\u201cThe Anna Cabrini Chronicles\u201d (Polymorph Productions)<\/p>\n
Review by Kent Manthie<\/p>\n
From the mind of Tawd b. Dorenfeld, comes \u201cThe Anna Cabrini Chronicles\u201d, a very outr\u00e9 work. It\u2019s got everything an art-house flick needs: cool editing, fragmented and dissociated camera work, trippy animation and graphic scenes of violence, self-mutilation and suicide.
\n Writer\/director\/animator, Dorenfeld weaves together, in 148 minutes, three different
\nvignettes, all connected by the fact that they committed suicide and before snuffing it, had all been given, months or weeks earlier, a Dictaphone and notebooks with which to record all their thoughts and ideas, hopes, fears, et cetera.
\n So as Anna is reflecting one day, she picks through some of the recorded microcassettes and then, one by one, we get to peek in on these shattered lives as they reveal themselves and all the demons that invaded their consciousness.
\n First we meet Brooke, a cheerleader manqu\u00e9 with a bad back and emotional problems who has a rough time adjusting to life and dealing with her mom. She desperately tries to get out of this world, to shuffle off this mortal coil, to coin a phrase\u2026
\n Next is Jonathan, a very messed-up person; self-loathing homosexual with paranoia and very suicidal and self-mutilating: he likes to cut himself with razor blades and ends up shooting himself in the end.
\n Lastly we meet 12 year-old Merrick Young, a Cuban-American who is growing up in a terribly dysfunctional household, with a father from hell \u2013 a big, dumb meathead who treats everyone in his immediate radius like shit: his son, his wife, his neighbors, his son\u2019s friends, you get the picture: a real jerk; the kind of father who drives his kids to desperate, crazy things.
\n The whole thing seems like a documentary, albeit a psychically charged headtrip, in that these people, as messed up as they were, are representative of lots of realities \u2013 just look around you sometime; really pay attention.
\n Anyway, there is a great, great score by Trey Spruance, who\u2019s done some freaking out with John Zorn, Mr. Bungle and other \u201cexperimental\u201d bands and artists. You know the type. The wild fits and starts nicely punctuate the creepiness, the anger, the desperation \u2013 all the things that are portrayed with wrenchingly realism, so hurrah for picking Mr. Spruance to score the film.
\n There is some interesting animation, but it\u2019s mostly toward the first half of this 2 _ hour epic freak-out. It is the kind of pen and paper drawing animation: the graphic sketches morphing into eerie monsters with bug-eyes and then contorting into a human form, then into someone else, then into maybe some inanimate object, ad nauseum. The animation, done by the director, Tawd b. Dorenfeld, is slightly reminiscent of some of the wicked claymation work in the 1979 Frank Zappa flick, \u201cBaby Snakes\u201d. I think this would be a mind-blower on a big silver screen of a movie theater, but good luck finding a place (except for maybe the Roxie theater in SF) to show or distribute it! America isn\u2019t ready for this kind of highbrow stuff (yet) but just wait a few years\u2026this will seem tame! For more information on the director, the film, the music, or whatever, check out this website: http:\/\/www.polymorphproductions.com \u2013 KM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe Anna Cabrini Chronicles\u201d (Polymorph Productions) Review by Kent Manthie From the mind of Tawd b. Dorenfeld, comes \u201cThe Anna Cabrini Chronicles\u201d, a very outr\u00e9 work. It\u2019s got everything an art-house flick needs: cool editing, fragmented and dissociated camera work, trippy animation and graphic scenes of violence, self-mutilation and suicide. Writer\/director\/animator, Dorenfeld weaves together, in 148 minutes, three different vignettes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[474],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-the-anna-cabrini-chronicles-movie-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":246,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2007\/02\/21\/primus-the-anna-cabrini-chronicles-say-anything-music-and-dvd-reviews-by-katrina-clayton\/","url_meta":{"origin":196,"position":0},"title":"Primus, The Anna Cabrini Chronicles, Say Anything music and DVD reviews by Katrina Clayton","author":"admin","date":"February 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"music and DVD reviews by Katrina Clayton Primus Blame It on The Fish, subtitled An Abstract Look at the 2003 Primus Tour De Fromage DVD This DVD is not a typical concert film. \"Blame It On the Fish\" took years in the making. 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