Bent, Volume 1 (2002)

June 18, 2003

by Nathan Shumate

Written and directed by Jason Santo
Starring
- Cassie Ross
- Roman Berman
- Jennifer Chaplain
- Angelo Athanasoupolis
- Gene Dante

It’s been too long since I’ve taken a look at Jason Santo’s output (which I’ve previously reviewed here, here, and here). It’s good to see him still hard at work, making short microbudget features that are satisfying far beyond his means and resources. It reminds me that there’s such a thing as native talent, and while filmmaking skill can be learned to a degree by just about any dedicated knucklehead, those who start out with the knack have a leg up on the rest of us when it comes to using the medium of cinema to tell a story. Santo’s probably not technically a savant, but he’s a damned fine filmmaker by any standard.

There are three short films in this anthology volume, and tying them together is a single thematic motif: Water. The first one is introduced with footage of raindrops on glass, and the observation that any single raindrop’s path can be changed completely by the raindrops it runs into. And with that, we go into…

Now available as a framed print at Target.

Marisa, a reedited version of a film which actually dates back to Santo’s Random Foo days, before he struck out on his own with Mindscape Pictures. It was then, and is now, a powerful demonstration that the building blocks of cinema are not words (as in prose, poetry, or even theatre), but images. The story, such as it is, is simple: The titular Marisa shoots her once-boyfriend, with images of their past together being then juxtaposed with Marisa cleaning the gun and tidying up the aftermath. What makes this short film memorable is that it is completely free of dialogue, and that absence doesn’t feel forced; between an almost flawless choice of images, and a perfectly complementary soundtrack (which I tend to lump into the category of imagery anyway, since it is another form of non-verbal communication), it’s a complete tale of love, betrayal both by alienated affection and by bodily fluids, and revenge as a desperate attempt at resolution. None of the images used are groundbreaking, but Shakespeare used mostly words other people had invented, too.

Which is why, now as then, I’m still a little frustrated that Santo cheats. While Marisa reads her mail and cries, a line of text on the screen (in that jumpy, edgy style so popular with the kids these days) says “HIV positive.” Was there no way to convey this kind of information visually? After all, when we see Marisa glance over in a moment of sweaty passion and note an unopened condom on the bedside table, we’re already primed to see the other shoe drop. I don’t know if it was lack of confidence in his own communicative abilities or the audience’s intelligence, but it’s a jarring note in a film which otherwise could be used as a textbook example of the value of cinematic storytelling.

“ASHCROFT!!!!”

The second story, Haunted, likewise uses techniques which others before have used, but Santo makes them his own. A crimelord’s thugs grab the crimelord’s girlfriend and the guy she’s recently been shacking up with, beating the latter brutally and then depositing him in a dumpster before perforating him with bullets. They also videotape this, as proof of delivery of services. Then they take the girlfriend back to one of the crimelord’s run-down warehouse to hand her and the tape over in exchange for payment. But someone or something else is in the warehouse. And it wants them dead.

The watery setup for this is a comparison between water’s states (solid, liquid, and gas, in case you flunked high school science), and the state of the human soul during an after this life — and thus, if the metaphor holds true, can a soul “recondense” out of the ether like steam turning back into water? With an intro like that (plus the title), it’s no surprise that we’re dealing with a ghost story here. I only wish that setup had (pardon the expression) held a little more water. Specifically mentioned in the intro is the idea that especially strong emotions could draw a person back, and that’s close enough to the premise of The Crow that one would expect a death more horrifically moving and unique than a guy simply crying in fear as he’s killed. That doesn’t strike me as the emotion we see perpetuated in the vengeful ghost’s actions.

“One more crack about looking like Arnold Vosloo, and I swear…”

I should include a disclaimer here, that I wouldn’t notice the missteps of the script so much if it weren’t for Santo’s other, superior abilities. He’s just not quite as good a screenwriter as he is a director.

From the video camera element, you probably can also guess that there’s something owed here to The Blair Witch Project. And yes, we do get fair swatches of footage taken from the videotape. But where it really learned from BWP is not in the video gimmick, but in the awareness that those images seen from the corner of the eye can be more startling and unsettling than those that step out into the light. The pace and subtle tension make up for the potholes in the plot.

The final story, His Life, is introduced with a river as a metaphor for destiny: no drop of water can run contrary to the flow of it all. And with that intro, longtime Santo castmember Roman Berman is introduced to us as Martin, who has always known that he would die at age twenty-five. He’s spent the last several years running around the world to cram as much living as he could into the time he has left, and is now finally coming back to his hometown to make amends to friends and family for running out on them, and to celebrate his long-dreaded twenty-fifth birthday.

Ah, the stoicism of that face… the nobility…

It’s a compellingly ambiguous premise (you can just imagine Ray Bradbury writing it, can’t you?), made even better by the vaguely exotic score by Ming. Images of prosaic family life are juxtaposed with the peripatetic prodigal, realizing that in his quest to get as much living done as possible, he managed to cheat himself (and others) out of his life. Which is all well and good, but here’s the problem (and I’ll try to be as gentle as possible):

Santo is often better than his cast. Granted, Marisa didn’t require any line-reading, and most of the cast of Haunted acquit themselves well. But here in His Life, the entire film hinges on the character of Martin, which means it depends on the acting of Roman Berman. And Berman just can’t deliver. He doesn’t have the ability to portray the character of a man who’s travelled the world and sampled its wonders for seven years, now coming to some uncomfortable realizations about himself. Another longtime Santo castmember, Joe Vaccariello, shares the same problem (in fact, it’s most apparent in those actors who’ve been part of Santo’s stable since the early days), and the scene between Berman and Vaccariello is like a practicum at the Kevin Costner School of Charisma-Free Acting.

Hey — you can’t use that shot without a dinosaur, dude!

And I don’t really know what to do about that, since these are the people that have stood with Jason Santo for years. My only suggestion ties in with my next comment.

It’s become standard practice, when reviewing a Jason Santo collection, to end it by saying, “These shorts are great — now will he please get off his ass and direct something feature-length?” So maybe the answer is something drastic: Pack up, leave the Boston area, and head to Hollywood to lay his talent on the line. (Hey, that’s what Alvin Ecarma, director of Lethal Force, is about to do.) I suppose my reasons for urging this are partly selfish: I wanna see a for-real Jason Santo feature! But I’d like to think there’s also an altruistic side to this because, dammit, people with this level of innate ability aren’t thick on the ground, and it would be a damned shame if the world at large also never got to see a Jason Santo feature.