The Long Riders

The Long Riders
Directed by: Walter Hill
USA, 1980
Western, 96 min
Distributed by: Studio S

If I was ever told to pick out five Westerns of all time to watch for the rest of my life, I’d have a hard time deciding what the two Italian Spaghetti Western’s would be, but I’d without a moment of hesitation stick Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch 1969, Alex Cox's Straight to Hell 1987 and Walter Hill’s The Long Riders 1980 in that bag to go.

A band of outlaws take to the hills after a bank robbery goes haywire. Taking time to heal wounds obtained, the members go about their ordinary lives giving the movie time to set up characters and traits. Following a heist against the Union Pacific Railroad, the law starts pursuing the riders, leaving a tragic trail of death and destruction in their path – and they are supposed to be the “good guys”. Regrouping after a few months on the run, the James-Younger gang venture further away from home than ever, and Pinkerton is close on their heels. Nerves are tense and as any classic Western structure the movie comes to a culmination with a ferocious final standoff with a nihilistic outcome.

The Long Riders is a underestimated modern classic. It really needs to be re discovered and praised as the masterpiece that Walter Hill created. Sure The Warriors 1979, Southern Comfort 1981 and Last Man Standing 1996 are classics, but as far as I’m concerned The Long Riders is the peak of Hill’s career and is one hell of a superb piece of craftsmanship. It’s definitely not another typical American western gloating in their glory, but a dark and cynical movie that manipulates it’s audience in some magnificent ways.

The Long Riders establishes character values through the initial heist; Jesse James kicks Ed Miller out of the gang for shooting innocent bystanders. There will be no blood spilt consciously by his gang. It’s also Jesse who stays away from the whorehouse and spends his time with his fiancé, Zee [Savannah Smith] who he marries earlier on in the movie. This all set’s up Jesse as a “good” character. ON the other side of the gangs infrastructure there’s Cole Younger. Cole seldom hesitates to engage in a fight or pull his sixshooter from his holster, even if it merely is to mark a warning. Cole’s relationship with Belle Starr [Pamela Reed] ,who he constantly points out is a whore, establishes the difference between the men when it comes to relationships. James has a fiancé who he later marries and starts a family with – good old fashion values. Cole’s abusive relationship with Belle continues throughout the movie, and leads to him duelling Belle’s husband, Sam Starr [James Remar from Hill's previous movie The Warriors 1979, and Michael C. Hall’s Dad in the tv show Dexter.], in a knife fight which once again shows that Cole, despite being a favourable character still plays dirty. Cole is a violent man, and he’s got nothing against bedding whores and other men’s wives. But even Cole redeems himself in the climax when he returns into enemy fire to rescue a fallen family member and later won’t reveal where the James brothers are hiding out. Despite his negative ways, he still holds positive values close at heart when it comes to the gang.

One of the fascinating effects that the skilful presentation of these likeable characters outside the law gives is that we tend to sympathise with them and feel empathy though the tragic events that happen to their family. Through showing the lethal errors of the Pinkerton Law Officials our primal urge for revenge enhances our empathy for the members of the gang. We want them to make it through even though history can’t be altered – unless you are Quentin Tarantino and want a magnificent twist to your second world war epos – and when Mother James asks her son’s “are you gonna make them pay” you will cheer on violent death for the responsible party. This also manipulates us into a mode where we show no sympathy at all for the law - the audience now become part of the outlaw band.

A while back I went on about how actors’ back-catalogue brought to the characters of the movie. Hill goes a step further and in a unique movie I can’t reacall from any other movie, casts real brothers as the brothers who make up the gang. There’s the Quaid brothers Dennis and Randy as the Miller’s, the Carradine brothers Robert, Keith and David as the Younger’s, and the Keach brothers James and Stacey as the infamous Frank and Jesse James. Hills choice of casting is phenomenal and there’s not a weak link in the chain at any time.

