A Night at the Pictures

I attended my first ever film premiere last night as my friend Simon Savory screened his debut movie at Hackney Picturehouse via the good offices of the London East End Film Festival.  Bruno & Earlene go to Vegas was a shaggy dog road trip of a picture with a lot of charm, which is not surprising as Simon wrote, directed and produced the film – as one person said on conclusion of the credits, that story is Simon all over.

I was almost derailed in seeing the picture as my plan to get the Victoria Line to Highbury and Islington and then change to Overground to Hackney Central was kyboshed when the Overground line between Richmond and Stratford was closed (allegedly due to a fire) and I had just fifteen minutes to go (though luckily the screening began at nine).  Seeing Dalston Junction was not too far from Hackney Central, I hopped on the Overground to there and then with the direction of a friendly station assistant, I caught the no. 38 bus to Hackney Central and then ran up the street to get to the Picturehouse (quite easy to find from there as it was opposite the distinctive Hackney Town Hall.).  Altaa unfortunately I had been attending a conference at Liverpool Street and I sent her to Stratford, not knowing the Overground Line was closed.  Of course, once there and without my guidance (as she is still very naïve when travelling by herself), there was no way she could reach the cinema, let alone in time.  So she had to traipse back home (after instructions from me about how to get back to Victoria) but at least relieved my mum as babysitter earlier than expected.

I had booked the night before and though getting a central seat, I was in row B and rather close to the screen which filled pretty much the whole wall, meaning I often had to turn my head from side to side to catch certain details of the action or scenery, though in some ways this made it a more immersive experience.    I could have clambered over to the seats behind me in row C but I felt this would be undignified and draw unwanted attention to me.

Of course, the East End Film Festival promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual (LGBT) flicks.  It also encompasses three other letters (QIA), though I can only guess the first of these mean queer- though after Googling I now know ‘I’ stands for intersex and ‘A’ is classified as asexual.  Basically, it gives a platform to those creations that are not explicitly heterosexual, unlike Hollywood which marginalises other sexualities to the point where Behind the Candelabra – for which I saw a poster on the Underground - cannot get distribution in the USA, even though homosexuality is not its selling point.

Simon made his baby for $70,000 which sounds a lot to most of us in our everyday lives but considering the definition of a micro-financed film is $250,000 or less, it’s a pretty tight budget.  As such, the strength of the motion picture is in the script and the acting.  I can say it did not disappoint.

It starts off with Earlene, a down-on-her-luck alcoholic who meets up with a homeless Australian called Bruno who ‘couch-surfs’ – staying in holiday homes of absentee owners.  A bond develops and when Bruno attends a creepy photo-session for money, Earlene rescues him from degradation.  Meanwhile, a police partnership are chasing up couch-surfers and are intent on finding Bruno – who started the local craze.  As Bruno has a fondness for Paris and specifically the Eiffel Tower, Earlene proposes they go to Las Vegas as there he will be able to see the next closest thing – “It’s a replica but isn’t that what America does best?”  They move off and stay the night in a motel, the Atomic Inn.  There they hook upwith a blond beefcake (who washes his car with phallic spouting hose) and when Earlene’s car receives a police visit because she has stolen it from her boyfriend, the blond man dumps his (slightly clichéd) ever-so-precious bimbo of a girlfriend and takes off with Bruno and Earlene in his now ex’s dad’s jeep.  In the middle of nowhere, they break down but luck is in hand as after a long trek they find an oasis - a town in the middle of a desert, the only one we are told for 100 miles around.  It is an oasis in other ways, refreshing our heroes.  All through this trip we find out, bit by bit, secrets of the protagonists.  Understandably, this town is a place of oddballs where people go to be themselves in a place that won’t judge them.  The main characters are a bereaved ex-showgirl who now runs a bar, two Scottish men who used to strip in Las Vegas but now practice music and a platonic middle-aged female couple who have the normal spats and make-ups in a romance – when one delivers a breakfast in the shape of a (frowning) face, the other, cantankerously, squirts ketchup into the centre – “Now it's herpes!” 

Love blossoms between the blond guy (who it transpires is from conservative heartland of Oklahoma) and one of the Scottish men.  Bruno reveals that he is a chimera – when his mother conceived there were two eggs, male and female, that – instead of becoming twins – merged, to give Bruno female organs in a male body.  As a result, he wishes to stay in the town as he feels he has a family here, one that understands and accepts him for the first time.  Earlene, seeking some cathartic release by helping Bruno achieve his dream of seeing the Eiffel Tower, is upset that Bruno wishes to settle down there and departs, but not before telling Bruno she is pregnant (from her last boyfriend). 

