Saturday, March 04, 2006

Rhinocerous Eyes

Rhinoceros Eyes:

A boy watches a movie, completely enthralled, living it. A little later, back home at The Prop Shop, he sees an Act of Violence, one human being beating another to death..he yawns.

Our Hero. His Golden Fleece/Grail, delivering ‘the goods’ to a upscale ‘props-girl’ with an authentic desire to distinguish herself and redeem her life by bringing a little reality into ‘the biz’ like real rhinoceros eyes, which unfortunately are already rented out to a porno shoot.

Give them an inch and they’ll take a finger – the fickle finger, that can only wag or spurt blood when subjected to that border-crossing feeling that plagues and excites outlaws/outcasts/idiot savants/artists.

The fact/fiction line of fire delivered by first time feature director Aaron Woodley is straight from the hip – and made entirely magical with the presence of these extraordinary animated characters who menace Michael Pitt’s amazing simple-boy, living in his fantasy.

I enjoyed a day’s work playing the Waitress in the Nurse outfit, Halloween in the Prop Shop when all Hell breaks loose. The terrific actors who played the Prop shop ‘hoods’ were wonderful to work with as was Aaron Woodley, whose mind created this Universe.

The first time I saw the Film was at a cast/crew screening…pre Toronto Film Festival, I think.. I was blown away by the eerie, scary animated figments, disturbing events, and the boy with the Rhinoceros eyes through which we could see reality distorted by fantasy.

This time, I was delighted to get to see the ‘creatures’ again and intrigued by the story or perhaps ‘the themes’ - the revealing of this myopic consciousness, this boy of the movies, and Michael Pitt, a savvy New York Actor portrayed the levels of consciousness of this Hunchback of Hollywood Scenic land with compelling empathy.

Great imagery, original story. Magic.