openalias

Now let me clarify that I love art films. I love abstract ideas. I love seeing and hearing things on screen that make me go,"Wha????, and then go "oohhhh...i get it." But this is no Godard. This film, well, I just don't know. Is it in art film? Is it an excuse to display the gritty, third-world beauty of New Orleans, and the array of characters that lie within? Or is it a low-budget independent film that juggles from one concept to the other, never bothering to connect the dots because, well hell, there wasn't really a solid script in the first place, and never a real purpose to the story(how's that for a run-on sentence)? i guess my problem with this film is that, though it may have been low-budget, they still spent a a good deal on its production and actors, but didn't bother making an actual story with what they had. I was intrigued by the film and the ideas it was portraying. And if the whole film would have been as beautifully-abstract as the final dream sequence, or even the beginning (the music score, by David Julyan is great!), I would have wept--in a good way--like a child. I saw this at the New Orleans film fest in a packed house of audience members happy enough to see people and places they recognized: Ernie K. Doe, Bud's Broiler, etc. But perhaps they loved it...who knows?

The ideas, talent, and potential are there for a good film. But as a whole, the film makes you go, "hmmmmm....interesting....NEXT PLEASE!"