On B List of Movie Reviews

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The Brown Bunny (2003)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 12/20

12/20: Talk about an unbelievably notorious film.

It only takes one scene for The Brown Bunny, and that's the oral sex between two Hollywood thespians. Then again, Vincent Gallo and Chloë Sevigny aren't exactly what I call "mainstream."

Had the film stopped afterwards, then yes...there's no point anymore. It would be described as a gratuitous, self-centered piece of work for Vincent Gallo. Once the revelation was made to fill in the rest of the details, what had happened hitherto made sense, enough to turn it into a complete picture that's somewhat similar to Gallo's masterpiece Buffalo '66.

To be honest with you, I hate the title. A better substitution should be The Loneliness of a Sexually-Frustrated Long Distance Driver. Anyway, The Brown Bunny is a different movie which is as indie as it gets. In fact, many such pictures, Professione: reporter and Zabriskie Point for example, were made during the 70's, but nearly all didn't work out because they had ultimately become vacuous.

I can understand why some people called the movie boring because not much happens and there are a lot of shots of Vincent Gallo on the road, showing what they normally see nowadays. Yet there's a point in the atmosphere that he's trying to establish, hence my suggested title. It's the extreme close-ups which bother me more, but I've gotten used to them after a while.

All in all, The Brown Bunny is Easy Rider meets Paris, Texas but with the addition of a shocking sexually explicit scene.

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