Cinequest: HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE

Writer-director Jarrod Whaley says that Hell is Other People started out as a straightforward drama, and, somewhere along a string of rewrites, became the dark, dry comedy that it now is. Thank goodness. Taken at face value, the pathetic misadventures of its anti-hero Morty might drive an audience to suicide by the time the house lights come up.

Looking like a sprawling, hirsute Woody Allen, Morty begins his day with a bong and the classifieds, through which he hunts half-heartedly for a job. One gets the impression that he's not in the market for anything that entails actual work; he's more of an idea man. When the want ads don't pique his interest, he schleps around Chattanooga looking for a quick buck.

He convinces Ryan, a friend of his ex-girlfriend Emmy, to employ his services as a psychoanalyst on the theory that Morty has been in analysis so long, himself, that he knows how it's done. Stranger things have happened in trucks in deserted Tennessee parking lots but surely nothing as uncomfortable as the fumbling exchange of cash that follows Ryan's outpouring of neurosis to Morty's listening ear.

Soft-spoken and slow-moving, Morty gives the appearance of being shy and maybe even a little dull-witted. This is a front; he's always on the make. The advice he passes on to Ryan originates from another of Morty's acquaintances, who knows nothing of the financial arrangement between Ryan and Morty. He dodges his own sizable and long-overdue therapy bill by coming on to the receptionist so strong that, deeply discomfitted, she rushes him out the office door with no further thought for the money he owes. He sleazily attempts a reunion with Emmy (after her best friend Andie rejects his flirtation). It's not so much that he wants Emmy; his landlord has thrown him out and he needs a place to stay.

For all he is contemptible and utterly self-interested, Morty also exudes a peculiar charm, thanks in no small part to actor Richard Johnson's quiet yet considerable charisma. Even as his life circles a drain of his own making, we kinda-sorta want Morty to win. Why? Because Morty is us. Rarely has a filmmaker held a mirror up right smack in front of his audience as adroitly as this. And we can't look away. It's as if Whaley has distilled every wretched thing we've ever done, every situation we've ever handled badly, regretted, and hated ourselves for in the morning, into a single character and then had the audacity to slap us in the face with him. And because Morty embodies everything we loathe in ourselves, we simultaneously want to kill him and see him prevail.

Subtly directed, the mostly-amateur players commit to their roles in a way that those in bigger-ticket productions often don't match. Johnson is a particular delight, but Elizabeth Worthington also stands out as the only character who matches or perhaps even tops Morty in scheming and cringe-inducing awkwardness.

Generally serviceable, Whaley's photography reaches an apex of loveliness in a scene on a foggy mountaintop. Fired by his erstwhile patient, Morty attempts to contemplate the distant landscape, but it's invisible. As much as he's looking to take advantage of others for material gain, he's also searching for a genuine emotional connection. Whether the world denies him this because of circumstance or because he is undeserving is ultimately of no importance.

The story has no ending. The film simply stops. This may leave a significant swath of viewers in the lurch and frustrated, but Whaley knows what he's doing. Never has a lack of resolution been so right. We don't know the future. What it holds for us and for the bits of us that Morty represents, we can only uselessly speculate. Whether hemmed in by opaque blue-gray mist or left standing at the side of the road, options exhausted and nowhere left to go--either up or down--for Morty there really is no exit.

Cinequest: THE ROBBERS (WO DE TANGCHAO XIONGDI)

A pair of shady brothers, Shisun and Chen Liu, ineptly try to rob a farmer and ravish his daughter, only to be interrupted by a platoon of marauding soldiers. Because the robbers' scorn for the military is even greater than their scorn for ordinary, law-abiding citizens, they stop what they're doing and slaughter the soldiers. The farmer and neighboring villagers are so grateful that they take Shisun and Chen Liu prisoner. The brothers escape by distracting their dimwitted guards with bawdy stories. They are caught and imprisoned again. Again, they escape. And so on, and so on.

Half Kurosawa-Mifune swordplay spectacle, half Fear and Loathing in the Tang Dynasty, this tale of 8th-century China unfolds pretty much as you'd expect but is fun to watch despite its predictability. Writer-director Yang Shu-peng seems to operate on a policy of "when in doubt, impale, decapitate, or hang someone," yet the film still manages to feel frothy and light. That's no easy feat.

Hu Jun and Jiang Wu work a very pleasing chemistry as the comically brutal titular characters. Hu as Shisun is the smart one, cool and aloof in the face of any danger. Jiang as Chen Liu is the emotional slob who rails apoplectically against everything that befalls them until he runs short of breath. "Shisun, you go on cursing," he says. "I'm tired out."

A wedge is driven between them when Chen Liu falls in love and wants to remain in the village. Shisun stays, too, but he hungers for their old way of life, feeling that stability will make them soft. Meanwhile, the village is under constant threat from the seemingly-inexhaustible garrison of tyrannical soldiers. In the wake of a particularly vicious attack, the brothers try to convince the villagers to flee, to no avail. The villagers are convinced that the only reason the soldiers keep attacking is because they want to arrest the robbers. Only when the soldiers try to rape the village women do the locals finally lift a finger to defend themselves.

Full of wary alliances, betrayals, and deceit, this black comedy falls apart at the climax. Yang can't sustain the pitch of perpetual carnage and concludes on a dreamlike note that matches nothing in the rest of the movie. (The sudden and complete change of tone was almost as grating as the projectionist who played the movie at twice the volume necessary.) One leaves the theatre feeling baffled and deflated. A more straightforward resolution--any discernible resolution at all, in fact--might have made The Robbers a winner. Close, but no cigar. Still, Yang is a filmmaker to watch. His visual acuity, deft hand with his actors, and knack for creating interesting characters and relationships will serve him well when tempered with a little more restraint.