7/10
Journey across America with Grief on the passenger sit
18 May 2008
I have not seen the original Director's cut of the film that had created so much bad press after the screening at the Cannes Film Festival and prompted Roger Ebert make the statement that "The Brown Bunny" was the worst film in the history of the festival but the 92 minutes long version that Gallo himself re-edited is certainly not the bad movie. I'd say it is much better than hundreds of one star reviews on the Netflix movie's site lead you to believe. I personally agree with Vienalle Film Festival that awarded to "The Brown Bunny" FIPRESCI Prize "For its bold exploration of yearning and grief and for its radical departure from dominant tendencies in current American film-making". In exploring loss, regrets, yearning, grief, loneliness, inner numbness as the way to cope with pain caused by guilt, longing for the contact and inability to communicate, Vincent Gallo, writer/director/star/cinematographer/editor for "The Brown Bunny", definitely drove his point across (no pun intended). I think that Gallo found the right way to create a mood of quiet and unbearable desperation. The movie brought to my mind the line from one of the poems by Paul Verlen, French poet of the 18th century, "I walked, accompanying my own grief". Grief was the passenger in Bud's van and kept him company on the long journey across America, from New Hampshire to California. They had a lot to talk about but their conversations were speechless - that's why there is so much silence in the movie and only shots of Bud's face and his eyes.

Many viewers (and reviewers) mention in their comments the notorious explicit scene of oral sex between Bud Clay (Gallo) and Daisy (Chloe Sevigny), the one true love of his life. Those who dismissed the movie as totally worthless say that without the scene, nobody would every bother watching "The Brown Bunny". I would not speak for everyone but I would've liked the film even without two minutes of graphic sex that in the context of the film is appropriately more disturbing and sad than anything else. With all due respect to the opinions of the viewers who dislike and even hate Vincent Gallo's movie, I found it interesting, compelling and satisfying.
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