photo courtesy of SFFILM
The San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival) presents the U.S. premiere of the psychological drama Discreet tomorrow, April 8 – and it should be the indie highlight of the festival.
Within a revenge tale, writer-director Travis Mathews has braided threads of social criticism and political comment. Most of all, Discreet is a compelling portrait of one damaged, very unwell guy and a thoughtful exploration of the alienating aspects of the current American zeitgeist.
Discreet is centered on Alex (Jonny Mars), who has drifted back through his Texas hometown to find that his childhood sexual abuser has re-surfaced. Alex is untethered either to home or sanity. Away from home for a long time, Alex has been roaming the country, oddly stopping to shoot videos of freeway traffic. The most hateful alt-right talk radio plays incessantly from the radio of his van. And, in a creepy juxtaposition, he’s obsessed with a New Agey YouTube publisher (the comic Atsuko Okatsuka).
Alex sets out to find and confront his abuser (Bob Swaffer), and Discreet takes us on a moody and intense journey, filled with unexpected – and even flabbergasting – moments. Only the ultimate vengeance seems inevitable – and even that act is handled with surprising subtlety. The catharsis is intentionally understated, and there is none of the customary splatter.
Swaffer’s physicality, along with his character’s condition, makes him a monster unlike anything I’ve seen in a movie before – a unique blend of the bone-chilling and the vulnerable.
Discreet is only 80 minutes long; keeping it short was a great choice by Mathews, allowing the film to succeed with a deliberate, but never plodding, pace. We’re continually wondering what Alex is going to do next, and the editing by Mathews and Don Swaynos keeps the audience on alert. Cinematographer Drew Xanthopoulos makes effective use of the static long shot and gives Discreet a singular look. The idiosyncratic sound design, with its droning and its use of ambient noises, sets the mood. It’s an effective package – and an impressive calling card for Travis Mathews.
photo courtesy of m-appeal World Sales
While he’s in town, Alex is on the lookout for secret – and sometimes very kinky – sex with other men. It’s a comment on the repression in Flyover American culture that drives gay sexual expression underground. And furtiveness can make anything seem seamy. Indeed, the movie’s title comes from the Craiglist euphemism for anonymous sexual hookups.
One critic referred to Discreet as “Travis Mathews’ latest queer experiment”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s far too narrow a label. True, Discreet definitely comes from the point of view of a gay filmmaker, and it addresses the repression of gay sexual expression. But this is a film, with its broader focus on alienation, that is important for and accessible to every adult audience.
Mathews previously collaborated with James Franco on Interior. Leather Bar., which is nothing at all like Discreet. Interior. Leather Bar. is talky and centered on artistic process with a hint of sensationalism. Discreet more resembles an experimental film such as Upstream Color. Come to think of it, Discreet has more of the feel of a budget indie (and less languorous) version of Antonioni‘s The Passenger.
Jonny Mars is very effective as Alex, a character who is usually stone-faced, but whose intensity sometimes takes him completely off the rails. In her one speaking scene as Alex’s mom, Joy Cunningham’s stuttering affect gives us a glimpse into both her past parental unreliability and her current clinging to sobriety by her fingernails.
But the heart of Discreet is Alex and his unpredictable path. To what degree has Alex’s madness been formed by the childhood abuse? To what extent has he been deranged by absorbing random and unhealthy bits of American popular culture? Stylistically, Discreet is a near-masterpiece, and audiences that embrace the discomfort of the story will be rewarded with a satisfying, ever-surprising experience.