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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I Loved It. I Hated It. I Loved It. 90 out of 100, August 16, 2006
This review is from: The Brown Bunny (DVD)
There is a lot about the Brown Bunny that didn't make sense, but in the end I found myself haunted by it. I find it rather ironic, that Bud Clay loved Daisy despite the fact that she didn't make sense, and in the end he was haunted by her.
In any case, the Brown Bunny is a film about a motorcycle racer who travels across country for his next race which happens to be in California, near where the love of his life, Daisy, lives. There is little more I can say about the film without giving away spoilers, for this is a film with a minimalist plot. Bud does meet some women across the way; women he is attracted to, yet, who are not Daisy.
Many say that the Brown Bunny is junk, but it did a lot for me. Here goes...
First, the scenes with Bud and the woman were some of the best man - woman interaction I have seen on film. With little to no words, I felt myself attracted to them. Gallo does a marvelous job of using the camera to convey attraction. Despite the quirkiness of the 3 flowers, Rose, Lilly and Violet, I found myself oddly attracted to them. This was due to the filmmaker and the acting between Gallo and said actresses. In these 3 minimalistic scenes, Gallo shows us everything that can be good about film romance, and everything that Hollywood is missing. Call it a lesson on chemistry, if you will.
Second, the film felt familiar. It felt like my journey, and a journey I have taken. The journey built up suspense as to what Bud was up too, and in the end delivered. But more than that, the journey is familiar because each of us (or most of us) have had those confusing days where a relationship has wavered and we are trying to figure life out. Bud's journey is our journey, and the Brown Bunny, despite using little words, conveys that well. Those who have never had a dysfunctional or soul mate-gone-wrong relationship might think this point is silly.
Third, the acting was brilliant. The immersion, off the scale. The intangibles were huge. Often the camera seemed to say a thousand words when the dialog said little. The silence spoke volumes. Sunsets, scenery and sadness.
Lastly, I walked away from the film thinking and feeling. It made me think about love, and live, and those I have yearned for but lost. I went to bed a ball of mixed emotions. Few films do this.
In the end, Brown Bunny is minimalistic with little dialog, but it is a movie well worth seeing. It makes you think, makes you feel, makes you wonder, and leaves glad you watched the film, for better or for worse. Just like Bud Clay.
I loved it. I hated it. I loved it. If you don't understand dysfunction, Bud Clay, or the movie, you won't understand why I say this.
Total Score (out of 100) = 90
47 (out of 50). Enjoyment. A rating based on my overall enjoyment of the film.
10 (out of 10). Acting. How good was the acting?
10 (out of 10). Immersion. Did the movie suck me into the story?
10 (out of 10). Intangibles. Special effects. Movie pace. Is the movie forgettable, or something you will talk about and remember for weeks? Years?
10 (out of 10). Must see. Is this movie worth seeing/renting?
3 (out of 10). Must buy. Is this movie a must buy/purchase?
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27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An introspective film, July 2, 2006
This review is from: The Brown Bunny (DVD)
Since this movie is known most for the controversy, I am going to start and finish with it to reflect people's habit of starting and ending their impressions of something with a scene out of context. It wasn't porn, and my argument for that comes completely from the context... what happens directly before and after that moment. Basically, people have been angry at Gallo for being self-involved in this movie, especially that scene, but during that scene the self-involvement is literally the point. It's masturbatory, but the key is that it drains him, just like masturbation. One thing the DVD box says about it is that it's one of the "frankest portrayals of male sexuality on film" and so let's be frank here.
His sexual confusion is part of his grief, and part of grief is the habit of trying to deny it actually happened. So when he starts acting dominant during that scene with what's happening, it's his subconscious trying to throw a sort of male sexual dominance over something he doesn't understand and hasn't allowed himself to accept. But when it drains him, he's forced to admit that he doesn't only grieve for her but hates her for forcing him into that grief, and from there comes probably one of the best conversations (or inner dialog) I've seen in film in a long time.
But does it necessarily need to be "shown" rather than implied?
Well yes. Because the character's focus is so involved on it, it literally is all his mind is allowing him to care about in that moment. Basic rule of a close-up: if the camera focuses on something like that, then the director is trying to point something out. If it's porn, it's meant to arouse... but this scene isn't arousing, especially because of its context.
