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Reviews
Yes, Your Tide Is Cold and Dark, Sir (2013)
Sins of the father
Christopher Malinowski is an independent filmmaker with a unique vision. YES, YOUR TIDE IS COLD AND DARK, SIR--the follow-up to his "ALMS," YOU SAY--is a surreal drama with a more straightforward narrative than that previous film had. It nevertheless demands an engaged viewer who is not a stranger to multi-layered, thought-provoking cinema.
The story follows Cliff Claitonowsky (played by writer-director Malinowski), a stock broker whose estranged father, Clay, has recently disappeared with three of his guitar students. In order to come to terms with the town and the people he left behind--but not to solve the mystery of his popular father's disappearance--Cliff returns to Cape Henlopen, Delaware, and soon finds himself the reluctant center of attention. (Malinowski deserves credit for putting some of Delaware's scenic areas on film, which is something that not a lot of other noteworthy filmmakers have done. It's another element that puts his films in a class of their own.)
Cliff is passive toward the mystery surrounding his father's disappearance, and does not even appear particularly fazed by the bizarre, ominous threats of harm he receives from the town's enigmatic seedier element. Ambivalently, Cliff wanders through the mystery with better things on his mind, more interested in tying up the emotional loose ends of his own past than in determining the whereabouts of the father who neglected him. But Clay has played a greater role in Cliff's life than Cliff is perhaps willing to admit.
The sins of the father shall be visited upon the son, and Cliff becomes inevitably and increasingly entangled in the affairs of those whom his father left behind--friends, lovers, enemies, and pupils--whose yearning for a connection, for intimacy, for personal guidance mirrors Cliff's own. As we inch toward the film's conclusion, it becomes clear that a resolution (for Cliff and for the audience) might be forever out of grasp.
To the viewer who is spoon-fed on easy answers and clear-cut endings, that could spell trouble, but YES, YOUR TIDE IS COLD AND DARK, SIR offers something far richer than that. To some degree, the film is about one man's complicated relationship with the community that embraced his neglectful father as its own beloved patriarchal figure. This is an easily understood theme, especially as it regards artists who achieve professional success at the expense of familial success. (Think Julian Lennon's attitude toward his father John, to name one of countless examples.) The film inspires the same kind of reflectiveness toward one's life choices that Cliff wrestles with throughout the film. Granted, it does so with a very un-Hollywood combination of drama and dark surrealism, but the two-hour film is never less than compelling, and it's often fascinating.
Not all of my questions were answered by the film's end, but I was in no way dissatisfied. I strongly recommend it to adventurous moviegoers.
Existo (1999)
Existo-stentialism
When the U.S. government declares war on art, a group of guerrilla artists wage a counterattack with the verbose performer Existo at the helm. Attempts are made to undermine Existo's powerful hold on the artistic underground, including a plot that caters to his rampant libido, and his fellow insurgents strive to reawaken him to their cause.
Existo is the brainchild of Nashville's Coke Sams and Bruce Arnston, the creative team behind the Ernest P. Worrell movies; several of the actors from that series appear here, including Ernest himself, the late Jim Varney. However, beyond the talent involved, there is virtually NO connection to be made between EXISTO and, say, ERNEST GOES TO SCHOOL.
Like PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE, the Ernest films can be somewhat disturbing to children who pick up on their vague, low-budget creepiness. In a kids' movie, this quality can undermine the filmmakers' intentions to provide "wholesome" family entertainment; EXISTO is definitely not a children's film, but the weirdness that lay dormant in the Ernest franchise bubbles to the surface here, and bargain-basement slapstick gives way to exceptionally clever dialogue and a fascinating lead performance.
While the film's preoccupation with conservatism's war on art makes it seem dated even for its time--the representation of televangelists as the ultimate money-grubbers had already been taken to its satirical extreme in eighties films like REPO MAN--EXISTO's saving grace lies within the portrayal of its titular character by Bruce Arnston. Arnston's dialogue can only be described as high-mimetic scatology; it grants Shakespearean eloquence to MAD Magazine- style prurience. His brilliant logorrhea is delivered with pseudo-intellectual exaggeration reminiscent of Frank Zappa or "Weird Al" Yankovic, and he is often backed by a soundtrack that recalls the Residents.
The Existo character first appeared on "Hey Vern! It's Ernest", a highly inventive TV series that, like the film EXISTO, is hurting for widespread DVD distribution. Unless that happens, one of the most unusual comic performances of the last decade will only be available through occasional screenings and "official bootlegs" (www.existo.com), so take advantage while you can.