wrecked (2011) | adrien brody gives the bear grylls treatment

haaaaydrien !  

C'mon, don't you want to see Adrien Brody in this solo feature-length, soaking up the focus (of the director, the film, the audience), granted ample room to flex some serious acting chops?  As if the rare situation of starring solo in a film, even if it's 'just' in an indie, wasn't the mouthwatering acting morsel it seems.  Hell is other people, right?  Well, Adrien has bit.

he writhes ...

In this case, Hell, it turns out, is the pain of a shattered body and the confusion of a mind trying to piece together his identity, while figuring out how he got to awake the sole-survivor of an accident, pinned in the passenger side of a car down an isolated and lush Pacific Northwest ravine, all while struggling to keep alive in hopes of rescue.  

... he moans ...

If you're a fan of Adrien, or a fan of acting, or just a weirdo like me, you might turn out for this one.  'Interesting' wouldn't justly describe 'Wrecked.'  It's textured, it's allowed to breathe, and it's allowed to take its course.   How the film unwinds  for both protagonist and audience alike totally works, providing lasting satisfaction much after the film's viewing.  

... he pleads with god.

And what was up with that mountain lion? In and out of the pic like that, one might be tempted to read into its symbolism but mercifully, we're not going there. 

For more 'Wrecked,' google for god's sakes, but otherwise, check out this exclusive Q&A with Adrien over at Movieweb.

The Taqwacores (2010) | Punk Rock Meets Islam in the U.S.A.

A smart indie effort, The Taqwacores showcases the rarely heard muslim punk rock underground scene dubbed 'taqwacore,' a term first-penned by co-screenwriter Michael Muhammad Knight.  With Knight's (acclaimed/ controversial/ underground) novel of the same name as source material, director Eyad Zahra constructs a compelling narrative, which centers around a muslim-punk house in Buffalo, NY,  to which straight-laced Pakistani college student Yusef  (Bobby Naderi) arrives.  An ingénue with an open mind, his exposure to all things taqwacore drives the plot. 

The housemates are strikingly diverse, best embodied by Indonesian skater Fasiq (Ian Tran).  They also include conflicted straight-edger Umar (Nav Mann), shirtless skinhead Amazing Ayyub (Volkan Eryaman), patched-up-burka-sporting spitfire Rabeya (Noureen Dewulf), west-coast queer punk Muzzamil (Tony Yalda), and most simpatico of all, the mohawk-ed soul of the film, Jehangir (Dominic Rains).  Each wrestles with reconciling their assimilationist, punk values with the constricting, religiously-based cultural edicts imposed from within.  Further complicating is the rejection coming from both sides, for which reason the film is a valuable exposé of diversity  that counters the widely-held view of muslims as as a monolithic, homogeneous group.  And while a plethora of issues, predominantly of identity, are tackled, Taqwacores is rightfully content in not providing any answers, opting to touch upon fire-button issues as a point of embarking on necessary and hopefully wanted dialogue.  


dir Eyad Zahra
The Taqwacores official site

Enter the Void (2009) | Indies Now Playing Porn

enter the neon void

The previews for Enter the Void distilled the film's candy-coated visual essence into quite the tempting package; coupled with critic quotes from Manohla Dargis referring to the movie as 'pure cinema,' (check her New York Times article) and the expectative can become, well, high.

A drug-drenched circular narrative with spectacular visual elements, Void is actually unusual for its 1st person perspective, a POV belonging to Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a young man lost in the murky depths of Tokyo's dark underbelly.

After the visual assault that are the opening credits -it's awesome!- the film segues to Oscar smoking DMT.  It's not long after, as part of a set-up/ police sting, that he finds himself unexpectedly shot and dying.  From there, suspended between life and death in a DMT haze, Oscar's newly omniscient state becomes a whirlwind of time, where memories meld with the future, revealing elements of story by proxy.

With the Tibetan Book of the Dead given as a point of reference, Void is heavily preoccupied with questions of post-death consciousness as much as it is with drugs, making it feel like The Holy Mountain (1973) had sex with Requiem For A Dream (2000) and had a baby. The sex reference is not off base either. With Oscar's sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta) working as an exotic dancer in a place of ill repute right next to a love ho (love hotel), graphic scenes of the sexually-related are included by design. Neither for nor against it, an abortion is depicted quite realistically and vividly, to the extent of a closeup on the bloody remains. We see love-ho blow jobs and tons of fucking. And while moans of pleasure abound, they're equated with the screams of newborns. We even see a penis head from inside Linda as it shoots. None of this is gratuitous, but is in fact intrinsic to Noé's filmic treatise on reality and life where Oscar's spirit is depicted hovering around fornicating bodies at that peak moment of conception with the intent to incarnate.

What is questionable is the effectiveness of what can only be described as glorified screen savers, meant to signify moments beyond words, be they DMT-induced or something meta-natural, like memory, like fucking, or life, meaning consciousness. The technique is used right at the start, as the DMT begins to dissolve Oscar's perceptions. It becomes a recurrent motif, and it's significance isn't lost, and while a different manner in which to convey the meanings evoked is impossible to imagine, these scenes sometimes go from orchestral to seemingly meandering.

In the end, Enter the Void is a piece that sticks with you, lending much fodder to the mental mulch. Though the visual trappings, phenomenal as they are, may suggest an exciting action-packed drama, it's readily apparent they are merely scratches on the surface. It's what lies beneath that Noé is reaching for.

dir Gaspar Noé

uk official site
ifc official site