This is a "hidden" gem, essential for everyone who has burned out on reciting lines from "Female Trouble". A fictionalized account of Diane Linkletter's suicide, this is a real treat for any fan who can manage to get ahold of it.
Brief but extremely memorable, this features performances from early Dreamlanders Divine, David Lochary, and Mary Vivian Pearce as Diane Linkletter and her parents. "Irreverent" doesn't even come close to describing it, since it aspires to find the humor and pathos in Diane Linkletter's suicide, however the film resembles the reality of Linkletter's death only in passing. Mainly this is amusing simply because of the way it depicts the clash of Diane's hippie culture with the uppity values of the Linkletters. The film shows the Linkletters sitting up waiting for their daughter to come home from "the Strip", then the resulting confrontation when she drifts home stoned and babbling about communes and her boyfriend, Jim.
However it may seem, there is an important commentary embedded in this technically crude film. The truly disturbing aspect of it is the juxtaposition of Art Linkletter's spoken-word 45 "We Love You, Call Collect" on the soundtrack, which was recorded before Diane's death and featured Diane herself performing a spoken-word piece with her father about how teenagers can hide their drug use from their parents. Waters uses it first in the opening credits as "Diane" snorts drugs up her nose and mugs for the camera, then over the shot of her dying body at the short film's conclusion. After researching the actual details of Diane Linkletter's suicide, I discovered that drugs may not have played a part in her death at all. In fact, the medical reports showed no sign of drugs in her system. However, Art Linkletter immediately made a very big show of declaring that 'drugs' killed his daughter, and continues to lecture on the dangers of drugs while using Diane's death as an example of how drugs can destroy. Conversely, even witnesses who were around Diane shortly before her death attest that Diane was not in an altered state when she took her own life, a fact that makes Waters' film especially haunting. By placing Art Linkletter's bizarre spoken-word piece over top of images of Diane's decline and demise, Waters seems to be pointing out the bitter irony of Diane's suicide, suggesting that perhaps drugs did not damage Diane's psyche as much as the denial and disconnection from reality of the parents.
