Ask the Dust

Robert Towne's obvious love affair with John Fante's Depression Era novel, ASK THE DUST, is evident throughout this somewhat over-long film. While the story is a bit clumsy and self-indulgent with so many sidebars that the momentum of the movie gets bogged down in the telling, there are enough fine attributes to make it a recommended evening of reminiscence about Los Angeles, the City of the Angels in the 1930s.

Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell) narrates the tale of a lad from Colorado with one published story in a magazine edited by H.L. Mencken who moves to Los Angeles' Bunker Hill apartments to write his big novel. The city of LA has never seemed so strange as it seems with Caleb Deschanel's magnificent photography outlining a city filled with dust blown miscreants - people with dreams at varying stages of dissolution. Arturo quickly becomes penniless, is pestered for rent by landlady Mrs. Hargraves (Dame Eileen Atkins) and for handouts by drunkard Hellfrick (Donald Sutherland), and still a virgin he plies his vision as a writer in a local café where he encounters the beautiful Camilla (way too much of a play on the character of Dumas' 'Camille'...). The two play a battle of wits and insults to cover their apparent infatuation with each other: Mexican Camilla is looking for a wealthy 'white man' to raise her out of her illiterate station and Arturo is looking for a sexual encounter to spur his writing.

During their extended 'courting' Arturo is vamped by Vera Rivkin (Idina Menzel), a Jewish housekeeper with grossly deformed legs who dreams of a man who will call her beautiful, and in a touching encounter Arturo displays the kind vulnerability lying under his rather callous and naive exterior.

Arturo and Camilla at last connect, and in a Laguna beach house they fall under the spell of love, a state that ends tragically, like the dust from the desert winds burying all hopes of the people of Southern California.

The story is a bit clunky and the dialogue feels forced at times but it is always a pleasure to see the work of Farrell, Hayek, Atkins, and Sutherland. The true beauty of this truly beautiful film is in the atmosphere and the mood captured by Towne and Deschanel. Their work offers a mood piece that forgives some of the awkwardness of the threadbare story and shows off the actors well. The film may move a bit too slowly for some, but for others, this is a moment of history well captured. Grady Harp

The book is great, the movie is not. Only the beginning is done well. However, I was fairly impressed with Colin Farrell as Arturo Bandini and thought Salma Hayek pulled off a good Camilla. I was also impressed with the depiction of 1930's L.A. I thought that the environment was pulled off quite well. But then about half way through the movie veers away from the book and it becomes a clichéd and sappy love story. The ending is completely changed and loses everything that made the book great. I really am not sure why such a change would be made, this wasn't ever going to be a huge blockbuster film, so why make such a lousy rendition of Fante's work, that is, why try to give it a typical "Hollywood ending?"

Ask the Dust follows the Depression Era story of a rather average writer attempting to be a great one. Set in the new-get-rich town of failed dreams (Los Angeles), the writer is an inexperienced and virginal Colin Farrell, who gradually falls for the uncompromising immigrant waitress Salma Hayek. This is a movie which, like its hero, has great ambitions but fails pitifully in many of them, yet one which can be treasured for its moments of pure beauty and shining rapture in its laboured attempt to become a classic.

Colin Farrell's career to this point, after a spectacular rise with the gripping and slightly manic role in Phone Booth, attempted to scale heights which were out of reach (in Alexander, for instance), and then now seems to be developing more methodically with admirable performances such as The New World. In Ask the Dust his casting seems pitched just right, stretching him without making the demands which would need a more experienced actor. Salma Hayek, who is never shy about making a stand for Mexican women (and why not?) slots into her role perfectly. Unlike Farrell's character, an Italian who is nevertheless proud to be American, Hayeck fights on the back foot against the prejudice which she has encountered in real life even to this day. Her starring against Farrell's delicate writer also comes naturally. She has been quoted as saying (in one of her less political or feminist moments), "I keep waiting to meet a man who has more balls than I do," and in our story Farrell has his work cut out to dominate her in true Mexican latino fashion.

Farrell and Hayek both being considered among top cinema sex icons, it will come as no disappointment to fans of both that they get into the buff on more than one occasion. One of the best scenes in the film is where Hayek challenges him to show her how to 'ride a wave' one night by moonlight. He bluffs it manfully, not admitting it is his first time in the sea, until she plays a practical joke to pay him back for pretending to have had a heart attack in her restaurant. The colours of the ocean are shot with memorable skill as the two of them out-dare each other (even though she later teases him for being afraid to show his penis on the beach). The director cleverly avoids falling into romantic comedy by using dramatic tension and the love-hate of their unconsummated affair. When the two of them finally do have sex, the turn on is not so much Farrell's heaving buttocks or Hayeck's naked chest – it is the fact that their emotions, that they have struggled with for so long, finally succeed in speaking each other's language.

