Beyond the Multiplex

"Wristcutters: A Love Story" imagines hell as a place you may recall -- with Tom Waits as an angel. Plus: The man behind Mapplethorpe.

By Andrew O'Hehir

Read more: Andrew O'Hehir, Movies, Suicide, Movie Reviews, Arts & Entertainment, Independent Film, Reviews, Beyond the Multiplex

Shannyn Sossamon and Patrick Fugit in "Wristcutters."

Oct. 18, 2007 | Maybe once a week, when I meet somebody and tell them what I cover, the person narrows their eyes and looks at me in a knowing manner. "Independent film," they say. "What does that even mean these days?"

I'm not going to drag this column down the bottomless rabbit hole of movieland etymology and taxonomy, I swear. The point is that for that person -- generally, we're talking about someone over 35, someone whose consciousness was shaped by the 1980s or earlier -- the term "independent film" used to mean something it doesn't mean anymore.

Actually, the way the term is used within the film business today is perfectly clear and logical. You may argue that it's meaningless, if you wish, but that's another question. An independent film is one not produced or distributed by the main branch of one of the six major Hollywood studios. Under that definition, a big-budget movie made or distributed by an autonomous "mini-major" like Warner Independent or Sony Pictures Classics or Focus Features or Picturehouse is just as independent as a $200,000 experimental narrative released by New Yorker or Palm Pictures or IFC or any of the scores of teensier companies out there.

Look, I didn't say it made intuitive sense. I just said it creates some clarity. Given the magic-money-from-everywhere nature of film production these days, there's plenty of ambiguity and category-bleed to go around. I have no idea why the jesuitical minds at IndieWire have classified "The Darjeeling Limited," a Fox Searchlight release, as independent while "Eastern Promises," a Focus release, apparently isn't. But at least we're not trying to apply the late Justice Potter Stewart's famous obscenity definition ("I know it when I see it") to every single movie that comes down the pike.

Thing is, o brethren and sistren of the over-35 generation who still long for some subversive edge, some aroma of dusty coolness, to your indie films: I feel your anguish. I feel it in my bones, because I know exactly when the term entered my consciousness, and what three films were associated with it. The movies were Wayne Wang's "Chan Is Missing" in 1982, Alex Cox's "Repo Man" in 1983 and Jim Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise" in 1984.

Hell, I still view those three movies with prodigious fondness. Maybe I'll watch them all tonight. I'm not arguing that they were the first or best or ultimate independent films, and I'm pretty sure other things (John Cassavetes' movies, perhaps) were being called independent films before those guys came along. It was probably just a weird generational or historical accident that those three filmmakers seemed to capture a moment, and that their movies all seemed to combine downbeat realism, miscellaneous tributes to genre film and a dry, slightly dark current of post-punk whimsy. (Their subsequent careers could hardly be more different, although we'll leave the fascinating comparative essay for another time.)

All I'm saying is that for certain viewers (me included) the "Chan Is Repossessed in Paradise" aesthetic will always seem definitional, and that every quirky-funky film where people go noplace particular in a busted car and have odd things happen is partaking of that legacy, consciously or not. Am I dooming Goran Dukic's low-budget debut feature "Wristcutters: A Love Story" by bringing it up in this context? That's up to you, but there's nothing unconscious about this movie, an oddly clever vision of the afterlife that seems to have sprung directly from the early-'80s Jarmusch-Cox zeitgeist.

This is a movie that features an old hatchback junker with no working headlights and a black hole under the front seat. (No -- an actual black hole, like in space.) This is a movie in which Tom Waits plays an angel. This is a movie in which every major character is already dead. I found it hilarious, imaginative, sweet and generally delightful. But I suppose if you're holding your stomach and groaning, "Not another winsome espresso-depresso comedy!" you'd better see something else. This week also takes us back to the '80s with a peculiar but intriguing documentary about the ambiguous relationship between photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and curator-collector Sam Wagstaff, and a hard-edged, low-budget horror movie that's so minimal it has almost no talking.

There's an impressive list of not-quite-indie releases coming out this week with half an eye on the awards season, from Susanne Bier's English-language debut "Things We Lost in the Fire," starring Halle Berry and Benicio del Toro, to Ben Affleck's directing debut "Gone Baby Gone" and Terry George's "Reservation Road," with Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo. (Stephanie Zacharek will cover most of those on Friday.) If you live in New York and your filmgoing diet still seems inadequate, well for goodness' sake get over to Film Forum for Sergei Bondarchuk's legendary seven-hour adaptation of "War & Peace," an Oscar winner in 1968. But are there aliens, angels or busted Buicks in it?

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