This Savage Art

Go see Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland this weekend at the IFC Center. It is probably the best representation of the freedom of what was and what is truly missing in the independent film scene now. Relentless and unapologetically pained, its characters and audience are in sync with the same level of discomfort. Frownland has all the makings of a midnight movie – an institution that no longer exists. It’s the antithesis of what typically and theoretically makes a commercial film “work.”

If you believe the film community has lost it’s individual voice for the offbeat, the dangerous or the button-pushing type of filmmaking that some may be hesitant to get behind go to this screening even if just to see what the buzz is all about and while you’re at it, support a true independent vision. It might make you angry, it might give you hope that films this weird and fucked up can still get made with a little persistence. At the least you will take away one simple fact; Juno it ain’t.

Related:

The New Yorker review.

An endorsement from Filmmaker Magazine.

The Village Voice review.

[This Savage Art] review of Frownland.

Jeremiah Kipp [ aka my AD on The Face of the Earth ] interviews Frownland writer/director Ronald Bronstein.

Popularity: 20% [?]

If you missed the recent NYC screening of Frownland you have another chance. [via Tully] Matt Zoller Seitz gives a review at The House Next Door.

Popularity: 6% [?]

When a lot of independent [for lack of a better word] filmmakers that are getting recognized now for their brilliance were making there bones back in the 90’s there was a charge in the air. It was real. You know, all the Spikes, Mikes, Slackers and Dykes. Sayles, Jarmusch, Spike, Haynes and many more. There was no agenda other than making the most creatively compelling film you could make with what little you had – by any means necessary. Time has passed and the climate has changed but it’s good to see the spirit of that style of filmmaking is still alive and kicking with Frownland.

In Ronnie Bronstein’s valentine to the immediacy of 16mm independent filmmaking, Frownland takes a look at a small circle of socially retarded individuals living on the fringes of white urban twenty-something life. At the center is Keith, an inarticulate brain aneurysm waiting to happen. As he performs his reverse commute out of the city, feebly attempting to sell coupons door-to-door, Keith is challenged by the simple minutia of life. There is so little this character can actually handle but when he attempts to it is pure heartbreak.

To keep in time with the fractured nature of the film let me quickly segue into the quote that sums it up beautifully from heir director:

More succinctly, Frownland is my own small contribution to the sinking barge of the 16mm indie model; both an overripe tomato lobbed with spazmo inaccuracy at the spotless surface of the silver screen and a mad valentine to the craggy tradition of unadulterated cheap-o-independent expression. Its inelegance is its spirit. – Ronald Bronstein

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the way you sell a film. I’m sorry I can’t describe it better than that but I look at this as a good thing. Films that I have had trouble articulating immediately after seeing them are the ones that have never left me like some chip that’s been embedded under my skin. Bad Lieutenant, Lost Highway and now, Frownland. Props to all involved in making this film, selling out the IFC Center screening last Wednesday night and reminding us what it’s really all about.

I still can’t get the snot bubble out of my mind.

Popularity: 16% [?]

I’ve been wanting to check this film out since I heard about the riot it almost caused at SXSW. IFC Center September 5th, one screening only! Be there.

Popularity: 5% [?]