But enough of that, because I want to discuss something else about this movie. Partly because of the controversy around this movie, and partly because of the publicity, I had the initial impression that Gallo was an abrasive and over-masculinized character in this film. Wow, complete opposite... I totally related to his character. Of course, his short relationships with those women don't seem to work at first, but once we get an idea of where he's coming from in his grief (and men's general dislike of expressing it or asking for help), the relationships make perfect sense in terms of being representational (thus the obvious motif of all of their flower names and his name as "Bud"). Basically, the first woman fits what he's looking for courteously, the second emotionally, and the third emotionally, but none of them match the full attraction he has to the only woman he's ever loved. I liked it.
And the long continuing imagery of the road trip was really neat too, as it actually really captured that introspective feeling of it. Most roadtrip movies show the car in moments of time from the exterior... which kind of changes the perspective of what a roadtrip is. This movie shows it literally from the passenger seat, complete with the dirty/smudged window and the long road stretched ahead. I think there was only one shot that was actually an exterior of the van when on the freeway, the rest of the exteriors were when the van was parking or he was stopped somewhere. I find it very lovely, ultimately, and as my mother once said, "The road trip is something of a rite of passage amongst American males. It's a moment when they take on as much of the world as they feel necessary all on their own." Gallo seems to have the same idea, though there is a major American film genre built around that idea as well: the road as a literal transfiguration of self-discovery.
So, going back to the controversy, it really disappoints me that this film has to be known for that when there is so much more art and beauty and innocence it has to offer. I also find the controversy rather inconsistant, considering most people have absolutely no trouble with the female body in various states of arousal, yet as soon as "the male gender" is shown, it's pornographic! The funny thing is, it contributes to that very male sense of fear and dominance they feel they must assert sexually. So I guess I could make an argument that Gallo did that scene to attack that inconsistant form of sexual censorship, but if I didn't already know that basically Sevigny and he agreed to do it because, "Why not, we were in a relationship, we did it before, might as well just show it!"
--PolarisDiB
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Facing The Truth and Saying Goodbye, November 16, 2005
This review is from: The Brown Bunny (DVD)
It certainly strikes me as a tad ironic that in a time of rampant lampooning and aping of 1970s pop culture {which many thought sucked royally while they were living through it} that when something comes along, this film, "The Brown Bunny," that, in a sense, rings very true in its intentions to early 70s indie moving making[John Cassevetes, for instance], it's immediately slagged by scores of people whose apparent ideal of the 70s stems from TV sit coms and flared denim-nostalgia-for-a-time-that-never-existed imagery.
True enough, upon deciding to review this, I figured it would be receiving horrendous reviews here, and that it is. It's a one note tune, sure, yet there are many layers to it. And that was exactly the aim of realistic portrayls of deeply personal introspection found in early indie films. I could've done without as much open road landscape gazing too, but overall, it's an effective, meditative piece on love and loss. I'm unsure if people are generally turned off by it because of the emotional weight of it, the moody, stream of consciousness pacing, or the ..GASP!... notorious fantasy sequence where Bud confronts the demons.
It's{the oral sex}simply shown realistically while conveying the dynamic of the character's mind and emotions of moving from one state to another, and isn't presented in an exploitative way necessarily, if you consider it's likely the image in Bud's mind of her performing that sex act. Life is never just how it appears on the surface of things and this is a movie that delves into that. I thought it was brutally honest in depicting our tendency to over-assign blame to the women in our lives while ducking our own fallibility and weaknesses. Such faults can take on lives of their own, and we can end up believing what we're really pretending. Strives toward depicting something honest, or at least stemming from that level of earnest conviction, sometimes has to do so...on a wavelength not accepted by as many, if for no other reason than it's a process unfamiliar to them, and so the effort comes under attack. People would sooner dismiss and criticize than to admit it's merely beyond their own feelings and perceptions.
If you've never truly been through an emotional, life-altering ringer with a woman, the essence of "The Brown Bunny" may elude you. Beyond that, no, it doesn't surprise me in the least that, given the steady diet of formulaic, fast-cut, deficient-attention-span-cinema that's digested these days, this one will be waaaaaaay off the radar for most.
"Sure is strange, so strange..
You've got to pick up every stitch..
Two rabbits running in the ditch..
Oh no, must be the season of the witch" ~ Donavan
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