Distant (2002) Frank’s black Impala, a ‘73 with opera windows, cruises across the surface of the moon, way out on the cold, dark side.Actually he’s skittering his monstrous auto across both lanes of Interstate 64, about eight miles out of Taos. He’s kicking up red dust and narrowly avoiding various species of cacti and the Sangre de Christos are visible to his right and the sun hangs low low on the horizon to his left and he is trying to balance Paris Spleen on his knee and wondering why there is so much unrequited love in the world when hatred is given away en masse and he must soon make the decision if he is going to continue on up to El Prado where he knew a good pemmican and whiskey joint by the name of the Dirty Sanchez, or just hooking a left south down on 25 til he got to Chihuahua where he knew a gal named Miriam in San Pablo who was often friendly and sometimes even unaccompanied. Either way, he was in for a long night… This was one thing film (and the media at large) routinely tricked us about: Time-frame. How unbearably long were wars and tortures, really? How short were loves and lives? Few films have wanted or tried to tell. Jim Jarmusch does it a lot (watch John Lurie and Tom Waits staring at each other in a prison cell in 1986’s Down by Law). Another such film is Turkish director’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s 2002 feature, Uzak (Distant), now available on DVD by New Yorker Films.To the untrained eye, Ceylan’s film is simply just tedious, and not because of the subtitles which are definitely not unwieldy (or perhaps just wieldy?). The story centers on Mahmut, a commercial photographer in Istanbul pining over an ex-wife. He lives working, watching porno, and even eating by rote, until a distant relative named Yusuf moves in from the country as he looks for work, messing up Mahmut’s self-absorbed routine.

The film opens with a long long static shot of Yusuf trekking across the snow into town, and then settles in to document Mahmut’s little solitary life. Aside from an answering machine recording, there is no dialog for well over ten minutes. This is certainly not a film for those unnerved by the silent outset of Kubrick’s 2001 (1968). Note the primary colors as Yusuf arrives at Mahmut’s, yellow walls, a red bucket. This continues throughout the film and is quite striking with red, yellow and blue highlighting almost every shot and particularly breathtaking as Yusuf surveys a sunken freighter in the harbor. Often these highlights, such as distant minarets, look so placed and artificial that the American consumer assumes they are digitally created. Can a director still be in such dark ages that he is still scouting and framing each shot?! But other photographic imperfections are evident. Watch the color changes shot to shot in some scenes. And be amused at Mahmut’s exclamation about TV: “This thing has 50 channels but there’s only shit. What a rip –off!” (Alas, poor Turkey! Don’t worry in the USA we have 500+ channels and only shit!). And enjoy a scenic shot of Mahmut on the waterfront (also the DVD cover photo) and wonder whether the puff of smoke is from his cigarette or a chimney in the distance. Or see Mahmut in a hospital corridor and be reminded of death and afterlife. Also check out Mahmut’s silly east European wedge-car. And wonder what the hell is that thing on Yusuf’s temple (Sadly actor Mehmet Emin Toprak was killed in an auto wreck shortly after filming). But always look for the red, yellow and blue. And on the extra features, don’t be disappointed that the film Cocoon is not the one that features Steve Guttenberg (1985). Uzak is a film about urban anomie and the pacing is reflective of this. Warning, its appropriate and clever, but half-way through, you’re going to be sick of it. It’s a film to see also if you want to know what the rest of the world in putting out in the cinema; at that, check out Abdykalykov’s "The Adopted Son": (Beshkempir, 1998) to see what (those crazy monkeys out in Kyrgyzstan are up to or even rent Fernando León de Aranoa‘s, "Mondays in the Sun" (Los Lunes al Sol, 2002) to see the plight of the worker in modern Europe. And at the end, try not to think of the derivativeness to Fellini’s La Strada (1954). And Frank has decided on Mexico (and Miriam) and hops the pavement to get unto 585 West. The car drags heavily into the eastbound lanes as Frank reaches under the bench seat. If he can get to the packet of Captain’s Wafers that he is sure is there, he won’t have to pull over til that beast of a gas tank finally empties.