This destabilises the dynamic that had been built and though Earlene soon returns, Bruno has returned to the slimeball photographer in Los Angeles who trades in intimate photos of inter-sex genitalia.  With the blond guy in the repaired jeep, both he and Earlene head off to rescue Bruno from himself.  The police buddy act, after revealing some home truths about each other as they stakeout a couch-surfing site, are also heading towards the palatial mansion, after being tipped off by their arrested suspect that the couch-surfing ‘ringleader’ is to be found there (after a chance encounter earlier in the film).  Earlene drags him out from his session but the photographer is in hot pursuit and pulls a gun on them from the inside balcony, and Earlene does the same, while indicating to Bruno that she has a gun tucked into her waistband on her back.  Outside, the blond guy brandishes a pistol and the police draw their weapons after their knocking on the door goes unanswered but they hear raised voices inside.  The ingredients of a Mexican stand-off.  The scene evaporates in blinding white light and we see Bruno and Earlene cavorting below the Eiffel Tower (in Vegas) and then making their way through a Scottish street (no doubt in actuality London but given a gritty hue with the grey weather) to meet the two Scottish guys and the blond guy in a park.  Are these last two scenes real (the cinematography is slightly surreal)?  Their dreams flashing through their minds as they die from being shot, never to be fulfilled? Heaven for them?  It is a good way to finish the movie, with questions posed.

The characterisation was very strong throughout with interesting and intriguing plot twists and overall gives a fresh approach to the road trip genre.  There were some very juicy quips and lines to lighten the subject matter which could be very dark.  The narrative structure was a little happy-go-lucky but it worked thanks to the strong central pairing of Bruno and Earlene (especially Ashleigh Sumner as the latter).  The acting was spot-on, capturing the quirks of their respective parts – I related them rather than thinking here is over-acting.  It was excellent in that regard.  I liked the visual trick achieved when Bruno introduces (an unaware) Earlene into her first couch-surfing adventure and as they prepare drinks in the kitchen, it appears as if we are peering at them through a porthole-shaped window; in fact, we are seeing their reflection in a mirror.  The up-close shots I admired, showing the blotchy skin that we are all really. 

The opening had the sound of a buzzing fly and I was reminded of the opening scene to Once Upon a Time in the West, where purely by chance a fly lands of the gun barrel of one of the waiting assassins who subsequently traps it for a while inside the barrel, though here the sound was to introduce Flyswot Films as the company fronting the movie. The chance occurrence of a lightning storm (and a quick camera pan) provided that unexpected backdrop to the story’s progression here – gold dust for a director.

I was overjoyed to see Ronnie K Rogers appearing, late in the scheme of things, in the cameo role of Selma, a tourist; she displayed a splendid singing voice.  As with Alfred Hitchcock, Simon had a vignette of an appearance himself (on the rolling credits as ‘asshole’, though not ‘arsehole’ I noted).  There was copious cussing stretching the boundaries of a ‘15’ certificate, but love sequences were handled tastefully, thus avoiding an ‘18’.

It seems churlish to criticise a picture on a micro-budget but there were a few aspects that could have been improved.  Some of the sound quality could have been improved, especially in the moving road scenes, where some of the dialogue was as intelligible as Tom Hardy’s portrayal of Batman super-villain Bane, but without access to plentiful (if any) time in a recording studio, this could not be avoided.  There were a couple of black gaps (that could have served as commercial breaks) in the editing.  I’m undecided if the dictionary definition of a chimera at the beginning was well-judged (as it had an integral section in the plot) or overly arty and pretentious (as it was explained in the dialogue anyway). The picture credits (in the manner of Scream) were a bit zippy to read.  And the plot device of Eiffel Tower earrings never really figured in any meaningful way after seeming to be ‘the gun in the first act’ (as Earlene was saving for them for when the moment was right). These are mere trifles though in comparison to the film and its ambience as a whole.

The Q&A session at the end was a hoot, with Simon inebriated and affectionately dictating to his cast and crew present and all recorded for posterity for the film festival  With the background explained that he and Ronnie used to work in Upper Norwood film store, Tarantino-esque ideas hove into my mind’s eye, though Simon would probably be appalled (not least because he walked out of Django Unchained at the profuse use of racial epithets).. Altogether, what Simon has achieved is immense and stands out professionally from all of his university friends, even Joel and Mark earning mega-bucks on Jersey.  It was a privilege to be there and watch his marvellous production.