absurdism

DEAD SOULS: absurdity rides in the West, but it’s not funny enough

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Photo caption: Zander Schloss and Alex Cox in DEAD SOULS. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The absurdist Western comedy Dead Souls begins with a solitary stranger walking the desert we’ve seen in spaghetti westerns. That reference is intentional, because director Alex Cox filmed Dead Souls near Almeria, Spain, in the Andalusian expanse used repeatedly by Sergio Leone. But we see right away that Dead Souls is more parody than spaghetti western – with the hotel clerk’s exaggerated twitching and the mayor sporting massive sideburns, each the size of Angela Davis’ Afro.

The stranger (played by Cox himself) is named Strindler, and his purpose is mysterious. He is up to something, and the locals can’t figure out what it is, even when they see him buying something of no apparent value.

We see the familiar western tropes, from the poker game in the saloon to the gunfight in the dusty street. There are homages to A Fistful of Dollars, High Plains Drifter, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and even Greaser’s Palace.

Strindler is guided around the ranches and mines by the town drunkard (Zander Schloss), whose sense of his own nickname is very funny. There’s a clever running gag whenever Strindler is asked if he has played poker, ridden a horse or fired a pistol. And there’s an outrageous pun on the name Strindler.

It turns out that Strindler’s scheme would monetize American institutional racism. And that’s what Dead Souls is ultimately about – mocking the hardwired, guileless, shameless, open racism of America’s 19th century, that leaks into the present. Dead Souls even takes us into the Trump version of ICE, which I didn’t find funny; (maybe Too Soon?)

In 1994, writer-director Alex Cox made one of the all-time great cult movies – Repo Man. He followed that with the arthouse hit Sid and Nancy, and not much since that I recognize.

There’s a famous scene with Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles that made us laugh at outrageously racist characters – and I think it still works. But Dead Souls beats that dead horse too repeatedly. I found the absurdity amusing, but the entirety of Dead Souls just isn’t funny enough..

Dead Souls is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV and Fandango.

THE FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS: absurd, raunchy and funny

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Javier Botet and Bray Efe in THE FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS. Courtesy of Gluon Media.

The Spanish comedy The Fantastic Golem Affairs is unlike any other movie you’re likely to see this year, and the absurdity starts in the opening scene. After a night of partying, the pudgy slacker Juan (Bray Efe) and his best buddie David (David Menendez) are goofing around on the roof of Juan’s Madrid high-rise apartment building. David accidentally falls off and plunges to the roof of a car parked many stories below. That reveals that David is made of ceramic, as he shatters into hundreds of shards.

While still in a state of shock, Juan is annoyed by a shady car insurance agent, his late friend’s obnoxious and venal lover, apathetic cops and a woman with an outrageous computer dating profile. But he is obsessed by the mystery of a ceramic man, and keeps on the investigative trail until he stumbles on an unworldly conspiracy rooted in his own family. Along the way, a bizarre freak accident keeps recurring, killing people that he encounters during his investigation.

It’s been accurately written that there is magical realism in The Fantastic Golem Affairs, but it’s not the sweet, mystical kind in, say Like Water for Chocolate – The Fantastic Golem Affairs is bawdy and in-your-face.

The playfully, irreverent tone strongly reminds me of Pedro Almodovar’s early work (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, High Heels and Kika) and his VERY early work (Pepi, Luci, Born and Other Girlds Like Mom). Indeed, one of the characters observes, “This is like a Spanish movie from the 90s“. The Fantastic Golem Affairs is not as riotous as early Almodovar, but it adds that magical realism and much more absurdism.

Javier Botet in THE FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS. Courtesy of Gluon Media.

The Fantastic Golem Affairs is highly imaginative work of Spanish writer-directors Juan Gonzalez and Nando Martinez, who call themselves Burnin’ Percebes. They hit us with the absurdity of the shattering ceramic man right at the beginning, juxtaposed with the peppy music underneath the opening credits. The music combines with an often static camera, long shots, and colorfully retro sets that are unabashedly cheap. This is a zany, raunchy movie with some mild body horror.

[Gratuitous digression: I’m always proud to point out when I actually get a joke in Spanish. The directors’ pseudonym is Burnin’ Percebes, and percebes is Spanish for gooseneck barnacle, a hideously ugly (Google it) and delicious shellfish from Northern Spain. They are dangerous to harvest from oceanside cliffs, and are accordingly expensive – about ten times the price of a regular tapa. Of course, The Movie Gourmet himself has enjoyed percebes in San Sebastian.]

The Fantastic Golem Affairs is opening in theaters, including LA’s Alamo Drafthouse.