The Brown Bunny
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Movie Reviews of The Brown Bunny
Movie Review: Facing The Truth and Saying Goodbye
Summary: 4 Stars
It certainly strikes me as a tad ironic that in a time of rampant lampooning and aping of 1970s pop culture {which many thought sucked royally while they were living through it} that when something comes along, this film, "The Brown Bunny," that, in a sense, rings very true in its intentions to early 70s indie moving making[John Cassevetes, for instance], it's immediately slagged by scores of people whose apparent ideal of the 70s stems from TV sit coms and flared denim-nostalgia-for-a-time-that-never-existed imagery.
True enough, upon deciding to review this, I figured it would be receiving horrendous reviews here, and that it is. It's a one note tune, sure, yet there are many layers to it. And that was exactly the aim of realistic portrayls of deeply personal introspection found in early indie films. I could've done without as much open road landscape gazing too, but overall, it's an effective, meditative piece on love and loss. I'm unsure if people are generally turned off by it because of the emotional weight of it, the moody, stream of consciousness pacing, or the ..GASP!... notorious fantasy sequence where Bud confronts the demons.
It's{the oral sex}simply shown realistically while conveying the dynamic of the character's mind and emotions of moving from one state to another, and isn't presented in an exploitative way necessarily, if you consider it's likely the image in Bud's mind of her performing that sex act. Life is never just how it appears on the surface of things and this is a movie that delves into that. I thought it was brutally honest in depicting our tendency to over-assign blame to the women in our lives while ducking our own fallibility and weaknesses. Such faults can take on lives of their own, and we can end up believing what we're really pretending. Strives toward depicting something honest, or at least stemming from that level of earnest conviction, sometimes has to do so...on a wavelength not accepted by as many, if for no other reason than it's a process unfamiliar to them, and so the effort comes under attack. People would sooner dismiss and criticize than to admit it's merely beyond their own feelings and perceptions.
If you've never truly been through an emotional, life-altering ringer with a woman, the essence of "The Brown Bunny" may elude you. Beyond that, no, it doesn't surprise me in the least that, given the steady diet of formulaic, fast-cut, deficient-attention-span-cinema that's digested these days, this one will be waaaaaaay off the radar for most.
"Sure is strange, so strange..
You've got to pick up every stitch..
Two rabbits running in the ditch..
Oh no, must be the season of the witch" ~ Donavan
Movie Review: The saddest and loneliest place in the world
Summary: 4 Stars
I used to work as a security guard in an art museum. I always enjoyed the days when I was assigned the modern and contemporary art galleries, not only because of my love for the art, but because I took great pleasure in overhearing the comments and conversations of patrons passing through.
What I gleaned from my time at the museum is that the average person doesn't like modern art because he doesn't know what to make of it. When one looks at a Mark Rothko or Ad Reinhart painting, it's meaning or intention is not immediately apparent. The viewer must actively search his feelings to understand what the art means to him, how it makes him feel, and only then can then he begin to understand the motivations the artist had to create the work in the first place.
And so it is with Vincent Gallo's latest film, "The Brown Bunny." For those looking for a film to give them everything, you'll be most disappointed. You may even be angered. But like last year's sublime, understated and underrated "Elephant," "The Brown Bunny" rewards those viewers who are willing to invest themselves emotionally, to see themselves through Bud's eyes, to make his pain and loneliness and sorrow their own.
Rather than having much in common with other fictional films, "The Brown Bunny" easily recalls the band documentaries "Instrument" (about Washington D.C. indie stalwarts Fugazi) and "Meeting People Is Easy" (about Radiohead's recording of "OK Computer" and subsequent tour). Both documentaries share the bleaker side of being a band on the road, with lengthy passages of film shot from inside tour bus and van looking at passing scenery from one nameless highway after another.
I will admit I was expecting another "Buffalo '66" when I walked into the theatre. And for the first twenty minutes I was unsettled and bored as I struggled to check my preconceived notions of what I thought I'd be getting with what I was actually watching. Once I let my preconceptions go, I easily settled into the film's warmly unsettling and emotionally frail fabric. Leaving the theatre, I felt that the cross-country journey, and the pain and saddness suffered along the way, had been my own.
"The Brown Bunny" is the filmic equivalent of whatever album you love listening to with the headphones on, lying in the dark, wallowing in loathing and self-pity. Put yourself in that special place, and you'll find "The Brown Bunny" to be beautiful and tragic, refreshingly honest, and, above all, emotionally cathartic.