Supporting cast is also of significance to the movie’s narrative and plot. Yet another pair of brothers that play an important part in the movie, comedian Christopher Guest and his brother Nicholas play the bringers of death Bob and Charlie Ford. If you know the song, you know the outcome. The Ford brothers are often presented as somewhat hang around characters, and also often met quite nonchalantly by the gang. The Fords want to be a part of the gang, most likely, as it’s a fast road to infamy and wealth. It’s the same drive that leads them to that final moment, which also lead to them becoming immortalised in Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s 1924 folksong “Jesse James” – which the brilliant Pogues covered on their Rum Sodomy & the Lash 1985. It’s also rather ironic that when the gang decide to make their final heist, Jesse James brings in men from outside their clique - Bill Chadwell and Charley Pitt. If he had chosen the Ford brothers his life may have ended in a completely different manner.

The outcast Ed Miller [Dennis Quaid] acts as an agitator towards the gang and returns though subplots on many occasions to emotionally and physically taunt the riders, although he vanishes from the movie after rejecting to expose their hide out.

After the first act is dedicated to setting up the members of the outlaw band – our protagonists, the second act presents the antagonist through Pinkerton and Union Pacific Railroad who set a bounty on the band of outlaws. In the same scene we understand how popular the outlaws are when journalist Carl Reddick [Felice Orlandi] asks Pinkerton agent Rixley [James Whitmore Jr.] what he thinks his chances are of bringing them in. The subtext is superb, Redick knows that the people look at the James younger gang as heroes, and as long as they are at large, Redick has enough stories to tell to sell newspaper. It’s also Reddicks task to report to the audience the status of the hunt and inform us of time passed. He does this by opening his scenes with lines like “Sir, we met a few months back” and the public opinion is clarified when Rixley accuses Reddick of printing lies to make the people look at the gang as a modern Robin Hood.

The third act takes it’s start as the gang regroup to plan that one last heist, the square head - lingo for Swede - bank in Northfield, Minnesota. Unchartered turf for the group, and a town full of citizens warned by Pinkerton that the gang may be coming… Tension builds and judgement is fogged by the anxiety, leading the gang right into a posse of gun toting angry Swedish descendants. Despite the Swedish language gags, well they are not really gags, but if you speak Swedish they come off as humerous moments. If you don’t speak Swedish it’s fair to guess that it would sound like some unaudiable jargon. It’s a harrowing moment when the glory of life outside the law takes a disturbing turn and justice catches up with our antiheroes.

There’s a great omen foreboding the end of an era as they ride into Northfield. Tension is high, and whilst they stalk out the bank they are startled by a high pitched scream. The scream comes from the whistle of a steam engine driving down the main street – a signifier that modern times are a commin’- move over cowboy.

The Long Riders certainly ends on a sinister down note, and despite us knowing how it’s going to end it’s an effective and emotional last reel the movie unleashes. This is what happens when storytelling is at it’s most potent. We have been drawn into a world of outlaws, men that we shouldn’t identify with, but still chose to do so as they have been presented as empathetic characters.

Telling the story of a band of outlaws that anyone who at one time in life picked up a stick and played cowboys knows everything about is somewhat a tricky mission, as we all know that these guys all ended up in wooden boxes riddled with slugs. But kudos to James and Stacey Keach – who wrote the movie so that they could star in it with their mates, the other bands of brothers! How friggin awesome is that? A movie that tells the genesis story of these great legends and became the first western ever to compete at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival! And we mustn’t forget Walter Hill's contribution to that mix, because what they ended up with is one of the all time greatest American westerns, a movie that still stands up and is a powerful, engaging, a times emotional and magnificent tale of a time when the west was wild and heroes didn’t have to be on the right side of the law.

Image:
1.85:1

Audio:
Dolby Digital Mono. English dialogue with optioal Swedish, Finnish and Danish subtitles.

Extras:
Original theatrical Trailer, Biographies, trivia, poster and image gallery and other Studio S trailers.

...and here's that great Pogues cover!

