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Review

Vincent Gallo's sophomore feature is a quiet, languid succession of landscapes and facial topography that quickly became one of the most notorious competitors at the Cannes Film Festival. To say the least, it is a divisive work, but between its titillating ad campaign, rumors of its director casting black magic upon a volatile film critic, and endless tribulations in achieving its final cut, the film has drawn in a modest audience simply by creating a curious mythology about itself. The finished product is, however, much greater than any hype would suggest. It is a sometimes goofy and disarmingly intimate diary-poem, uncommonly sensitive and sincere, and its precise, almost avant-garde compositions recall the visual sensibilities of Godard and Antonioni. The Brown Bunny truly feels like a new breed of American cinema — an essential film maudit — yet its narrative could not be simpler: Bud Clay (Gallo) hauls his motorcycle in a van and sets off across a surrealist terrain of chalk-white deserts. He meets a series of women all named after flowers. He reunites with the love of his life. Secrets are shared. The film ends.

Shamefully, Gallo and his film have been widely disparaged as self-indulgent, laughable, immature. Indeed, on a first viewing, several details in The Brown Bunny read as somewhat infantile. However, during its legendary motel-room climax (set to a startling effect against bare white walls) it becomes clear that this is the work of a director who knows exactly what he is doing and who is (for better or worse) happy to expose himself — body and soul — for his art. His film is a painful and resonant plunge into his own wounded psyche, a minimalist story about a young man in a deluded dream-state trying desperately to recover his lost romanticism.

 -- Mark Thiedeman