Bellflower (R)
Bellflower is not for everyone. It’s violent, graphic and discomforting at times. The dialogue is authentic, but there are times that you can sense that it’s not professionally acted. Frankly it doesn’t matter though because you detach yourself and just watch a bunch of friends hang out and live their crazy lives. And you believe it. It’s an interesting and intense insight into manhood that traverses the tear between the nice guy and the whiskey-fueled badass that men have inside. In Bellflower, the balance exists from the beginning and sways as the plot progresses.
Like many relationships, Bellflower starts off sweet and subtle and transitions into something that’s really fucked-up. It charms you and gives you hope and warmth and then it begins to tear apart, deconstruct and blow things up. Jonathan Keevil’s song, “Bland” is a perfect accompaniment to all of this in a teasing opening of the film that sucks you in and stops time, hinting at the events we’re about to see unfold.
It begins like a typically sweet indie film: guy meets girl in a bar. But, in this story, boy meets girl during a cricket-eating contest. The guy is Woodrow (Evan Glodell), a name that even suggests old-fashioned, sweater vest wearing, sweet and awkward Wisconsin boy. The girl is Milly (Jessie Wiseman), who appears to be a bit of a wildcard. Opposites attract.
Woodrow is also a stark contrast to his boisterous and annoying best buddy, Aiden (Tyler Dawson). He goes off to buy a drink 
for Milly while Aiden yells and buys rounds for the whole table. Milly and Woodrow have a nice moment at the bar and begin their likely-to-be-doomed relationship.
Their first date is actually a spontaneous road trip to Texas that spans several days and dive bars, while they drive around in Woodrow’s car Speed Biscuit—fully equipped with whiskey tap in the dashboard—and drink whiskey out of Dixie cups. “It’s like a James Bond car for drunks,” Milly says. They don’t part ways until the next afternoon after their return. Milly leaves with wind and sun in her hair, stretching it out in snakelike fashion like the head of Medusa herself. Milly said she wanted to join the Medusa gang but she warns Woodrow that she will hurt him if they get seriously involved. Will she turn Woodrow to stone?
Woodrow and Aiden are obsessed with Mad Max and they talk of Lord Humongous, the “warrior of the wasteland,” and leader of the “post-holocaust, motorcycle-riding vandals” in Mad Max 2. They prepare themselves for an imaginary apocalypse by building a flamethrower, with hopes of eventually creating the “Medusa,” a flame-throwing, bad-assed monster of a car for which Glodell is responsible.
A New York Times article talks about Glodell’s “tinkering” in more depth. He wrote the film, directed it, starred in it, helped edit and produce it and he built the cool fire-breathing machines. Oh, and he wasn’t happy with the results produced from regular cameras so he built his own for the film: the Coatwolf Model II. That’s not a bad list of accomplishments for one film.
Instead of trying to add effects in postproduction, Glodell had cinematographer Joel Hodge focus on in-camera perspective tricks, such as tilt shifting. This allowed for one part of the image to remain in focus while the rest was not. The camera modifications also allowed for it to be opened so that different exposures could be obtained, creating frequent sepia and yellow undertones that are strung throughout like sequential moving Hipstamatic prints. The results are really something beautiful to see.
There are suggestions of editing goofs in the film but, to me, the story develops in a non-linear fashion at times, traversing between events real and imagined, blending the what will be, the what ifs and the what could have been. Time and life is uncertain. It stops. It speeds up. It reverts. You can decide for yourself what really happens and when.
The fact is that I dreaded the idea of having to write about this movie after I saw it on Friday. I was glad that I had seen it but I was unsure if I would ever want to watch it again or if I could really recommend it. In a way, it was like the time our class went to camp in sixth grade. I wasn’t sure if I really enjoyed it while I was there but boy did I love reminiscing about it. We got to play outside in the dark without fear. They made us hot cider at night before bed. We could be raucous boys. We didn’t have to take showers. We were young, free and essentially irresponsible. The characters in Bellflower are those things too and the story will affix itself to your thoughts. After you recuperate in a couple of days, you’ll have those same fond memories. Bellflower will resonate and it will leave you wanting to go back and get dirty all over again.
I give it 3.25 stars.
Bellflower is the late-night movie at the Art Theater this Thursday at 10:00 p.m.