Customer Reviews

Who Is Bozo Texino? The Secret History of Hobo Graffiti

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3 star:		(1)
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As someone who loves trains and graffiti, and has always been captivated by hobo monikers, watching this beautiful film was like seeing folk tales come to life. Watching those weathered hands reach up and draw the monikers that are so very familiar to me was nothing short of amazing. For as long as I've been watching trains I've been curious about the people behind those wax pencil images so even the title of the movie resonated with me. I have also wondered about Bozo Texino. . .and the Colossus of Roads and Herby and The Rambler and the Whistle Blower and Coaltrain and on and on and on. So many monikers that I've seen so very many times. I gasped each time a different character was drawn out right before my eyes. It just seemed too good to be true. It was almost magical to hear their voices and see those very people talking about their lives and the trains, so many trains. For one hour I was given a spot to sit inside a boxcar and treated to a glimpse of something that is uniquely american without being the least bit jingoistic. It's a whole different world from that which most of us are accustomed to and, with modernization and what some would call progress, it is changing all the time. I think this film is also a love letter to an age that has not yet passed away, but certainly isn't what it once was and the future of which is always uncertain. . .

Bill Daniel's hellbent for leather railroad flick is not just a breathtaking excursion into the unknown territory just outside of every town where boxcars hurtle and the civilized hum of a compliant citizenry is silenced by the howl of steel rails & the diesel driven percussion of the driving wheels. It is a flat- out adventure picture seemingly informed by a shaman's appreciation of gorgeous natural light and the sublime mysteries it can reveal . Mr. Daniel has invented a sort of filmic sweat lodge - in - motion and once inside we discover a cryptic real life dreamworld peopled by almost unimaginable "others" , an astonishing array of articulate & hardy souls who stubbornly refuse to trade their self respect for any of the consolation prizes the rest of us are well known to settle for.

It's not what's being scrawled on the sides of these trains , but the story of who's doing it that offers a contemporary answer to those rude 20th century questions, " Who is in those boxcars, anyway ? Where are they going ?" and even " How were we supposed to know anything about it ? "

Not too long ago or far away, most respectable folks insisted they never knew , of course , that anybody was on those damned boxcars, meaning the ones forcibly shipping millions of their lately disappeared neighbors off to death camps away from the hustle and bustle of ordinary life in the system they called normal. Well, fast forward to now, and son of a gun if we don't have a rough & tumble smattering of fellow humans seeking out full time living on fast moving railroad boxcars as a sanctuary ... a hard bouncing , freezing- assed , solitary last ditch way to stay out of the spirit killing clutches of the system we up- to- date Homeland dwellers call normal, too.

By the way, Bill Daniel has film chops like the late Robert Johnson had guitar chops. One of a kind. Lyrically lights up every bit of the terrain , never wastes a single lick, and tells a wicked story all the way down the line.

Bill Daniels' ode to the legend of boxcar moniker Bozo Texino is a mesmerizing picture poem of freight trains and people who have used them as canvases for their not-so-secret art.

This little film could define "quirky"! Having an interest in the vanishing American hobo culture, I really liked it. Hobo graffiti was around long before delinquents started defacing every train car in sight with spray bombs, and was a lot more attractive and interesting. The quest to identify the mysterious "Bozo Texino" does a nice job of illustrating and recording this nearly-dead language for those with an interest in Americana.

There's something about this documentary that is very entertaining and a perfect example of independent filmmaking. At 55 minutes or so and a mixture of b/w 8mm and 16mm film, "Who Is Bozo Texino" is a trip back in time... when hobos rode the rails to escape society and worked their way from city to city. Those times are gone... hobos are now mostly tramps and bums (you'll learn the difference in the movie) mixed with criminals and crazies. The graffiti that was once added to train cars (with chalk and crayon, not spray paint like inner city graffiti) was a personal statement... a way to send one's personality across the country via the trains. The subject of the film may not seem exciting, but believe me, this documentary is engaging. It's about the decline of the West, of our quirky, independent American spirit and of a time when riding the rails wasn't a dangerous occupation. Best of all, if you're a fan of Thomas Pynchon and have read "The Crying of Lot 49" you'll see a lot of similarities between hobo graffiti and Pynchon's underground mail system, the Trystero with its own graffiti symbol, the horn. If you like experimental, independent filmmaking, you'll love this movie. Oh, I almost forgot, the music is wonderful... a mixture of Pete Seeger, Irish folk music, the blues and Springsteen's "Tom Joad."

When it arrived in rather dubious packaging, I hoped it would live up to the expectations I had set, and "Who is Bozo Texino" does deliver in many satisfying ways. Sadly, however, it left me wanting so much more. The visceral images make promises that the narrative (for some mysterious reason) does not keep, but the film itself does leave an imporession. A ramshackle "Style Wars" set in a more primitive time. I had hoped to see a little more of the Hobo lifestyle that accompanies these lucid markings, and with Richard Linklater's help (or at least enough support to warrant a special thanks credit), I don't see why the film had to be cut so short. Please Mr. Daniel, give us more.