The Brown Bunny

Stripped of all pretense, this movie is nothing more than a long, boring, pointless self-indulgent ego-trip. Vincent Gallo wants us to think he is a true artiste (you know... the type with the "e" at the end). But, how he thought anyone but him would find this entertaining or even thought-provoking is beyond me. Sure, you'll have your film-school drop outs that will label anything not Hollywood a masterpiece. But, let's be honest, if you had to sit through this pretentious snorefest one more time or watch "Raiders of the Lost Arc" for the 1000th time, which would you do? Heck, I am still convinced this was just a slick scheme by Vincent Gallo to get his ex-girlfriend to perform fellatio on him on screen. If that was his sole intent, then this film was a rousing success. If he actually thinks he made a good film, then he can keep pretending.

Okay, "The Brown Bunny" is a 7 minute movie that is dragged on for 93 painful minutes. How does this happen? Well, it's pretty clear to me that Vincent Gallo really likes the look of his own stubbly face from really close up. I came to this conclusion when I realized it accounts for about twenty to twenty-five minutes of the movie. Then you add in that Vincent Gallo owns a very nice motorcycle...that he likes to show off. The motorcycle doesn't actually take up to much of the screen time (unfortunately), but it does allow some kind of premise. What really bugs me is that there are people who think that this movie was deep. It's not, I can see how the basic premise could be turned into something deep and artistic. But a bad motorcycle driver who has a thing for chics named after flowers and imagines his dead drug addict girlfriend giving him head is not deep by itself, and it doesn't help just to have long scenes of traffic and a not very attractive stubbly mans face. The only reason this movie has gotten any recognition whatsoever is the shock value of showing a blowjob in a non-skin flick. So once again, WTF?

The Brown Bunny, Vincent Gallo's latest travelogue of sorrow, charts the journey of the sort of disenchanted hero one comes across in the obituary page of their local paper. America, as seen through the window of Gallo's hollow black van, merges into a singular one-story wasteland of Main Streets lined with reds, whites and blues. Here, where many entertainment-seeking viewers will have long left the theater, one suddenly realizes that Gallo's is not a simple indie flick; but instead, a floating canvas able to tap into a higher meditative consciousness within the viewer. By creating a film of singular vision perhaps only attainable by doing what few directors have the tenacity or perseverance to undertake, Gallo has achieved what has eluded many an 'independent' director: a film created almost solely by the director. Gallo's characters are ethereal spirits cast upon a harsh, unfriendly world. Chloë Sevigny, in yet another hypnotic role as Daisy, redefines the modern insistence on two-dimensional antagonists. For Bud, Gallo playing the sort of brooding innocent Marlon Brando once jarred audiences with, the American tapestry becomes a home movie of the banality of human existence. Cheryl Tiegs, the popular Seventies model, makes an unexpected cinematic comeback, delivering a beautifully poetic performance as a lonely woman in a nowhere rest stop. In a sterile, white motel room, Gallo's film culminates with a scene of erotic abandon. Yet here again, the Audience, as an extension of Bud's own painful emptiness, will find no release. The arid lovemaking of this star-crossed couple, in a room lit like an operating room before a lobotomy, appears so natural that at its' heart could only be the sheer necessity of moral and emotional collapse seeking salvation. To see The Brown Bunny requires the sort of patience and reverence reserved for museums and galleries. For those few who choose, it can open the heart and the soul as only a masterpiece can.

If you can endure a 90 minute portrait of brooding self loathing with virtually no dialog and uninspired cinematography, this film is for you. The notorious scene with Daisy is incongruous. Perhaps, I am dense, but in my view, the emperor has no clothes. To be successful, this film should have elicited a strong interest in the lead character. But in the end, you have learned little about someone who is shallow and unappealing. This film portrays the journey of a motorcyclist tormented by demons vaguely hinted at in mysterious stops he makes in route. You see that he is attracted and repulsed by women. (Cheryl Tiegs, for those of you old enough to remember her from the 1970s is perfect in what amounts to a cameo.) But his encounters with women are so fleeting and glancing that you learn little until the end of the journey. Then, what you learn is too trite to support your having endured the trip with him. I believe Vincent Gallo had a serious idea, but the idea is unrealized.

After racing in New Hampshire, the lonely motorcycle racer Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) drives his van in a five-day journey to California for the next race. Along his trip, he meets fan, lonely women, prostitutes, but he leaves them since he is actually looking for the woman he loves, Daisy (Chloë Sevigny). He goes to her house and leaves a note telling where he is lodged. Out of the blue, Daisy appears in his hotel room and soon he learns why he cannot find her.

"The Brown Bunny" is an independent very low budget movie by Vincent Gallo. The plot is developed in slow pace and is dull and boring in many moments. The revelation of Daisy's secret is totally unexpected. However the movie has become famous only because of the unnecessary fellatio of Chloë Sevigny, maybe to satisfy Vincent Gallo's ego, since does not add anything but a polemic scene to this movie in a poor hype. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not available on DVD or Blu-Ray