed to be living in Sweden, Fay (Parker Posey) is trying to raise their now adolescent son Ned (Liam Aiken) in Queens, and her brother, the Nobel Prize-winning poet Simon Grim (James Urbaniak), is doing time for aiding and abetting Henry’s flight from prosecution on a murder charge. It’s typical suburban mayhem until CIA agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum) comes visiting one day, and informs Fay that Henry wasn’t what he appeared to be, and that his unpublishable “Confessions” are actually encoded texts with enough information to destabilize several governments.

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From there, things get a bit convoluted. After negotiating Simon’s release from prison, Fay is sent to Paris by the CIA to retrieve the notebooks. Other governments want them, too — the Israelis, the French, the Pakistanis, and though it’s never clear how damaging these notebooks could be in the wrong hands, Fay finds herself at the center of an international web of intrigue. The story often borders on the ridiculous, but manages to keep us poised at the precipice of disbelief.

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Shot in high def video, and on a shoestring budget, Fay Grim is in some ways reminiscent of the low-key espionage thrillers of the sixties. Hartley’s use of off-kilter camera angles (in almost every frame) heightens that sense of tension, in counterpoint to the otherwise deadpan pacing of the film. But it’s the inimitable Parker Posey in the title role who ultimately makes the film work. Her portrayal of Fay is a fascinating character study in self-awareness.When we first meet Fay, she’s a single mom with a moody adolescent son, trying to hold things together, depending on her brother’s royalty checks to make ends meet. Even at that, she confronts potentially adversarial situations with a blasé attitude. Nothing fazes her in that regard — an attitude that serves her well as she gradually evolves into a woman of international sophistication. In fact, the only moment she becomes visibly flustered involves a scene in which her cell phone, set to “vibrate”, rings at an inopportune time.

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As much as Fay Grim is a satire on the paranoia of the 21st century political mindset, it’s ultimately about a woman’s journey to discover her potential. Every action Fay takes, especially when she’s following directives, has unforeseen repercussions. It’s only when she takes matters into her own hands that she becomes a fully realized character. Given the somewhat cliffhanger nature of the ending, Fay remains a work in progress.

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Hartley has said he envisions Fay Grim as the second part of the Henry Fool trilogy. Let’s hope he doesn’t wait another decade before filming the final installment. For all its faults, Fay Grim remains a testament to the power of the independent film, proving mega-budgets do not necessarily a good film make.

Factotum Labors at Many Trades, And Masters the Optimism of Despair

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The writings of Charles Bukowski are an acquired taste. Praised by some critics as intuitive literary genius and derided by others as the ramblings of a serious alcoholic with delusions of literary grandeur, one simple fact remains. He hit on a collective nerve that had little to do with alcoholism, womanizing or gambling--it had to do with pursuing a life well lived. He never apologized for his shortcomings--he reveled in them.

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Factotum, the movie, doesn't stray far from that premise. Where it differs is in its Scandinavian approach to the source material. The American directorial debut of acclaimed Norwegian director Bent Haner, Factotum springboards Bukowski's early days into an allegorical everyman's tale in which the protagonist never fully realizes redemption.

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Matt Dillon portrays Hank Chinaski (ostensibly Bukowski's alter ego) as a man disconnected from the realities of the world. His only passion in life is writing, and he's not all that passionate about that. He jots down his thoughts occasionally, but women, menial jobs, horse tracks and seedy bars distract him from his efforts. He's a factotum, a person who wanders aimlessly from job to job. "I just want to get my paycheck and get drunk," he tells an employer after being fired from one of several jobs.

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It would be far too easy to discount Factotum as plotless rambling. To do so, however, would be nothing less than a surrender to the banalaties of big budget movies. This is not a film driven by plot so much as it is by character, and in that regard, it shines. In what may be his finest performance to date, Dillon imbues the Chinaski character (read that Bukowski) with a stoic resignation towards the obstacles that confront him. Most of those obstacles, of course, are roadblocks of his own making--his refusal to compromise to anyone or anything besides his vices-- but he never lets them overcome his singular ambition of becoming a published writer. When he's not boozing or playing the horses, he's scribbling random thoughts on a yellow legal pad, and dropping his manuscripts in the mail, with fruitless results.

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Accompanying Chinaski through much of the film is the equally besotted Jan, (Lili Taylor, Six Feet Under). Their relationship, based mostly on their mutual alcoholism is, is, as one would expect, rocky at best. But at its core, it's based more on a disregard for society's expectations than chemical dependency. The bond the pair share supercedes the haze in how their days and nights are spent. In one particularly amusing scene, they're awakened in the middle of the night by the commotion of a fire in their apartment block. They merely shrug it off, and go back to sleep.

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It's all set in a surreal version of Los Angeles, bereft of sun and palm trees, or even much of a populace. It's a desolate, gray place (with seamier sections of Minneapolis filling in for El Lay), seen through the eyes of the isolated. In Bukowski/Chanefski's world, "political correctness" is a term that doesn't exist--people smoke openly in offices, people drunkedly wander deserted streets and random fisticuffs go largely unnoticed. Even the time frame is uncertain-- working class sixties mores juxtapose with PT Cruisers and computers in an assembly line world where automation has yet to replace the working grunt.

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Of course, we're seeing all this through Chanefski's version of the world, and in that convoluted logic, it all makes sense. He sees the absurdities of day to day existence, and gives no pause to consider life beyond its underbelly. His resultant world view is both egocentric and distanced. Since he sees the world only in terms of how it affects his personal aspirations, it's not surprising that his version of Los Angeles is cold and desolate.

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Factotum works best when viewed in the context of allegory. It's ultimately a story of sacrifice in the name of art. As Dillon interprets the character, Chanefski never veers from his personal Holy Grail. The menial jobs, the bouts of homelessness, the drunken binges, the meaningless dalliances with various women--all are ingredients to feed his dream. And even though the film's ending is ambiguous, it leaves the viewer with a sense that it might, just maybe have been worth it after all. He's sleeping on a park bench as the credits begin to roll, but that doesn't preclude him from soliloquy.

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"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don't even start," he advises us. "This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs. And maybe your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."

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Despite its measured pacing and often misanthropic viewpoint, Factotum should be required viewing for anyone who ever harbored a dream. It's bleak, often funny, sometimes almost boring and moves at an unsteady rhythm. In short, it's a lot like life.