For a thoughtful loner, powerlessness is always accompanied by weakness and loneliness.
Vincent Gallo, born in 1962, always gives us that feeling. This was true of 1998's "Buffalo 66" and 2003's "Brown Rabbit." "Buffalo 66" said enough people. The difference is that the weakness and loneliness in "Brown Rabbit" have reached the point of collapse. It is worth pondering that Vincent Gallo drove all the way west, across the whole of the United States, and played the depression to the extreme.
What's so special about the name "Brown Rabbit"? Whether it's just a product of self-pity after wandering around the pet store on the way, or a gift he gave before breaking up with his beloved girlfriend Daisy, it's unknown. Anyway, he was like a poor brown rabbit in a cage silently, although he was always on the road.
As a motorcyclist, Bud Clay (Gallo himself has experience as a motorcyclist) is going to a motorcycle race in California in five days, just in time to meet his girlfriend Daisy, who has left California.
In fact, he just doesn't want to face the fact that he has lost his girlfriend, and has been immersed in grief and anger, but has nowhere to vent. So he chatted with strange women and even "street girls" all the way, and the momentary hugs and kisses dissipated without leaving any residual warmth like fireworks. This made him even more swollen, and the accumulated burden of emotions became heavier.
When he arrived at his destination and saw Daisy, he could only numbly repeat the sentence "You are all lies...". But he yearned for Daisy's love and couldn't break through the heart barrier, and in the end he could only return to a sense of powerlessness. A lonely life is superimposed, and it becomes an indelible mark that Vincent Gallo has left us. This is innate helplessness, and it is also the haze of the day after tomorrow.
What this road movie presents gives us viewers an inexplicable sadness and expectation. Whenever we thought he was about to enter into a substantial love, we found that he drove away immediately, ignoring the feelings of those women. At this time, the woman he met with him was really a passer-by. The flower of love that had just been wiped out was smothered by him repeatedly. This is really depressing.
The use of film lenses is particularly skillful, and it is not false that the camera has become his pen. Indeed, the weak and lonely style of Vincent Gallo was captured.
We don't know where he came from, what he's going to do, let alone what he's going to do. This is a philosophical proposition that is close to the ultimate human being. Gallo's expression is so strong and turbulent that it is difficult for ordinary independent directors to control, or Say what you don't want to do. Only Gallo can be so open and so thorough and so heartbreaking. Often talented people are so unruly and rebellious by nature. This is reminiscent of his troubled past.
He was kicked out of the house by his father when he was 16 years old. Later, he wandered in Europe. He loved painting and could not support himself, nor could he eat his performance art. Sometimes he had to beg for a living, but he was still in movies. When he was 19, Martin Scorsese cast him in a role in "Goodfellas." Later in Wenders' "Arizona Dream", he played opposite Depp. In 2001, he also starred in the film "Days and Nights" directed by French director Claire Denis. Compared to acting, he prefers to make his own movies, which is his ultimate dream.
Whenever I travel, often in the inadvertent hustle and bustle, I will think of Gallo's movies, so quiet and so empathetic. This is a spirit of powerlessness that infects the audience through his images. His films are neither American nor European or anywhere else. He belongs only to Vincent Gallo himself.
His dark blue eyes always tell us his silent and vast sadness, his dark hair reveals to us the unruly purity of his nature, and his seldom-talking mouth shows us his incomparable restraint. Through his succinct lens language, the simple and forbearing narrative is exquisitely presented. Ultimately, it seems like he's always playing himself. When we feel powerless in our loneliness, when the dust of reality hits our hearts, we can only maintain the original stillness of life, just as Vincent Gallo did, the so-called loneliness and defeat.
2013, January, 18
Published in "Shenzhen Special Zone Daily" 2013, 4, 17
From Haitian Publishing House "Invisible Movies"
View more about The Brown Bunny reviews
