FILMGOERS can sup at a feast of independent cinema playing for the next two weeks in Johannesburg, arriving in Durban on July 15 and in Cape Town on July 28. Here are some of the best:
The Funeral (Abel Ferrara, 1996) This 1930s-set gangster pic finds fierce and furiously transgressive director Ferrara on strangely penitent ground. The story concerns three brothers (Christopher Walken, Chris Penn, and Vincent Gallo) who struggle with the violence they’ve inherited after a sibling snuffs it. Filled with brooding method-acting monologues, it’s a luxurious and sombre departure from a director who all too often goes gloriously and reactionally over the top.
Trees Lounge (Steve Buscemi, 1996) Everyone’s favourite indie movie star makes his writing and directing debut in this Cassavetes-like tale about an unemployed and alcoholic mechanic, Tommy, played by Buscemi himself. After the death of his uncle, Tommy takes over the old man’s ice-cream truck route despite a congenital inability to deal with kids. Add to this a flirtatious romance and gossip about his dipsomania and you have a slow-burning tragi-comedy.
The Last Time I Committed Suicide (Stephen Kay, 1996) This is a brief but jazzy chunk out of Neal Cassady’s life (he was `Beat’ writer Jack Kerouac’s one-time lover and subject for the seminal novel On the Road). It begins with the suicide attempt of his girlfriend and flashes back to his earliest romance. Beautifully shot and edited, it perfectly captures the spirit of the time.
American Buffalo (Michael Corrente, 1996) This adaptation of David Mamet’s play seems stuck in the proscenium but is nonetheless riveting. In it Dustin Hoffman delivers a brilliant performance as a small-town loser who comes into conflict with a junk-shop owner, played by Dennis Franz, who wants to steal back a coin he believes he sold for too little. The film features great dialogue and is bleakly funny and cunningly engrossing.
Box of Moonlight (Tom DiCillo, 1996) DiCillo has taken over the reigns from Jim Jarmusch as New York’s hippest indie director. In this typically laconic tale John Turturro plays an electrical engineer who goes on the road in rural America after a construction job is cancelled. Played as a modern fable it shows the director’s consummate skill at throwing a skewed and comically low-key angle at the events of life.
Love! Valour! Compassion! (John Montello, 1996) Adapted by Terence McNally from his own Tony Award-winning play, which played successfully locally, this movie follows the bitchy fortunes and failures of eight gay friends who leave the city for three country weekends at a lakeside home. It was roundly criticised abroad for being too slow and contemplative, but the dialogue is as snappy and the stories as poignant as ever.
This World then the Fireworks (Michael Oblowitz, 1996) Cape Town-born Oblowitz makes an atmospheric directorial debut in this noir thriller based on a short story by cult thriller novelist Jim Thompson. Billy Zane and Gina Gershon play siblings from a dysfunctional family who develop an incestuous relationship after they become partners in murder. Taut and erotic, it’s exactly the stuff that Thompson intended when he wrote his fabulous pulp fictions.
Mother Night (Keith Gordon, 1996) One time actor for Brian De Palma, director Gordon delivers a caustic adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel set during World War II. An American writer, played by Nick Nolte, is enlisted by a spy (John Goodman in sinister mode), to make racist radio broadcasts that carry encoded information to the allies. Told in flashback from a concentration camp, it features strong performances and a cynical take on history that is deeply and blackly comic.