HENRY FOOL (78)

Directed by: Hal Hartley

Starring: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey, Kevin Corrigan

The Pitch: Simon Grim, a much-abused garbageman, finds his true calling when he meets pretentious writer Henry Fool ("centuries ago it had an 'e' on the end").

Theo Sez: Wide-ranging, commodious epic, full of quiet symmetries (the bruises on Simon's face early on migrating to Henry's at the end) yet loose and seemingly spontaneous, giving the impression that anything can happen : a lot of it is due to Hartley's talent for playing with cinematic space to create a world that feels different (hence, you assume, must have different rules) - he breaks up a sequence (a fight, say) into its constituent parts (a blow, a lunge, an offscreen smash), jump-cuts across needless movement, uses the frame to alienate his characters from one another or bring them together in expressive ways (Henry reading solemnly in the foreground as Simon totters in, rag doll-like, at the back of the frame), suggests psychological nuance in visual terms, e.g. by not including Simon in the frame as Henry rants at him in a warehouse, so that you wonder for a moment if he's gone insane, railing at the world in general (which of course he is, in a way). Hartley's whimsical, aloof, faintly snarky tone takes some getting used to (you just have to surrender to it), but it's the visual precision and sheer cinematic skill that allows him to talk about Big Themes without getting bogged-down or pretentious - themes like the Artist's role in society (should he stay in his ivory tower or get down-and-dirty, "walk through the shit"?), how to measure Art in an increasingly egalitarian society (is it just whatever people like?), the relevance of vocation ("making a difference") in a world where all is fashion, Art as a liberal force opposed to the patriarchal abuse concealed by "male responsibility" (poems, says Faye, are "feminine" things ; Simon, abused by everyone, writes poems ignored by men but embraced by women ; Henry, a non-writer, is, like Warren, an abuser of young girls). It's a shot of original intelligence, directed equally at the lowbrows drooling over gross-out humour and the humourless highbrows who can't see the irony in calling a garbageman "the authentic trashy voice of American culture". Stylish performances, terrific score ; powerfully strange, and often very funny.