Countess Dracula

Countess Dracula
Directed by: Peter Sasdy
UK, 1971
Hammer, Gothic
Distributed by: Granada Ventures

In March I was at the World Horror Convention in Brighton – Yes I keep mentioning it all the time but it was a fascinating couple of days amongst the company of some equally fascinating people – anyways, whilst we where sat in one of our many interviews, the media guest of honour arrived and gave a brief Q&A. The guest was of course Ingrid Pitt the iconic legend of Hammer Horror championed only by those two bloke’s Cushing and Lee.

As soon as we completed the interview with Dennis Etchison, I shot off back down the main hall to at least get a few moments in the presence of the screen goddess Pitt. Easy to say that I was not the only person wanting to see her and that room was packed tight with spectators, fans, legendary authors and writers in the making.

I found a spot on the stairwell outside and stuck my head round the door, and even though it was a mere momentary brief glimpse I at least laid my eyes to rest on the queen of the damned, Ingrid Pitt in the flesh, another highlight of that fantastic weekend in Brighton.

Thirty-nine years earlier, Pitt, at the height of her career, having become the new star of the UK studios, Hammer and Amicus gave a performance that may be one of her greatest performances ever in Peter Sasdy’s Countess Dracula.

After Countess Elisabeth Nodosheen [Ingrid Pitt] has laid her recently deceased husband to rest, she sets a foul plan in motion when she accidentally realises that virgin blood rejuvenates her aged skin. Well accident and accident, she smacks one of her maids, Terri [Susan Broderick] in the face with a sharp knife, releasing a splash of blood across her wrinkled face. Despite protests, even if they are pretty weak ones, she goes against her lover Captain Dobi [Nigel Green] and set’s her eyes on new found youth which she plans to spend with Lieutenant Imre Toth [Sandor Elès] – a close friend of her late husband and also the inheritor of his stables to Dobi’s dismay. After murdering the young the now rejuvenated and scantily clad Elisabeth starts to make a move on young stud Toth, but in the heat of the moment she claims to be Ilona – her own daughter! Forcing Dobi to do her dirty work yet again – seductively manipulating him with promises of intimacy later… the things men do for love - she has him ride off with a band of soldiers to intercept the wagon containing her daughter Ilona [Lesley-Anne Down] so that she won’t blow Elisabeth’s stolen identity. They do so and keep her hidden in a cabin in the woods where she spends a lengthy time trying to break free from her makeshift prison.

Needless to say the movie really picks up speed from here on. Elisabeth needs blood to stay young and there’s a series of young women lured up to the castle only to meet their untimely deaths, two of the straight from classic Hammer fetishes: one a young gypsy - Nike Arrighi from Terence Fisher's The Devil Rides Out 1968 - who is part of a larger band of travelling gypsies, and the second, Ziza [Susan Broderick] a harlot right out of the Shepherd’s Inn, a good old Hammer pub that figures in the most of their period pieces work, although there’s no Michael Ripper behind the counter this time. Finally Dobi start’s to become jealous of young Imre who’s getting it off with Elisabeth instead of him. Things get worse when Elisabeth and Toth decide to wed, and the final act is set in motion - Dobi starts to interfere, Illona escapes her captors, Elisabeth’s until now faithful nurse starts to turn against her when Illona turns up live and well despite Elisabeth telling her that she’s died… and Elisabeth bathes in blood – giving Pitt an opportunity to flaunt her birthday suit - as she prepares for her wedding night. You know where this is going to go as there have been one to many close calls where young Elisabeth turns into old Elisabeth in the blink of an eye, and once Illona meets Imre there’s no way that he’ll see the wedding though. The movie takes a baleful and ironic turn as the climax is reached, leaving the film with a very typical dark Hammer ending.

Pitt makes the most of her performance here and it’s an impressive piece of work, because she literally changes everything about her when she moves between the old haggard Countess to the young luscious version of herself. Her posture, her movement and even her looks as she's hidden away under layers of mushy makeup and wig. Unfortunately through, she never got to hear her own voice on the soundtrack as it was dubbed with proper British accent. A damned shame as Pitt’s Polish-English growling is splendid and would have added to character.

