A 90's Bukowski by way of Will Faulkner, Larry Brown's bare-knuckle prose has invited his audience to build a mystique around him over the years, but this film illuminates the components of a literary legend in his prime from inside his world, demystifying its subject elegantly. Rough South achieves what the author does nicely in his work; it stays out of the way of the action, building a dialogue directly between audience and subject. It builds its case simply, using a few interviews with the author, his wife, and his mother to set the stage for long pans across still photos and rough edged home video footage that create an intimate feel by capturing the era, set to a haunting original score by Vic Chesnutt. The interview/photos/home video sections are thematically bracketed by 'narrative recreations' of 3 of the author's stories. In the 1st, Boy and Dog, we're inside the head of a boy who exacts a profound revenge beyond his comprehension, which is shown in a unique fashion. The footage is woven in just a little ahead of itself in the story being told so that we're sucked into it w/o quite realizing it at first. The 2nd, Wild Thing, flows from the bar scene Larry describes as the inspiration for much of his work and does a great job of superimposing video over still shots to capture the feeling of fleeting moments in the dark. It doesn't hurt that the Wild Thing in question, Ms. Kendra Cover is a very attractive model in the hands of a talented photographer's black and white moodiness. With the 3rd, Samaritans, we realize that each of the two preceding pieces were buildup. Will Patton plays Man with every bit of the understatement implied by his character name; all in the eyes, but in all the right ways. He plays straight man to Natalie Canerday's whirlwind turn as Woman, who makes use of all the space given her without once falling in a performance that demanded a wide arc in a short time. Charles "Jim" Brasher, subject of regional artist Mike Lock's acclaimed "Standup Jim Series" nimbly plays the bartender who quickly sees what our protagonist refuses to, until later, when forced by her son. While all three stories vary dramatically in style, they each pack punches you feel in your gut hours later. "I'm trying to walk the line between hard-heartedness and sentimentality without leaning' either way," Larry says at one point, and the director of the film could say the same.
Reviews
1 Review
Tell Your Friends