The Brown Bunny

I was going to include this in my 5 for the week but I feel that perhaps it deserves it's own posting.

I have become increasingly mesmerized by this minimalist film movement. I found both Gus Van Sant's ventures engrossing, Gerry and Elephant. These films where able to tell an entire story with what was not said. The space between the action became as important as the action itself. Now with Brown Bunny, Gallo has taken this style of filmmaking to the limit.

The film spends the first hour in the van with Gallo but instead a romanticised road film, we get a very different journey. He could have chosen to take this trip in an old convertible, stopping at the greasy spoons along the way and experiencing Americana. Instead, he takes his ugly black van, down the highway and stops at only a few rest stops and gas stations where we see only corporate logos and brand names. I think this put more focus on Gallo as the troubled hero, because we are allowed to almost disregard the backgrounds entirely. We put our focus on the people he meets and not the places he chooses to stop. Through this we get a clearer view of what is really troubling him.

The exception to this is his stop in the salt flats, which was the laughable scene at Cannes, with his driving away and finally driving back. I'm not sure how this played at Cannes, but the shorten version, where he simply disappears is a very beautiful and deep moment of the film. It caps off the lonely road trip prepares you for the next chapter of the film.

I'd have to say that I have only one complaint at this point of the film, when Gallo finally arrives in LA I felt almost let down. I wanted a little more of those driving shots earlier in the film. I'm not sure what got cut from the film, perhaps it's all junk, but I could have used a couple more minutes added to the driving shots between the stops. I felt a little to refreshed still, and I think that maybe another ten minutes of driving would have put me in an even deeper trance.

Now I won't spoil the ending for those who have not seen it, because I think that the surprise is a big part of the finale. But I do have to say that I disagree with a lot of the reviews I have read about the film. No one, in my mind, seemed to understand the purpose of the blow-job scene. It's graphic and violent and awful and it is the reason the end works so well. And the ending made the entire movie work. I'll compare the ending to In The Company Of Men where the entire film builds up the scene where Aaron Eckhart is chatting with the deaf girl and just can't keep it together any longer and burst out laughing in her face. That moment is hilarious and powerful. The ending of the Brown Bunny is the opposite in tone but the same feelings of shock and disgust. And instead of laughing, I cried. I cried until the credits rolled. It's climax is such a horrid yet true scene from life, it makes the entire film work and makes every scene necessary.