norman reedus film festival: the beatnicks

(2001. dir: Nicholson Williams) Here's the thing: the three main characters of the piece are called Nick, Nick, and Nica. Get it? Three parts of the same human! Patrick Bauchau, as the film's spiritual guru, intones, "You already know that you must struggle with yourself. Only with yourself." And that's the problem with the piece: it's all allegory and no forward movement. It's about the nature of inspiration and creativity, and the relative assignments of the asshole, the artist, and the muse, or maybe the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious, or, if you're a New-Ager living in Hawaii, the uhane, unihipili, and the aumakua. Even towards the end, when the drama does finally show up for a minute, it's got the lifeblood leached out of it by its allegorical nature.

The pace is unabatingly slow, perhaps a little bit faux-Jarmuschy, but it doesn't matter, since (also ala Jarmusch) it goes nowhere. Reedus' last line is about how everything comes around to the same place and time, and, yeah, by the end of this movie I was certainly convinced of that, or possibly that it doesn't move at all. The sound is uneven and so is the photography: the cinematographer is gangbusters gorgeous at shooting a place, a still life, or the progress of a single person, but seems to be troubled by the framing of interactions.

It's not all bad. Eric Roberts is surprisingly good (we all know he has talent, but he doesn't always bother to bring all three dimensions, does he?), and Bauchau (the blind seer in Carnivale) is always charismatic. It's unique, a lightly-humorous take on a spiritual quest, so kudos for boldness. And the music is good.

As for Reedus, he hides. He hides behind his cigarettes and sunglasses and the hair hanging in his eyes, uses these as a sort of protective camouflage. If it's a character choice, and I think it's not, it doesn't play. It looks like an actor who doesn't trust himself. If I didn't know better, I'd say he even has a way of making himself look blurry, out of focus, as if he's not fully there for big chunks of the film.

It's odd, and vaguely frustrating.

Rating: two stars for originality
Reedus Factor: two stars for lots of screen time and some skin, but it's as if only his astral body really showed up for much of the filming, and he left the rest at home