a sour experiment; not a good introduction to Hartley I'd figure
I say 'I'd figure' in that line because, frankly, I've not seen a Hal Hartley movie until now. It's not that I haven't heard of him though, as he was seen as one of those small NY filmmakers (when I say small I mean even smaller than Jim Jarmusch), who made ultra-personal projects on limited budgets. In an ironic way, much as with Pasolini's Salo, though in a slightly different context, Fay Grim interests me to see some of Hartley's more acclaimed features, because there seems to be at least present some semblance of talent behind it, as if Hartley *could* be a very good filmmaker who may be so good he's just taken a big experimental blunder. Or, on the other hand, he could just be someone far too impressed with his own idiosyncrasies and would-be Godard-like cinematic collisions.I can't quite explain the story, which may or may not be a problem I suppose, however it's not really in due to not having seen the film that preceded Fay Grim, Henry Fool. I think even if I had that experience it wouldn't make too much of a difference based on the final results. There's a lot of international espionage, a double plot wrapped inside of another that's fallen through the fake pockets of the title character, played in an aloof way by Parker Posey (not sure if that's good or bad either, maybe both), and also involving a CIA operative (Jeff Goldblum, as usual a solid presence amid the mania, even conjuring some laughs), not to mention an orgy-laden picture box, and author Henry Fool. It's not that the script is totally impenetrable, however much it goes into over-extended loopholes just for the sake of it, because there are some touches of witty or affectingly strange dialog.
Quite simply, the direction just sucks. Harltey is in love with the Third Man, which is fine, but he imposes a consistently headache inducing style of everything being tilted in angle, with characters having to get into frame equally oddly. Not since Battlefield Earth, in fact, has a director come off so annoyingly in trying to make the unnecessary choice of titled angles for some bizarre dramatic effect, only this time Hartley isn't amid a cluster-f***, he's mostly responsible for it. This, along with the crazy wannabe Godard title-cards that pop in here and there, some a little amusing and some just totally stupid, and the montage segments all in still shots, AND a couple of moments involving action that almost call to mind Ed Wood, undermine any of the potential that is in the script, which is already fairly hard to decipher. In a way, it's fascinating to watch how bad this all goes, but a kind of fascination that comes in seeing the flip-side to total creative control on a sort-of small-scale story.
But let it be known: you'll likely not come across a more wretchedly pretentious example of American independent film-making this year.
score 4/10
Quinoa1984 7 July 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1688834/34815
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