There’s no time wasted in establishing the vile ways of the Countess. Even before the title rolls she sizes up Lieutenant Toth as they stand by the side of her husbands grave, and on her way home from the funeral she runs over a farmer who has been promised work by her late husband leaving him to die surrounded by his now indefinitely doomed family. There’s no doubt in mind that this is an evil woman we are dealing with.

There’s a lot of subplots used in Countess Dracula that don’t really lead up to any major effect on the main narrative, like the recurrent questioning of where Terri can be – Terri the maid Elisabeth slew first, and that unspoken rivalry between Dobi and Toth, nor the investigation that Chief Bailiff Captain Balogh [Peter Jeffrey] initiates when the bodies of the drained women are found lead to anything. It’s more filler than anything else, and in many ways a waste of great characters. There is so much more that Lesley-Anne Down and especially Nike Arrighi could have done here, not to mention Peter Jeffrey and Maurice Denham.

Even though Countess Dracula is a pretty decent and very entertaining Hammer film – mostly due to Pitt’s splendid performance – there’s a very obvious feeling frustration and confusion within the movie. At the time Hammer where rapidly loosing ground and quality, resulting in their movies declining popularity. Despite the nudity and quasi-erotic tone that Ingrid Pitt brings to the piece, there’s never really enough to make the movie stand out amongst contemporary pieces. Even the rather conservative British soft core sex comedies of the time where raunchier, even if the Hammer films where trying their damndest to push the envelope. And considering what was going on in other European genre flicks at he time, they really didn’t have a chance to get in on the erotic horror scene at all.

Although on the up side, Countess Dracula is one of the better pieces from this time period, and on of few titles that actually stands on it’s own two legs. Much like the Roy Ward Baker’s The Vampire Lovers 1970 - which also see’s Pitt in multiple roles – it merely uses the Dracula franchise, at the time five of them and three more to come, in name only. Where The Vampire Lovers found it’s inspiration in the writing of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Countess Dracula, with it’s misleading title, is obviously inspired by the legend of Erzsébet Báthory. But it really is missing that iconic moment of naked Countessa immersed in a bath of blood. Instead we get Pitt taking a rather silly sponge bath which kinda works, but is terribly pale compared to stuff like the Báthory segment of Borowczyk’s Immoral Tales 1974 or Harry Kümel’s Daughters of Darkness 1971.

Another thing I feel is missing, is the potent and often fantastic scores of James Bernard. Instead there’s a rather weak score by Harry Robinson, which tries to emulate Bernard’s signature sound without really hitting the mark.

For some odd reason Hammer decided to market Countess Dracula as their first film based on a true story… which is kind of odd as it’s not true, there where previous movies based on authentic legends and secondly it diminishes the magnificent performance Christopher Lee gave in Don Sharp’s Rasputin: The Mad Monk 1966. Then again one can never really understand the complex relationship between Hammer and it’s legendary stars like Lee and Cushing. They often give the impression of being somewhat unsatisfied with the work, but still kept on returning for more on a regular basis. Lee is back with the recently resurrected Hammer for their forthcoming The Resident.

Never the less, Hammer continued churning them out in a pace that obviously left them blind to the fact that where they once where innovators, they where rapidly becoming stagnant and colourless. But if you want to see a splendid swan song to a great cinematic heritage, make sure to set a date with Countess Dracula.

Image:

1.78:1

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono, English dialogue no subtitles.

Extras:

This collectors edition is jam-packed with a lot of goodies such as a thoroughly entertaining Audio Commentary with Kim Newman, Stephen Jones and Ingrid Pitt. News feature on the 50 years of Hammer celebration, and a talk show interview with Ingrid Pitt both from 1999. An episode of Conceptions of Murder (Peter and Maria) starring Nigel Green, an episode of Thriller (Where the Action is) starring Ingrid Pitt and the theatrical trailer for Countess Dracula. There’s also a booklet with essays and articles on the movie and the Bathory legend.

When meetings get boring...

...the mind tends to wander to dark places...

Cool stuff...

