The Brown Bunny
by Vincent Gallo
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Anna Vareschi, Cheryl Tiegs, Chloë Sevigny, Elizabeth Blake (II), Mary MoraskyDirector: Vincent Gallo
Brand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 99
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.66:1
Running Time: 93 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-08-16
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Movie Reviews of The Brown Bunny
Movie Review: An introspective film
Summary: 5 Stars
Since this movie is known most for the controversy, I am going to start and finish with it to reflect people's habit of starting and ending their impressions of something with a scene out of context. It wasn't porn, and my argument for that comes completely from the context... what happens directly before and after that moment. Basically, people have been angry at Gallo for being self-involved in this movie, especially that scene, but during that scene the self-involvement is literally the point. It's masturbatory, but the key is that it drains him, just like masturbation. One thing the DVD box says about it is that it's one of the "frankest portrayals of male sexuality on film" and so let's be frank here.
His sexual confusion is part of his grief, and part of grief is the habit of trying to deny it actually happened. So when he starts acting dominant during that scene with what's happening, it's his subconscious trying to throw a sort of male sexual dominance over something he doesn't understand and hasn't allowed himself to accept. But when it drains him, he's forced to admit that he doesn't only grieve for her but hates her for forcing him into that grief, and from there comes probably one of the best conversations (or inner dialog) I've seen in film in a long time.
But does it necessarily need to be "shown" rather than implied?
Well yes. Because the character's focus is so involved on it, it literally is all his mind is allowing him to care about in that moment. Basic rule of a close-up: if the camera focuses on something like that, then the director is trying to point something out. If it's porn, it's meant to arouse... but this scene isn't arousing, especially because of its context.
But enough of that, because I want to discuss something else about this movie. Partly because of the controversy around this movie, and partly because of the publicity, I had the initial impression that Gallo was an abrasive and over-masculinized character in this film. Wow, complete opposite... I totally related to his character. Of course, his short relationships with those women don't seem to work at first, but once we get an idea of where he's coming from in his grief (and men's general dislike of expressing it or asking for help), the relationships make perfect sense in terms of being representational (thus the obvious motif of all of their flower names and his name as "Bud"). Basically, the first woman fits what he's looking for courteously, the second emotionally, and the third emotionally, but none of them match the full attraction he has to the only woman he's ever loved. I liked it.
And the long continuing imagery of the road trip was really neat too, as it actually really captured that introspective feeling of it. Most roadtrip movies show the car in moments of time from the exterior... which kind of changes the perspective of what a roadtrip is. This movie shows it literally from the passenger seat, complete with the dirty/smudged window and the long road stretched ahead. I think there was only one shot that was actually an exterior of the van when on the freeway, the rest of the exteriors were when the van was parking or he was stopped somewhere. I find it very lovely, ultimately, and as my mother once said, "The road trip is something of a rite of passage amongst American males. It's a moment when they take on as much of the world as they feel necessary all on their own." Gallo seems to have the same idea, though there is a major American film genre built around that idea as well: the road as a literal transfiguration of self-discovery.
So, going back to the controversy, it really disappoints me that this film has to be known for that when there is so much more art and beauty and innocence it has to offer. I also find the controversy rather inconsistant, considering most people have absolutely no trouble with the female body in various states of arousal, yet as soon as "the male gender" is shown, it's pornographic! The funny thing is, it contributes to that very male sense of fear and dominance they feel they must assert sexually. So I guess I could make an argument that Gallo did that scene to attack that inconsistant form of sexual censorship, but if I didn't already know that basically Sevigny and he agreed to do it because, "Why not, we were in a relationship, we did it before, might as well just show it!"
--PolarisDiB
Summary of The Brown Bunny
The Brown Bunny is both a love story and a haunting portrait of a lost soul unable to forget his past. After finishing a motorcycle race in New Hampshire, Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) loads his racing bike into the back of his van and begins a cross-country odyssey to Los Angeles, where he is to compete in another race. During his trip, he meets three very different women: Violet, a wholesome all-American gas station attendant; Lilly (Cheryl Tiegs), a fellow lost soul he connects with at a highway rest stop; and Rose, a Las Vegas prostitute. Throughout his journey, Bud can never escape his intense feelings for the love of his life, Daisy (Chloë Sevigny), so he plans to reconcile with her when he reaches Los Angeles. Arriving in Los Angeles, Bud checks into a motel before visiting the abandoned home he once shared with Daisy. He leaves a note, hoping she will turn up at his motel room . . .Building to a notorious climax, the film presents one of the frankest portrayals of male sexuality ever seen in American cinema.After its scandalous screening at the 2004 Cannes film festival, Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny was cut from 118 to 92 minutes, and that made all the difference. The film that critic and long-time Cannes attendee Roger Ebert originally called "the worst film in the history of the festival" was transformed, by Gallo's judicious editing, into a perfectly acceptable if not universally respected art-house curio, widely criticized yet ripe for cult status, able to stand beside Gallo's Buffalo 66 as the work of a genuine artist with a singular vision. Yes, that vision is self-indulgent, narcissistic, and likely to turn off a majority of viewers with its glacial pace and endless shots of Gallo driving, driving, and driving some more. But in portraying a melancholy motorcycle racer who drives cross-country while mourning a private loss that remains secret until the final scenes, Gallo gives us a character, and a film, that feels spiritually akin to such early '70s classics as Five Easy Pieces and Two-Lane Blacktop. It's a flawed yet ultimately moving example of maverick, unconventional cinema, and while Chloe Sevigny's explicit oral sex scene with Gallo is completely unnecessary, it's just one more element that places The Brown Bunny firmly, and refreshingly, out of the mainstream. --Jeff Shannon
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