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July 24, 2009
Loren Cass
Opening today in New York City is Loren Cass, the debut film from writer-director Chris Fuller. It was nominated for a Gotham Award last year, and earned a good amount of acclaim at festivals - mostly European ones, which may be why I knew nothing about it other than its title until a few weeks ago, when I sat down to watch it in Chicago.
I've been turning it over in my head ever since. There's one cut in particular that I keep revisiting, in which a character in an armchair spontaneously combusts. It's one of the strongest, most meaningful bits of dialectical editing I've seen in a long while. And there I was thinking about it when I learned that Kino was on the verge of releasing the film theatrically - it's already available on iTunes and Amazon Unboxed, but this is the sort of confrontational cinema that is best experienced writ large.
The film's context is as intrinsic as it is mostly unstated: it is a gorgeously shot, defiantly opaque portrait of three youths all reeling in their own private ways from the aftermath of the 1996 riots in St. Petersburg, Florida. It's the sort of frictive film I love, even while not loving it; I had problems with it, but they were of the sort that forced me to wholly engage with what Fuller was attempting to do - or rather, what he did, and does, since the film is there, finished, an aggressive statement from an artist who undeniably knows what he wants to say and how he wants to say it. That the phrasing may sometimes be awkward and the syntax unwieldy is perhaps more noticeable because the language is otherwise so strong - but they are also more forgivable for that same reason. This is a film in which I'm almost willing to accept that my problems with it were just that: mine and not the film's.
In other words, it's very much worth a second look. Or first, as the case may be. Be prepared to wrestle.
Posted by David Lowery at July 24, 2009 9:06 PM
Comments
Oh man, I saw this at CineVegas a few years back and H-A-T-E-D it. The scene of stock footage where the guy is shown blowing his brains out really, really offended me. I think people should have a choice whether or not they want to see a real death. Much like that viral video of the American being beheaded a few years back. If you *want* to see that, by all means, go for it. But it's truly sleazy and unfair to unleash that on someone without warning or context. Sign of a rank amateur trying to be provocative.
Posted by: don r. lewis at July 29, 2009 2:29 AM
I guess where our opinions diverge was that I felt that footage was so well known, almost ingrained in pop culture at this point, that it wasn't really a shock - once I saw what it was I knew exactly what was coming and I was instantly more interested in how it related to what purpose the filmmaker was utilizing it for (and which I think was earned). But I read your review, and your opinion was one that I was definitely thinking about when I interviewed the director for Filmmaker...
Posted by: David Lowery at July 29, 2009 3:15 AM