Heartbreakers
***
Cinema
Releases - August 31, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 95
minutes. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Written John Cameron Mitchell;
from the play by John Cameron Mitchell, Stephen Trask. Starring John Cameron
Mitchell, Michael Pitt, Miriam Shor, Theodore Liscinski, Rob
Campbell.
"Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is the
kind of title that brings a smile to the face, especially for people who
have seen the movie, who will forever grin whenever it comes to mind. It
shows all the promise of becoming a cult movie, with the polish, colour and
textual fluidity of a studio comedy but a distinctly underground sensibility
and countless memorable moments.
The film follows a prog-punk group called The
Angry Inch, fronted by an East German transsexual called Hedwig (John Cameron
Mitchell). The band's tour of the United States consists mostly of small
Middle America diners where they play, um, 'colourful' shows to bemused and
often elderly patrons. Old couples try to eat their soup as bizarre slide
shows flash around them and a half-man, half-woman dances on their
tables.
In between the gigs are animations, dream sequences
and amusing little oddities, like the way the band's guitarist dreams of
being on a Polynesian tour boat's production of "Rent" and develops a puppy-like
expression of longing whenever he sees a poster for the show. There are also
flashbacks imparting Hedwig's life story -- his life as a young boy in the
Eastern Bloc, his half-successful sex change (which left him with the 'angry
inch'), his marriage to an American G.I., his tutelage of a kid who ended
up becoming a rock star.
The movie does not explode as one huge bag of
eccentricities; the delivery is more restrained than that, allowing the bizarre
and often ludicrous material to earn laughs more effectively. Which is not
to say that "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" is a subtle film. "Our apartment
was so small that my mother made me play in the oven," Hedwig says when
recounting his early years, and we actually cut to a shot of the kid crouching
into the oven. One of the musical numbers even has subtitles and a bouncing
ball, inviting us to sing along. The fact that nobody in the audience did
join in when I saw the movie leads me to believe that Brits are nothing but
churls.
I'm not sure if my description of the movie is
effectively capturing its atmosphere. I'm not sure what description could.
Like Hedwig himself, the movie has one big flaw, and that is the fact that
the denouement goes on too long. Apart from that it's quite an achievement
on the part of Mitchell, who not only plays the lead role, but wrote and
directed the picture as well as co-writing the play it was based on. "Hedwig
and the Angry Inch" is off the wall, inventive, charming, showmanlike and
at times even touching. Some of the music is pretty good, too.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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