Feo called and asked me if I wanted to go see RUBBER. Seems our dark shepherd, Maestro Amante was working a shoot, dismembering cast members in San Diego and was hoping I’d go screen this odd film in his place. Odd? Me? I’m there! I’d heard of Rubber, the movie. It was a French horror film about a telekinetic tire that kills people. You heard right. A tire, as in a tire on a car or, uh, voiture. Maybe a Firestone, or in this case a Michelin that kills people dead (fine then, morts)! So I rattled my bones into a heap of black clothing, grabbed my crispy new notepad and my favorite yellow (non-leaking) pen and drove through Friday night Hollywood traffic to the old Silent Movie Theater on Fairfax near Melrose. The show was at midnight, and I knew the theater was tiny, so I got there an hour and a half early. Jesus! There was already a line around the block. I paid ten to park near a senior rest home. I walked up the avenue and past the throngs of excited, 20-something cineastes and made my way to the box office. I quietly mumbled, “press?” Nope. I dared to push, “Does that mean that I have to…uh..?” Yep, the ticket taker pointed to the line that now stretched beyond my sight and was also growing fat as a Python swallowing a bus bench. “But will I get in if …” An adorable shrug with a detectable, “no way” attached to it. I solemnly walked to the end of that line - doubled in the time I’d spent trying to wrangle my way out of having to stand in it. By now I was doing my most impressive, audible sighing. It suddenly dawned on me that I was never going to last in the cold (OK, 57 degrees - still arctic by LA standards) for an hour and a half with the likelihood of getting as far as the ticket-taker who’d tilt her head refusing to take my ticket. I walked back to my car (pausing to seriously consider that senior rest home), let the parking guy keep five bucks from the ten I paid. Took the other five back. Then I drove straight home where I sit now typing this in my sweats with a handful of raisins and some decaf. Don’t laugh. I actually have the fireplace on…
So, I can’t tell you about the movie Rubber, per se. But what of the general idea of experimental or unconventional filmmaking within our genre? I don’t have to actually see Rubber to know full well that a movie about a killer tire named “Robert” is one that should be made and seen. In movies as in life, you gotta take chances in order to innovate. You have to stretch wide to reach territory that is uncharted. You gotta really dig deep for the good stuff. Not into digging? Well, look what you settle for then: a quagmire of Vampires more attractive than they are dangerous. Lazy zombies moldering the four corners of our collective conscience. Torture-porn that is as unsophisticated as it is mean-spirited. Who wouldn’t embrace a murderous rubber tire right about now? Hell, a gas cap would be a welcomed protagonist. Rubber writer/director Quentin Dupieux has made a name for himself defying the expectations of his audience. He is an established artist and musician (Mr. Oizo) in France. In his 2001 movie debut, NONFILM, an actor wakes up in the middle of a movie shoot and accidentally (?) kills the crew. The surviving cast decides to continue on without a script or camera. In Dupieux’s next offering, STEAK he tackles the well-worn high-school-clusterfunk theme. The social molasses-bath we all must wade through in those sticky teen years. Yes, Dupieux’s losers struggle to become cool “Chivers” gang members, but in Steak, we come to learn that the 2016 setting is even more futuristic than we could have imagined. Now, here comes Rubber. A movie in which an inanimate tire becomes aware of its awesome telepathic powers and goes on a rampage slaughtering people in a desert town, or so I’m told. I didn’t get in to see it, remember?! I did chat with some of the kids in line for the show and the consensus was that they didn’t know what to expect but they were itching to have their expectations defied. They were all eagerly waiting in that line aching to be surprised. I mean, just based on a vague synopsis, aren’t you hungry to see it? I am, dammit!
It makes perfect sense to me that most genre fans are filmmakers, aspiring filmmakers or at the very least, highly sophisticated audience members. We can count ourselves among the most creative and literate members of our communities. It’s good to know that there’s room for everyone that wants to throw their hat in the ring. It’s good for all of us to passionately insist that there’s room for everyone. I’ve always thought that our job as responsible audiences or even critics is to challenge ourselves to give stuff a chance. As much stuff as possible. We don’t have to like it all, but we do have to encourage, maybe demand risk-taking and freshness from our storytellers. As a filmmaker myself (RED VELVET), I’ve always felt a responsibility to try to innovate material. Without having seen Rubber, I still know I want to support Quentin Dupieux and the very concept of the movie. After all, this is how we take turns supporting each other. Not every outing will be a gem but each attempt contributes to the betterment of the next. And that means the experience of movie magic will be sustained a little longer. As I’m writing this, Karen from Magnet Releasing, the very gracious host of the Rubber screening has texted me that she missed me at the theater and will invite me to another press screening! Maybe Feo will be free to come with me next time? I may just buy a ticket the minute I have the opportunity. I don’t think I can wait. I'll let you know when my review finally makes it up at Feoamante.com!
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