Tarnation (2004) For lack of anything better to do, Frank fell in love with the girl. It was easy. After all, he was drunk every night and prowling the Quarter for stray oxycontin to trim down the much of the rest of the time. With its tricky time-release, many dumb kids were ODing on the stuff down on Bourbon and Canal streets—in touristy places like the House of Blues and the Absinthe Hotel (now refurbished into a daiquiri-to-go place) or the Hog’s Breath. They ODed because they’d think they’d gotten ripped off for a couple of Advil or Correctol when they didn’t feel any effects right away. Then they’d go and buy some Xtacy or a bunch of shots of jaegermeister and when both the liquor and oxy got into their system together: Bam! They were worm-food. The solution was to eliminate the time release. Most of the young guys found the best way was crushing it up and snorting it. But, a few had been cooking it down and shooting it up. For one local gay couple, though, this had proven deadly—a lethal injection, in fact, considered a homicide, because one of the two was a little skittish around a needle and needed help from his pal. Now it was up to 12 from OP to decide whether the accident was more of a death by misadventure or even an assisted suicide… Of course, Frank had been recently annoyed by such soap-opera plights since renting Tarnation, the debut documentary by Jonathan Caouette (Available May 17, on Wellspring Media), about his odd upbringing in a family rife with abuse and insanity. Frank is reminded of the Dogme95 films of the last decade, especially those of Harmony Korine (Gummo 1997)—lots of raw footage spliced together MTV style, leaving one with more impression than plot. Think Atomic Café (1982); stock footage documentary has been done to death. Though tired of the shock value of domestic gay men (pillow talk is passé no matter whose doing it), one can still be intrigued by the honest grief as Caouette learns of and deals with his mother’s lithium overdose. And be downright fascinated by the child Caouette taping himself dressing up and acting the roles of an abused woman and other impromptu (?) characters. But always, there is a caveat: A lack of production values is not the easiest road to great film. Often as here, it looks simply like that: a lack of production values. Understandably, the film encompasses 20+ years of Caouette's home videos. But that topped with some digitally toned or cascaded shots doesn’t make a film any more watchable. It is an hour and a half of throwaway effects and “just-so” titles reminiscent of Barbara Kruger. And, inconsistent text size is annoying and looks more sloppy than artsy. If you like to watch families bent by drugs, alternative lifestyles and poor mental health, turn in to Dateline or 60 Minutes, or Maury, Jerry, Montel or Jenny Jones (;or better yet, consult your own home movies, while listening to Marianne Faithful or “Wichita County Lineman.”) Frank on the other hand was sick to death of “poor wittle me”-style documentary (and thinks a less-kind reviewer would wonder how much push-button emotion is fallen from the exposition of pure documentary and turned into simply a promotional tool for Caouette's acting career.) This assumption is supported by the conclusion which is decidedly nothing-but too played-out for the camera. After all, we’ve all got crap to bear; the TV dinner of life comes with a lot of gristly chicken and only a tiny, flaccid brownie. So Frank was going to continue to use the oxy to smooth out the end of the night (when he was out of money or decent bars to hit) and its transition into a sleepless-hung-over day at the station. With a blissful waking coma as the whiskey seeped out of your pores in the sultry tropical humidity, you could do without food and sleep (really, sex too!) much longer than those dumb crank-cases did on the crystal, Frank thought. It didn’t just keep you up; it mellowed you out for a longer haul. Meth kept you up but did little to help you tolerate the horribleness of daily existence. Anyhoo, Frank didn’t give a rat’s ass about ODing. Since Iris or Jeanne had passed, he’d come to enjoy mixing his vices. She/They’d found his general lack of vice to be a weakness when they were seeing each other. So he now piled them on in stacks.