...on the net is always a fun way to waste an afternoon at work with.

Jeremy Mincer over at SilverFerox is putting together some neat reworkings of posters for some very iconic movies. I was going to pose the question WHEN we will see his stuff on DVD sleeves in this post... ...when he posted an update on his latest gig for the one and only Mike Baronas over at Paura Productions.

Fate is smiling on Mr. Mincer and I'm still looking forward to seeing his stuff on future DVD's.

If we now could get Baronas to bring a roadshow to Europe...

But until then, get yer' self over to SilverFerox and check out Jeremys artwork, as I totally respect his wish that people don't nick his stuff of his site.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

Original Title:

Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom
Directed by: Ji-woon Kim
South Korea 2008
Western/Action/Adventure, 125min
Distributed by: Njuta Films

Two men sit in a solitary chamber. There’s discussion about a swindle, a map that has been sold is to be taken back. Bounty hunter Park Chang-yi [Byung-hun Lee] smirks at his employer and heads of after disclosing his alternative plan to how the map can be reclaimed from Japanese business man Karemaru [Hang-soo Lee].

Moments later the full power of a steam engine blasts though the frame. The camera moves into the wagon and surprisingly it’s not Park Chang-yi we see but a second bandit raiding the train. Yoon Tae-goo [Kang-ho Song] moves through the wagons blasting soldiers in his way before he bursts into the moving office of Karemaru. With a plan to steal their money Yoon Tae-goo get’s more than he bargains for when Park Chang-yi’s men attempt to stop the train and Yoon by chance discovers the map. A third gunman appears, Park Do-won [Woo-sung Jung] and with an apparent aura of authority surrounding him, he starts to shoot the bandits in Park Chang-yi’s gang, which obviously leaves Yoon Tae-goo in the line of fire. Yoon Tae-goo manages to escape as does Park Chang-yi leaving Park do-won to, just like the other two, ride off in separate directions until their paths cross again – much sooner than they think.

This could have been the opening sequence of any great American or Italian western from the sixties or seventies. But it isn’t, it’s the vibrant and adrenaline inducing presentation of characters in Ji-woon Kim’s magnificent The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

The name being an obvious pun on Sergio Leone’s epic The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - The Good, The Bad, The Weird is more than just a smart play with words, as this movie is by far one of the most impressive modern made westerns of a long, long time. What stands out with the movie is that it’s not just a simple play with the genre, it’s taken the whole characteristics, tone and traits of the western and placed it all in a logic setting that has it feeling like a perfect fitting Stetson hat – a Stetson hat with a definitive taste of bibimbap.

After the very genre fitting opening the action toned movie takes a swerve into adventurous territory as Yoon Tae-goo and his mate Man-gil [Seung-su Ryu] start reading and fantasising what that map is all about. But they are not the only ones after the supposed treasure on the map, as this is why Park Chang-yi – infamous for always getting his man – also is after the map. To complicate it further, as the map has been stolen from the Japanese army, they too want it, and along with that the Manchurian bandits that Yoon Tae-goo and Man-gil once where part of, also want a piece of the action. On top of that there’s Park Do-won who wants’ to capture both Park Chang-yi and Yoon Tae-goo, as they are wanted and their incarceration will bring him a sizeable reward. It’s a complex weave, that spawns several subplots that all come to impact in an outstanding battle towards the end of the movie.

Set in Manchuria during the 1940’s Kim’s movie works solidly off that great genre the Western and their ever fascinating skill for bringing pretty sordid characters to the screen and despite all their flaws and bad doing, having the audience actually taking a liking to even the worst of the characters. That’s exactly what happens here. After a start up segment where the audience label the three characters of the title, the good, the bad and the weird, the movie starts heading into its action adventure mode. Yes there is a sense of the Indiana Jones films , or even Jackie Chan’s Armour of the Gods 1987 invoked, but the film never really get’s as cliff-hangery and fragmented as those movies tend to get. Instead it stays pretty clean and solidly to a “the first man to the X on the map” story, which makes for a more focused and straighter story.