Movie Review: Journey across America with Grief on the passenger sit
Summary: 4 Stars
I have not seen the original Director's cut of the film that had created so much bad press after the screening at the Cannes Film Festival and prompted Roger Ebert make the statement that "The Brown Bunny" was the worst film in the history of the festival but the 92 minutes long version that Gallo himself re-edited is certainly not the bad movie. I'd say it is much better than hundreds of one star reviews on the Netflix movie's site lead you to believe. I personally agree with Vienalle Film Festival that awarded to "The Brown Bunny" FIPRESCI Prize "For its bold exploration of yearning and grief and for its radical departure from dominant tendencies in current American filmmaking". In exploring loss, regrets, yearning, grief, loneliness, inner numbness as the way to cope with pain caused by guilt, longing for the contact and inability to communicate, Vincent Gallo, writer/director/star/cinematographer/editor for "The Brown Bunny", definitely drove his point across (no pun intended). I think that Gallo found the right way to create a mood of quiet and unbearable desperation. The movie brought to my mind the line from one of the poems by Paul Verlen, French poet of the 18th century, "I walked, accompanying my own grief". Grief was the passenger in Bud's van and kept him company on the long journey across America, from New Hampshire to California. They had a lot to talk about but their conversations were speechless - that's why there is so much silence in the movie and only shots of Bud's face and his eyes.
Many viewers (and reviewers) mention in their comments the notorious explicit scene of oral sex between Bud Clay (Gallo) and Daisy (Chloe Sevigny), the one true love of his life. Those who dismissed the movie as totally worthless say that without the scene, nobody would every bother watching "The Brown Bunny". I would not speak for everyone but I would've liked the film even without two minutes of graphic sex that in the context of the film is appropriately more disturbing and sad than anything else. With all due respect to the opinions of the viewers who dislike and even hate Vincent Gallo's movie, I found it interesting, compelling and satisfying.
Movie Review: The complete antithesis to anything Hollywood is making
Summary: 4 Stars
After the critical acclaim of Buffalo '66, there was a certain amount of anticipation for what its writer/director/star Vincent Gallo would do next. He responded with The Brown Bunny, a film that, to put it mildly, polarized critics and audiences at the Cannes Film Festival. It met with harsh criticism and cited by some as the worst film ever to be shown in competition. This was largely in response to the film's notorious ending with co-star Chloe Sevigny and Gallo that outraged many. The film's deliberately slow pacing also didn't endear it to audiences. Gallo, not one to back down from a fight, engaged Roger Ebert in a highly publicized war of words that got quite nasty. Now that the dust has settled and the film has been quietly released on DVD, people can see for themselves what the fuss was all about.
Stylistically, Gallo favours long, static takes, often holding on a shot for as long as he feels is necessary. In some respects, it's a throwback to the minimalist cinema of Monte Hellman, specifically Two-Lane Blacktop with its judicious use of dialogue and no frills production values. Gallo certainly has an ear for the right piece of music for the right scene, like the sad, wistful music of Gordon Lightfoot ("Beautiful") and Jackson C. Frank ("Milk & Honey") playing over shots of the road to create a particular mood.
It would be so easy to dismiss Gallo's film as a vanity project run amok. After all, he wrote, directed, edited, produced, shot and stars in it. The Brown Bunny lacks Buffalo '66's humour and this seems to be a conscious decision on Gallo's part. In every respect, this movie is the antithesis to anything Hollywood is producing. Like Gus Van Sant's Gerry, Gallo's film is a cinematic endurance test-can you watch a man drive around for close to 90 minutes with the occasional interaction with other people? Yet, there is a certain poetry to The Brown Bunny, a certain simple beauty in observing every day things, like someone eating dinner or shopping for a rabbit or just driving cross-country. There are no intense car chases that defy physics or CGI-generated worlds.
Movie Review: Thanks for being so brave, Mr. Gallo
Summary: 4 Stars
Another review below has made the point that the critics started a process whereby this film has become vilified. I won't rehash that, but it's unfortunate.
Gallo certainly does test the limits of his audience and, as a result, this film will not have a wide audience. But if you're someone who appreciates the power of cinema you may well find something to like in this film. Gallo makes things difficult on himself by forcing the film to rely almost entirely on a visual language. Gallo's character says almost nothing. What we know about him is what we see: his appearance, his motorcycle, his van. What we see him doing is less important than what we *never* see him doing: he doesn't seem to have a job or any fixed responsibilities or schedule, and he's certainly short on human contact. From his relationship with his ex-girlfriend we learn that others see something of value in him that he himself can't. But while he seems fully isolated from the world, he also seems universal. In his isolation he is like each of us, and Gallo steadfastly refuses to give the character any more personality than is necessary, so as to avoid interfering with the character's universal quality. I think what makes the film so unsettling to many is that Gallo's pointless odyssey is not so different than the one many of the rest of us are on.
As to whether it's the worst film ever made, well, that's not even remotely accurate. It's true that The Brown Bunny won't do the tricks of a mainstream Hollywood film, but it is powerful in its own way and never hits a false note. It is far more deft, controlled and virtuosic in its own way than, say, a mess of a film like "Kingdom of Heaven." It makes David Lynch look downright vaudevillian. With its echos of Bergman, Fassbinder, Wenders and Hellman it's quite an accomplished work. (Those of you who can't agree with me should at least try the somewhat more communicative "Buffalo 66").