Monte Hellman, cult American film-maker behind 1971's much admired Two-Lane Backdrop, has debuted his new film in competition here in Venice.
The Road Nowhere is a neo noir thriller featuring a largely unknown cast. This year's jury head, Quentin Tarantino is known to be a big fan of Hellman's work, and he was in the audience this afternoon's press screening - his entrance causing quite a scene, though in the few times I've seen him here, he seems to love the attention. The film takes many twists and turns, often blurring the line between fantasy and reality. The story is fairly complicated, but simplified: it is about a director who sets out to make a film based on some true events. He finds an unknown actress, with an uncanny resemblance to the real person she is to portray, and hires her immediately. He is soon obsessed with her, to the detriment of his film. But she has her own connection to the material which threatens to lead the production on a disastrous course. It isn't always clear which scenes are taking place in front of or behind the camera. The Road Nowhere is pretty self-referential and makes lots of jokes about directors, actors and movie-making. It starts with a shot of a DVD disc, with the film's title on it, being loaded into a laptop. The film starts playing and we slowly zoom in on the lead actress, Shannyn Sossamon, until the laptop screen completely fills the frame (perhaps an allusion to the real way growing numbers of people consume movies). And like Black Swan, the events of the film within the film end up becoming linked to the "real life" events themselves. Although shot in a low-budget, digital style, the film is not without some outstanding and high-concept shots. One still and quiet scene of a lake is broken by a nose-diving plane - an individual shot that drew spontaneous applause from the Venice crowd, in itself. The sound is also great with good use of music, and the loudest, most jump-inducing gun sound effects I have heard since Public Enemies.
I enjoyed what I saw as the film's critique of its central character. He is a slightly affected film-maker, who talks in interviews about always willing to do "another take for deeper truth". He refers to every film he watches in his hotel room as a masterpiece and rejects casting DiCaprio or Scarlett Johansson in his picture because he "against casting somebody because they're famous and will make the film a lot of money." He is put in his place by a TV interviewer who says "It's an industry, man. Show business isn't just show!" I found The Road to Nowhere to be exactly that, in the final analysis. I didn't feel emotionally connected to it in any way and see the film as a bag of reasonably interesting ideas and good individual moments, rather than as a complete and compelling work. It is also, like so many films, a little overlong (just over two hours in length), without the incident or intrigue to support its running time. But in the end it isn't me that Hellman has to impress. We will find out how impressed Mr. Tarantino was when the prizes are announced on Saturday evening.