Hollywood’s trendy mid-range eatery, The Bungalow Club, is now showing films as part of their Monday night entertainment. With most underground auteurs desiring an opportunity to publicly screen in Los Angeles, and the festival system being the mess that it is, the Bungalow is going to have an ample supply of product to pleasure their Monday night guests. The July 27th screening featured a “coming home” movie,
Wild Sunflowers, from Florida based no-budget filmmakers, Thomas and Jeanne Griffith.
Wild Sunflowers is about an Iraq vet returning to his small Florida town, and the consequences of his state of treatment, both socially and politically, to himself, and his family. Since 9-11, the American Military has been ask to pay for the War On Terror with both bodies and souls, whilst, the American public has been asked to take a tax cut, and deface the backs of their BMWs with “We Support Our Troops” stickers. Meanwhile, politicians have had little or no interest in dealing with the ravages of war on veterans or their families. We all know this, and in this regard, the Griffith’s cover no new ground. What we get is Bobby Hatcher’s coming home, his condition, and his state of mind, as seen through the eyes of his wife, Molly. It isn’t pretty. Bobby is a physical mess, confused, angry, and in pain. Molly behaves like people do under duress. There are no heroes here. The Griffith’s manage to hit a couple of raw nerves. The taboo subject of soldiers balking at using their weapons in battle (we’re supposed to believe all soldiers in the field are bloodthirsty killers) , and Molly’s being torn between the dutiful wife, “for better or worse till death us part” bit and her quest for romantic satisfaction. These toxic storylines have co-opted to keep Wild Sunflowers out of most film festivals.
The Griffith’s say they spent under 10K for this movie. With that budget, you’d expect some scratchy audio, an occasional soft focus, and some flatly lit scenes, and you get them. The quality of the acting pulls you through, so, you hardly notice. Gia Franzia plays the beleaguered Molly Hatcher. This role would be a serious effort for an experienced leading actress, and a mountain to climb for a relative neophyte. Despite a shaky scene to open the movie, Franzia gets a grip and turns in a solid performance. Rick Crawford as Bobby Hatcher looks downright diabolical at times. Crawford discreetly lets us know from his opening scene, that all the stars aren’t quite aligned right in Bobby’s head. Acts I and II center on Bobby trying unsuccessfully come to grips with himself, while Molly goes from trying to put a brave face on to reconciling herself to a life of angst. She tells her friend Connie, “if this is the way it’s going to be for the rest of my days, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to hold up.”
The three leads, which includes Tate Ammons, as would be Congressman, Wesley VanHoevan, has excellent support, through out the fairly large cast. Kerri Lurtz is delightful and poignant as Molly’s friend Connie, and filmmaker Jeanne Griffith double duties as Joy, Bobby’s mom. Joy who suffers deeply internalized anger over her son’s injuries. Griffith artfully portrays her as both a horror and an object of pity. Thomas Griffith employs straight forward, no frills directing, classic shoot and run format for the no budget shooter. No artsy or clever angles here. It doesn’t matter, because this movie is all about the dialog anyway. The on screen conversations are powerful, to the point, and sometimes melodic. In the end, it’s what makes this movie happen.
Hopefully, The Bungalow Club keeps this up, and hopefully continues with quality drama, and doesn’t fall into the dark realms of indie film black holes like dismal retarded horror flicks and lame beer, drugs, and indignant lifestyle stories. There seemed to be some issues with the presentation; the program started 30 minutes late. Cafes of course, are not proper theaters, and picture and audio suffers from lights, waiters, and general yapping of patrons not interested in the movie. Still, it’s better than no screen at all, and it seems to have the possibility of a symbiotic relationship that might endure. Could this be the future of indie drama? There’s nothing like a beer, chicken salad, and a movie. It worked for me the Bungalow.
