Having followed Crispin Glover's weird career since his star-making turn as George McFly in Back To The Future (he wouldn't do the sequels, bless him), I was naturally interested in the actor's directorial debut, What Is It? In fact, like other Glover fans, I was interested five years ago, when it was supposed to come out. (He's been working on it since 1995.)
Anyone familiar with Glover's acting oeuvre shouldn't be surprised that what's inside his mind doesn't mesh predictably with mainstream reality. (Dude's a nutter, basically.) But the movies he's been in, from the awesome cult fave Rubin And Ed (still not available on DVD, for shame) to bits in things like Charlie's Angels, always benefit from his presence. River's Edge, At Close Range, the list goes on.
In Milwaukee this past weekend, Glover brought What Is It? to the Times Cinema himself. Apparently the only way a film like this will get distribution (and make its money back, according to Glover), is if there's added value at the theater–a chance to talk to the filmmaker, umm, a slideshow. The latter, based on a series of books Glover has "written" (he takes old books and draws/writes in them), began the evening strangely. With just a red spotlight on his face, a hoarse-voiced Glover read dramatically from Rat Catching, as well as seven other books. Odd, a little long, but interesting.
Then, the movie. In an interview you can read elsewhere on this site, Glover insisted to our own Keith Brammer that What Is It? has a narrative structure, and you've gotta believe that it does to him, but 72 minutes of strange encounters portrayed by actors with Down's Syndrome (and Glover himself) won't be following any traditional story arc. Instead, there's a lot of snail killing, some swastikas, Shirley Temple, a minstrel, murder, an alternate universe (apparently the main character's inner self), and more. Did I mention the naked man with cerebral palsy who's manually stimulated (at length) by a naked woman wearing a monkey mask? Yeah, that happens. And he's resting inside a giant clam shell at the time.
Such a surface description makes the film sound like pretentious arthouse crap, which it isn't. In the post-film Q&A;, Glover was completely earnest about his desire to challenge the mainstream filmmaking world's perceptions of good and evil, acceptable and unacceptable. There are ideas at play here, but they're almost completely obfuscated by nightmarish images. Glover never came off like an insufferable artiste, but rather someone who's trying to make something that he believes in, without regard to what anyone else thinks. Whether that makes a good film is up for debate–I probably wouldn't want to see What Is It? again–but it was pretty unforgettable.
A sequel is already in post-production, and I'm surprised that I actually want to see it. It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! is due out next year. And since Glover says he doesn't want to release these films (part of a planned trilogy) on DVD, you'll have to go out and find them. And find him at the same time, apparently.
So, has anyone else seen What Is It?