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I bet Andrew Bujalski is sick of
reading that he’s the voice of his generation,
when most of that neo-slacker demographic has never
had the opportunity to see his films. Bujalski’s
debut feature, Funny Ha Ha, had a three-year
festival wind-up to a privately financed 35mm theatrical
release this past spring. It’s now available
on a Wellspring DVD with a hilarious commentary track
by Bujalski that makes it a must-purchase, even for
those who’ve seen
the film multiple times. (Bujalski’s fans, this
critic included, are nothing if not ardent.) Now it
seems that the 26-year-old filmmaker may have no choice
but to reprise Funny Ha Ha’s slow route
to a theater not necessarily near you with his similarly
seductive second feature, Mutual
Appreciation. But
if I were a member of that nearly extinct species known
as “indie distributor,” I’d
note the facts that Funny Ha Ha’s frugal
release did indeed turn a profit and that the critical
attention Bujalski garnered, including an IFP Spirit
Award, is bankable.
Like Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation is hardly your standard
Amerindie (most of which, by the way, are box-office losers). For one thing,
it’s shot on 16mm black-and-white, thus confirming Bujalski’s allegiance
to a strain of maverick films—Shadows, Stranger
than Paradise, Clerks—that
bring poignantly accurate renditions of subcultures of which their directors
have intimate knowledge to otherwise homogenized screens. While Cassavetes is
the most obvious influence, one might also regard Funny
Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciationas Rohmer without subtitles. Both
films are “moral tales” whose characters leap
to language as offense and defense. In Mutual Appreciation, Alan, an
aspiring alt-rocker, arrives in Williamsburg with nothing more than the promise
of a gig at Northsix. Exchanging the enchanting Marnie of Funny Ha
Ha for the scruffy,
less formed Alan allows Bujalski to darken these further adventures in the liminal
zone between college and adulthood with a subterranean castration anxiety. Alan
ventures down a couple of weird New York rabbit holes in addition to disrupting
the relationship between his old college pal and the pal’s girlfriend. The unvarnished
actors, including Bujalski as the pal who’s unsure of whether heís being
betrayed or not, could not be better.
Sales Agent: houston_king@hotmail.com (323-850-2757)
© 2005 by Amy Taubin
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