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[movie review]
What Is It? A film by Crispin Hellion Glover
Review by Suicide Girl Jaime Dunkle
“Being the adventure of a young man whose principal interests are snails, salt, a pipe, and how to get home. As told through the eyes of an hubristic, racist monarchy.”
What is it? It is not a film about retards, Nazism, violence, sexual perversity or cruelty against snails. However, all of these things play a role in the grand scheme of life.
Perhaps Shirley Temple has been exalted to the status of goddess and with her sadomasochistic tendencies she reigns supreme in bizarre world of juxtaposed symbolism.
Could it be a glimpse into the creator’s own soliloquizing psyche? “Who am I? I know who I am. I am me.” Yet the me that is also the I has many facets. They are portrayed through the characters that are truly special, unlike the minstrel (Adam Parfrey, Feral House). The minstrel wants to be special so desperately that he habitually injects himself with the essence of specialness, which seems to come from snails. Will he ever become special? What will Shirley have to say? Will he face a trial? Do snails possess the key to specialness?
The young man (Michael Blevis) loves snails and he knows that salt kills them. Therefore, could it be a reflection of the inevitable commingling of love and hate?
Whatever it is, it has a dreamlike quality to it. In the outer sanctum, dueling demi-god auteur and the young man’s uber ego (Steven C. Stewart) is curled up naked in a gigantic oyster shell. Sometimes he squirms and sometimes a girl is playing with his worm, if you know what I mean. Naked, zoomorphic “monkey” women run about in a seemingly dutiful manner, usually carrying watermelons, going in and out of pits in the ground. Within the inner sanctum, dueling demi-god auteur and the young man’s inner psyche (Crispin Hellion Glover) wears a human skin coat to keep himself comfortable. He is seated in between his two concubines. He favors one more than the other. She (Kelly Swiderski) confesses that his coat turns her on. There is a puppet show. The puppets characteristics are disobedient and maniacal, yet they appear harmless.
What is it? It is a surrealistic film that utilizes paradoxical symbolism, invoking discomfort through the use of controversial images and sounds, that is to be interpreted solely by the viewer.
Stay tuned for It Is Fine…Everything Is Fine (written by Steven C. Stewart) and It Is Mine. JD