Whether we admit it or not, we have a strong cultural tendency to fetishize the apocalypse. It’s why end-of-the-world porn like 2012 makes hundreds of millions of dollars.
It’s why Bellflower works.
It’s why Woodrow (newbie Evan Glodell, who also wrote, directed and edited Bellflower) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson, The Red Veil), a couple of seemingly unemployed Southern California Mad Max fanboys, spend their days testing homemade flamethrowers and building a souped-up death-mobile, Medusa, that wouldn’t look out of place in the Thunderdome’s parking lot — it’s all in preparation for the coming Armageddon.
And the film hints they may be on to something. In addition to the film’s wasteland aesthetic (captured by Glodell’s self-built, half-analog, half-digital camera workup) of sickly yellows and disorienting limited focus, the characters seem almost feral: Underemployed, perpetually drunk or stoned, bursting with nihilistic aggression.
Their idea of a good time is going to seedy bars and partaking in bug-eating contests. On one such night, Woodrow meets the seemingly sweet Milly (Jessie Wiseman, in her first role). The two begin dating, but the relationship quickly sours, fueling Woodrow’s ever-bleaker fantasies of nuclear holocaust and violence.
In the increasingly unhinged second half, the film follows Woodrow down the rabbit hole of his nightmarishly intense daydreams. It borders on incoherence, misogyny and glorification of the testosterone-fueled destructiveness it seeks to dissect, but it never crosses those lines.
The last act has a hallucinatory, acid-tinged lyricism to it, like a B-movie David Lynch directing Fight Club. This tone should conflict with the more naturalistic, almost grimily mumblecore feel established earlier in the film, but it never really does, because the seeds of Evan’s breakdown have been apparent from the start.
It’s this combination of haunting visuals and piercing psychodrama that makes Bellflower so special, and cements its place as one of the most personal, unforgettable and ultimately deeply disturbing visions cinema has delivered this year, and one that establishes Glodell as a talent to reckon with — both in front of and behind the camera.
VERDICT: Bellflower may (intentionally) be like a bad trip, but it’s one that you can’t look away from.
rgifford@umdbk.com