Other gems include times when translation deliberately falls between the cracks. ''It's not 'grew in me' but 'grew on me','' says Farrell, corrected her stumbling attempts at English (after asking her if it was love at first sight). She however makes a careful metaphor, saying how he grew inside her like a child. Sadly such moments are all too few and far between in this two hour movie. Dedicated cinephiles, or older generation moviegoers that have patience for a slowly developing tale, will wear the more pedestrian scripting and direction that fills the large spaces in-between, but such shortcomings will deny the film wider audience appeal in spite of its stars' charisma. Any poetic message element on the race and immigration theme ( . . . happiness is that you can be in a place where you are secure, and fall in love with whoever you want to, and not feel ashamed of it) is not backed up with any clarity of thought in the script (Farrell justifies his American-ness by youth and love of his country, throwing ageism in to replace racism); and the pot-shots at marijuana (if you will excuse the pun), which Hayek uses partly, we suspect, to ease her illness, are so politically incorrect as to be laughable outside of the 'great United States'. The overall message is similar to that erronous belief of George W Bush - that people of other (especially poorer) countries, simply aspire one day to be as great and wonderful as Americans. Salma Hayek may believe this role could help fight for the recognition and equality for all peoples, but it is unlikely that many outside of modern misguided America will see it that way. Like its protagonist, we can only hope that such promise and talent can somewhere blossom into greater writing that here witnessed.

Is Robert Towne L.A.'s Woody Allen? His portraits of the city are indelible, and one of the chief pleasures of Ask the Dust is the way in which the depression-era City of Angels becomes a character in the film. Ask the Dust is haunted by the notion that L.A. is the place where people come to slowly die in the sunshine and is fascinating as a piece of "sunny" film noir. It also explores themes of racism, prejudice and self-esteem and how they manifest themselves in personal relationships. There's a daring ugliness to the romance that makes the first third of the film especially compelling. The scene where Arturo Bandini and Camilla Lopez first meet is pure cinema and one of the more remarkable bits of mainstream film making I've seen in some time. In its way, it is as sublime as Brassai's photos of café-society Paris. In the work print I viewed, Ask the Dust wasn't able to sustain this opening intensity, but it managed to stay compelling nevertheless. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay Ask the Dust is that it reminded me why Chinatown is such a great film (and the comparisons will be inevitable); while I don't think Ask the Dust is in the same league, it does herald the welcome return of Robert Towne as an artist who understands L.A. by instinct, knows how to tap into Hollywood's rich history, and can deliver a human-scale film with the power to reward and possibly even change its audience.

As voluntary Cinema Manager at Coalville's Century Theatre, I'm always on the lookout for films of artistic quality which are not necessarily multiplex successes. I must confess I did read a couple of newspaper reviews when this film was first released in the UK, - they weren't particularly favourable but they did highlight the Robert Towne/Chinatown connection, - but I forgot all about it until I visited Italy for a weekend holiday in July. As I was passing a cinema in Verona, I was attracted by a couple of very attractive stills...for Ask The Dust. I decided to find out a bit more about the film when I returned home. After doing this, I felt it would be deserving of a screening at our little venue and I booked the film as soon as it was made available to the non-theatrical circuit. I eventually showed the film last night and I believe this was the first public showing in Leicestershire. I fully endorse the comments of others before me, - the lighting, sets, period sense and cinematography are absolutely marvellous, - just literally lovely to look at. I thought Colin Farrell was fine in the central role and am at a loss why he's come in for criticism from some quarters for this performance. Salma Hayek also scores in her sniping early scenes with Farrell and portrays well her character's fears and insecurities at a time when being Mexican was so obviously looked down upon (a very neat selection by Towne for the film excerpt in the cinema scene). Pity our own Eileen Atkins had such a tiny role. Although certainly not a commercial film, it does feature some memorable scenes such as the Long Beach earthquake and the moonlight swim among the crashing waves. And I really liked the idyllic seaside period enjoyed by the two (eventual!) lovers...with the little dog. A good sharp ending in true old-fashioned Hollywood style with a nod towards Camille, which apparently is not in the book, so I've read. After the film finished, I wasn't sure how my audience would react but comments were generally very favourable...and the fairly overt but well-handled sex scene had caused no offence...in fact I did get a couple of middle aged ladies offering glowing expressions with their references to Mr Farrell's appearance in that scene. A very good, quality film, lovingly made by Robert Towne...but one couldn't help thinking with a little more sharpness early on, it could have been even better. It's a piece that will linger in the memory though, in my opinion, and you can't say that about the majority of the modern day films.