Movies - Funkastophales

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	Movies - Funkastophales

Funkastophales is a 2005 film written and directed by Stephen Glover with post production work done by saltchrome of zerohorizon.com

Overview

In it's entirety, the film is based upon denial of the concept of Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

This film has been apparently certified by the Seattle based Crawdad In the Tumbleweed film group as number four in their small collection of anti-classical-narrative films.

Shot almost entirely in Missoula, Montana on a Sony VX2100, the film has been released on DVNTSC dvd region free. Most of the actors had little to no experience with film (mostly theater), some were picked because of the lack of experience and the crew was intentionally kept to a minimum size.

The title Funkastophales is a play on the literary Mephistopheles and the main charecter named Jandek is loosely based on the reclusive musician. In this instance he is a musician and an okay comic artist.

The movie has a unique editing style. The scenes are edited out of order to form an emotional sense of the surroundings rather than a classical linear cinema construction. No reference is made to the non-linear structure throughout the plot and so the traditional audience is forced to respond to the scenes as seperate entities. On the dvd the scenes have no names and are intended to be watched in any order the viewer may choose, although the film itself plays in a predetermined order.

The film has had a small showing at some Independent Theaters, but has been shown quite often at coffee houses and wharehouses.

The director of the film has refused it's sale and been very picky on it's release. In order to obtain a copy one must submit a vulgar letter, poem or story. If approved, then a copy is sent for free to the individual.

Due to the films explicit content it has been pulled from some public showings.

Synopsis

The movie is a portrait of loneliness for the main charecter Jandek. He moves about the small college town of Missoula, Montana in a detached daze reminiscent of Meursault in The Stranger.

The film begins with a meal of bacon and peanut-butter sandwich and vodka consecrated by an unplugged banjo rendition of Iron Maiden's the Number of the Beast, while the main charecter defecates on the toilet. Jandek murders a media arts teaching assistant at the University for his excessive use of post-modernism in the classroom. This occurs early on in the film, the remainder of which is the unravelling of Jandek's relationships and the constant presence of this towns memorable charecters. From homeless people (the director recruited from a local shelter), to coke fiends, preverted yuppies, an estranged father who owns a Topless Bar and an underaged love interest, we experience a blending of the geography of the town and its people in such a way that the morality of the initial murder becomes irrelevant. The peculiarity of the landscape and its bleakness become the villain.

Other charecters like a coke fiend, dressed in a catchers vest, who sports a homemade sign at an intersection that reads: "Crime", or the shirtless guy who builds a homemade gas bomb to kill his creative wiritng teacher, or his fathers constant flailing of a loaded pistol make the murder seem rational.

Madeness follows Jandek as he trashes a library at the University of Montana (this was apparently done without the college's consent) to mental escapes into seemingly random 3d animations that play out as cartoons in his mind.

Response

The film is slowly becoming an underground hit, the director is known in Seattle to give away copies by throwing them at pedestrians and homeless people. The director was nearly lynched during a December 2005 showing as he is reported to have made "inappropriate" remarks to audience members.

Some have likened it to a cross between Giuseppe Andrews film Trailer Town and Werner Herzog Stroszek.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Funkastophales ]

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