The Brown Bunny

A Vincent Gallo Production. Produced, Written, and Directed by Vincent Gallo. Cinematography and Editing by Vincent Gallo. Production Design, Sound, and Music by Vincent Gallo. Starring Vincent Gallo and Chloe Sevigny. After its horrendous reception at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2003, with claims of it being the worst film ever entered into competition (coupled with Gallo's misrepresented apology), The Brown Bunny appeared at the Toronto International Film Festival with much expectation, hesitation, and speculation. Yet the version of the film that screened in September was nearly 30 minutes shorter than its original cut. Having not seen the original Cannes' cut of the film I cannot comment on it here, and Gallo has indicated this longer cut was in fact unfinished, but the film I saw definitely merits (positive) attention: it is a wonderfully poetic meditation on love and loss. Filmed in a very minimalist style, with the intimate feel of 16mm, the film concerns Bud Clay (Gallo) who has days to travel across America for the next race in his professional motorcycle circuit. On his long and lonely drive to this next race in California he has various encounters with people that seem as empty as the road before him: women who join him in brief sexually charged escapades; the senile parents of his childhood sweetheart and estranged lover Daisy (Sevigny). Through these encounters, his true goal reveals itself: he never escapes the memory of his love Daisy. His road trip across the country keeps him obsessively centred on this person who has abandoned him. The long take emphasizes his solitude and nomadic life while the circular tracks he drives, overwhelmingly evident in the film's opening sequence, provide a thematic connection to the obsessive thinking that drives him simultaneously toward and away from Daisy--always circling her. The reflection Bud Clay experiences through his meditative motorcycle riding, and the entire cross country road trip, is communicated through the lingering camerawork and near total absence of emotion in any of the sparse characters. His lingering aimlessness, paradoxically connected with his obsessive quest to reunite with Daisy, is highlighted both literally and symbolically in his motorcycle racing. The overall effect of the camerawork and compositions, often shot through dirty car windshields, is to draw the viewer into the same emotional and psychological space of the central character: a sense of unspoken loss. Every encounter in the film seems to be a way that Bud bridges this absence, either physically or psychologically, yet he always tries to outrace the fear of his own solitude that the film can never let him escape. He cannot let himself escape it. As the film ultimately reveals, he does not want to let himself escape. He binds himself to Daisy, a tangible absence until the film's climax. But in his connection to Daisy he only experiences an emptiness shared in his racing or cross country driving, a sense of vacant loss we are implicated in. Bud demands this pain. It is the symbol of his responsibility; and it is his responsibility that is questioned when he finally meets Daisy. The film takes great care to show the mundane activities of his trip with as much care as those of greatest importance--his ultimate reunion with Daisy. The film's meditative pace and absence of a continued sense of narrative causality, where Bud's actions are until the conclusion without clear reasons, admirably join the film's form with its content. The film's solemn tone is established through this combination of pacing and seemingly indiscriminate coverage. Its stylistic affinities tie it loosely to Italian Neorealism through the lens of the generic American Road Movie, but soaked in a dark and tormented psychology. Perhaps its rendition of human psychology is too true: for at the emotional heart of loss is emptiness, a tangible lack. It is nothing. The film's title gathers different meanings through the film. …

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