You can’t talk about any spaghetti movie – or Kimchi Western as Kim has referred to his movie as – without talking about glorious gunfights and apocalyptic shootouts. There’s the tour de force of Franco Nero pulling out that Gatling gun and wiping out an entire army in Sergio Corbucci’s Django 1966, there’s the crushing impact of the violent shootouts in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch 1969, and there’s the cynical fun of Enzo Barboni’s My Name is Trinity 1970 - The Good, The Bad, The Weird brings it all, and it’s a very entertaining mix that comes out of the grinder.

There are a lot of things that click to make this movie such a damned fine movie. Amongst them is the casting. I’m of the opinion that to some extent, typecasting is a great tool as it eases the establishment of characters as they bring their catalogue of work with them to the movie. A character who has always been a favourable kind of goody two shoes character will be easier to like, where as he will become much more disturbing if you cast him as an evil character. Just think of someone like Robin Williams in all those quirky good guy roles he’s played and then think of him in Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo 2002 where he’s a complete psycho. William’s back catalogue and the kind of character we are accustomed to seeing him play adds to the tension, because we want Williams to be a good guy and it creeps us out on a deeper more subconscious level when we see him as the sinister Seymour Parrish – a cold blooded psychopath.

Apart from being a who’s who of hot South Korean talent, The Good, The Bad, The Weird uses it’s actors to bring subconscious baggage with them – even if all character positions are to be flipped head over ass in the last act – and it helps the movie in a great way, because you will never see it coming. Casting Woo-sung Jung as the good is fairly obvious as fans of his movies will know that he often plays headstrong and determined good guys in his movies. Just like he did in Sung-su Kim’s blockbuster Musa (The Warrior) 2001. Byung-hun Lee’s enigmatic and scarred character performance in Kim’s previous movie; A Bittersweet Life 2005 brings a enigmatic and scarred edge to his character, and obviously Kang-ho Song’s fantastic performances in Chan-wook Park’s grim and tragic Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 2002, and as the mentally retarded, but still a hero Park Gang-du from Joon-ho Bong’s The Host 2006 help us feel sympathetic to his character from the word go.

After setting up the characters their arcs start to take their journey. It’s a damned fine ride and there is a surprise twist at the end. Staying true to the tone of the movie though, the rightful justice is neglected and the characters that have evolved the most are rewarded instead. Although it is a fitting conclusion as the outcome is determined buy the shifts in character value. HUH? Well yeah, it sounds odd, but take into consideration that the road to redemption is far more effective and motivating than the road to revenge. The road to the climax, and the final reel surprise is told though a healthy dose of effective subplots that deliver back-story and exposition. Sometimes this can harm a movie and make derail off track, but it works like a charm in The Good, The Bad, The Weird.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird showcases some highly impressive talent throughout the production. Characters are fascinating, the cinematography is stunning, the effects and huge set pieces are spectacular and the tempo is impeccable! The action packs a punch right from the start, that train sequence that opens the movie is awesome, and has some great moments, and then as we start to understand the constellation of characters the narrative draws us in. To further enhance the movie, there are some outrageous shootouts that challenge that jaw dropping awe that the eighties Hong Kong action brought with them. The final battle – where the three men, and the Manchurian nomads take on the Japanese army are riveting, and just when you think that it’s coming to an end you still have the climactic standoff to get through and the reveal of the map's secret.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is a movie that easily will appeal to fans of Asian action, Bullet ballets, and good old Westerns with a spicy South Korean taste to it. I never really got the hype around Ji-woon Kim’s A Tale of Two Sisters 2003, as it always felt to me as a so-so movie and not really as good as others made a the same time. But I really liked his entry into the first Three series – Memories 2002, and A Bittersweet Life is mind blowing. So The Good, The Bad, The Weird comes as a pleasant surprise. It’s of the lighter nature than his previous pieces, and is without any exaggeration a d fantastic action adventure movie that you should make sure to check it out, because it is a magnificent movie.

