Clean, Shaven

Forget "A Beautiful Mind". This film has a true and simple soul. "Clean, Shaven" is a powerful and insightful look into the world of the paranoid. That it is a low budget "indie" only adds to it's effect. Hollyweird has lost it's ability to produce quality films like this one. It is an "Ox Bow Incident" for the schizophrenics of the world. From the sound effects to Peter Greene's seamless performance, this film never ceases to amaze me. That people stop watching after the first five minutes only proves the point the film is trying to make. He acts "weird" so he must be a deranged killer or a predatory pedophile. It's an indictment of the ever present "Burn them at the stake" mentality. Two thumbs up ...

one of my alltime-favorites!! I´ve seen it years ago and it still haunts me. this is what real film-making is about, this is how it is supposed to be. lodge kerrigan is a true master, and it´s a pity he hasn´t done anything in years, except CLAIRE DOLAN which is true genius as well. peter "zed" greene gives a landmark performance and it seems that he suffers the same fate like malcolm mcdowell after CLOCKWORK ORANGE: being one of the best but underrated actors of his time but without a second chance to prove it.

anyway, if you wanna "feel" - not just see - what mental illness is all about, check this out.

Peter Winter is a young schizophrenic who is desperately trying to get his daughter back from her adoptive family. He attempts to function in a world that, for him, is filled with strange voices, electrical noise, disconcerting images, and jarringly sudden emotional shifts.

I do not believe this is a very well-known film. I say this because despite it being released by the prestigious Criterion Collection, it was not a title I was familiar with. And I like to think I know movies. (maybe this is naiveté.) Although this went under the radar, I think it deserves a look by anyone who is interested in mental illness, especially as depicted on film. This is not sappy, or starring Sean Penn, or anything we might expect from Hollywood. this is a serious attempt to show the problems the mentally ill face... and it does not leave room for too much happiness.

"Clean, Shaven" is pure film.

I was trying to find a movie to watch from all the films I had recently time-shifted from TV, and gave up on two others because they were so shallow. As soon as this began, I knew it was different and I had to watch it through to the end despite its very unpleasant nature.

One of the titles at the beginning worried me as it was for "Special Effects", so I knew there was going to be something gruesome coming up. However, there was nothing sensational about this film. It is the antithesis of the Hollywood shocker. The corpse on the examination slab was not a pretty young thing played by an actress - it was a realistic-looking (I presume) cadaver with all the potential nausea that that implies.

To me, pure film conveys something more than just a narrative to the viewer. It is imbued with ideas and feelings. It conveys these more through the medium of film itself than through trite dialogue or sensationalism. Lodge Kerrigan understands this and makes the most of the medium - using sound and vision to reveal the interior of a disturbed mind.

There are parts of the film that I do not claim to understand. The "body" in the boot, for example, is still a mystery to me. But I have no intention of watching this film again to find out what it all means. It is just too disturbing for me to view a second time. However, I'll hang on to the recording and watch it again one bright sunny summer's day when I can watch it critically rather than subjectively.

I don't understand why some IMDb reviewers regard this film as trite and over the top. This has to be a masterpiece - and a very disturbing one. Only 8/10 because it is so unpleasant to watch.

A scary, sad and terribly depressing movie. All of the performances are extremely true-to-life. The only thing I felt hurt this movie was the pacing, which was irregular at certain points. The camera work was very unusual.

If you've ever wanted a glimpse inside the head of a schizophrenic (which I doubt), this is the film. This movie dares to deal with subject matter that Hollywood would normally never touch. It is not an entertaining film and is extremely difficult to watch, but everything that happened in the movie could easily happen in "real life." There is nothing phony here, nothing pretensive, just an incredibly realistic portrayal of the pain of everyday life, and especially the pain of one young schizophrenic man.

I gave this movie 7/10 for its pacing and somewhat weak plot, yet in a sense it deserves a much higher rating. I gave it 7/10 because I didn't enjoy it... yet it was difficult to tear my eyes away at times. The last 30 minutes of the film are the best... the pacing improves, and the story is at last resolved. I breathed a sigh of relief when this movie ended. This kind of gritty realism is just too hard to watch, but its uncompromising honesty is worthy of a great deal of credit. Painful and difficult to watch, but if you like a film that is utterly honest and doesn't play with your emotions, I recommend you see it. Not for the faint of heart, though.