Image:
2:35.1 Anamorphic Widescreen


Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1, or Dolby Digital dts. Korean, Chinese and Japanese dialogue, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian or Danish subtitles are optional

Extras:
NjutaFilms trailershow.

The Good, The Bad, The Weird is also available on BluRay from NjutaFilms too!

Really damned cool contest...

...goin' on over att Amy from Brighton's hysterically fun site CRAP VIDEO ARTWORK.

Wonder if Amy was at the WorldHorrorConvention a few months ago when it hit Brighton?

Firecracker

Firecracker

Directed by: Steve Balderson

USA, 2005

Independant/Thriller/Drama, 112min

Distributed by: Njuta Films

This is one of those movies that you will want to see, or wait - need to see, if you like the oddish stuff that walks the thin line between classical film and abstract strangeness. Steve Balderson, writer, editor, producer and director of Firecracker brings some great images, themes and ambience to his movie that is reminiscent of Lynch, Argento, Jodorowsky, The Coen Bros, Hitchcock and film noir classics. This is a movie I know I’m going to be going back to more than once in the years to come.

Set in a 50-60’s Kansas, Firecracker tells the story of a frail and delicate family with some severe issues that definitely make them the antithesis of the nuclear family. Two brothers, soft mannered, tender Jimmy [Jak Kendall] and his rough guy blue-collar brother David [Mike Patton] both live at home with their religious mother Eleanor [Karen Black] and their elderly father.

When a carnival sets up their tents in town, as they do once a year, Jimmy is drawn into the vibrant world of the carnivals girly show, where the beautiful Sandra [Black again in a double role] sings her songs and seduces the men. Jimmy is taken in by her beauty and sees her as a way to escape the torment of living in a house with a fanatically religious parent, and a very menacing and abusive older brother. The carnival goons notice Jimmy peeking into the tent and send him on his way. Later that night we learn that even David, Jimmy’s much older brother, had a night of pleasure with Sandra the previous year which resulted in a child, a child which Sandra’s horrifically jealous partner Frank [Patton in his second role of the movie] had some severe issues with. This is the introduction to the character gallery - five characters played by three actors that give some fantastic performances.

This all leads up to creating an intriguing, mysterious and captivating drama/thriller that uses the missing man mystery as its core. Town sheriff Ed [Susan Traylor] starts looking into the missing person case and it’s all setting up a pretty traumatic ride. And for once here’s an independent movie with that uses all of it’s subplots without a couple of them becoming filler along the way. I really hate when that happens and movies that end up with subplots not reaching the main narrative or climaxing in their own way.

Firecracker is a capsule of the atmosphere found in some brilliant and innovative movies like Victor Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz 1939, Tod Browning’s Freaks 1932 and the early works of David Lynch, especially the haunting audio ambience of Eraserhead and blends it into a unique cocktail that certainly is unlike any other movie out there. Add some provocative themes of anal rape, incest, genital mutilation, crowbar abortions, forced prostitution, murder, and burlesque dancing performed by archetypal carnival folk to that and you have some fantastic stuff on display.

Shot on Super 35, Firecracker showcases some marvellous cinematography by Jonah Torreano and shifts between black and white to colour and back again as the various threads and plots move towards the climax of the movie. The black and white is what we can refer to as the ordinary world where the main narrative takes place and the colour is what we can call the imaginary world, or perhaps even the alternative real into which the people of the ordinary world want to become part of, a place where dreams can come true. But even in the colourful sphere of the carnival world there’s terrifying reality hidden behind the facade of the bright colours. You could say a pleasant place to visit, but a nightmare of wickedness and betrayal to those within. There’s also a neat supernatural element in the movie with Pearl [Balderson’s sister Brooke Balderson], the puzzling woman who lives under the tree between the two worlds, another subplot that is significant to bringing the movie to its culmination.

The shift in colour/black and white also brings layers to the subplots. Eventually the “dream world” is shattered as the ordinary world catches up with the characters. It’s also precisely when the subplots come to their climaxes and connect with the main narrative and the colour schemes are flipped over to the opposite realms.

I’ve always said that a movie can get by just fine without a bombastic score telling it’s audience that “this is the shock moment coming up” or “it’s really exciting now”, if the director is telling his story in the right way. Firecracker holds one of those splendid moments where there’s a vibrant moment of suspense, and instead of bashing away with a score, Balderson uses the one key item in that scene that can bring it all crashing to the ground, the creaking sound of a washing line. It’s a fantastic example of how less is more in the best way.

Based on a true story – which it is, it’s not a cunning device to lure us in, but for real - Firecracker makes for a fascinating story, that instantly draws the viewer in through the use of a slow motion opening sequence that drops just enough plot to awaken that important initial spark of curiosity that is needed to sweep us up off our asses and into the story. At one time Balderson had several big star names onboard for his movies, but fate had other cards up its sleeve for him. After loosing people like Dennis Hopper, Debbie Harry and Edward Furlong as well as an offer to hand the movie to Gus Van Sant, Balderson took the bold, but definitely right decision to walk away from Hollywood’s razzle and dazzle and made the movie independently on his own Kansas turf, with his closest family in key positions. This was a great move, because the movie with out any doubts reflects the vision Balderson had in his head. There’s no compromising with the material or themes and it shows, because there’s not really anything that feels out of place in the movie. Also by turning his back on Hollyweird, Balderson ended up with a fresh and magnificent cast that definitely are one of the key ingredients to making this movie what it is.

There are some actors in here that lift this flick high above good performances and into award winning performances not to be missed. I have to mention Mike Patton’s part first because playing dual roles the first time you participate in a feature movie is a ballsy move. Even though his two roles are pretty close in character, he still manages to make them differ from each other. Where David is menacing, Frank is terrifying and Patton makes it work. I’m not sure but I get the feeling that all Frank’s dialogue is out of sync, which brings a really creepy effect to his scenes.

Jak Kendall is superb as the love sick, confused and guilt ridden Jimmy. He brings a vibe of James Dean, Chet Baker and that melancholic innocence of the fifties to the part. Susan Traylor is awesome as Sheriff Ed and each scene she is in is movie magic. I’d easily watch a spin off movie about that character, because there’ something fascinating about this small town sheriff who only has one gun in her department.

But the crown jewel of the movie is undoubtedly Karen Black. Black completely owns this movie completely. For me she’s always been the star of Dan Curtis Trilogy of Terror 1975 and Jack Nicholson’s object of hatred in Rafelson’s Five Easy Pieces 1970, but from now on I’m always going to be thinking of her as the shining star of Firecracker. The contrast between her parts could easily have been two completely different actors, but it ain’t, it’s Black giving what might be the best performances of her whole career. The burlesque singer Sandra has an aura of faded flamboyancy to her character. She comes of as a strong character to start with, but progressively we learn that she’s a scarred, damaged woman who finds strength in Jimmy’s naïveté. Eleanor is frail and guilt ridden for several reasons, one being giving birth to that second child Jimmy so late in life. She's a complex character who is difficult to ignore when watching. On one side she is terribly empathetic, and on the same side feel her cracking at the seams and loosing it all. When she momentarily looses her faith and ignores the ritualistic grace before dinner, you can literally hear her world come crashing down around her. It’s a spellbinding performance that deserves more attention than the few festival awards that she got for her part.

This is a fantastic movie that comes with the most sincere recommendation. Balderson’s Firecracker really impressed me in many ways, and I’m definitely going to hunt down his later movies to see how he followed this masterpiece of independent cinema.

Image:

Anamorphic Widescreen [aspect ratio 2.35:1]

Audio:

Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. English dialogue with optional Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian or Danish subtitles.

Extras:

It’s actually wrong to call the second disc on this NjutaFilms release an extra feature, because it contains the full documentary WAMEGO that tells the story of how the movie came to be and how the journey was completed. There’s a commentary track with Balderson, and a bunch of deleted scenes and outtakes. Finally there’s the Njuta Films trailer reel that once again shows the versatility of this great company.