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IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS (2007)

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DIRECTED BY: Bruce McDonald

FEATURING: Elliot Page (as Ellen Page), Zie Souwand, , Slim Twig, Ari Cohen, ,

PLOT: A look inside the troubled mind of a teenage girl who is dealing with a hostile school atmosphere, emotionally hostile parents, a fixation on the cool new boy, a random drugged-out loser who may be the best friend she has, and the disappearance of her little brother.Still from "The Tracey Fragments" (2007)

COMMENTS: Split-screen photography has been a filmmaking tool almost since the beginning of the cinema. The technique took a giant leap, though, with the debut of filmmaker Christopher Chapman’s “A Place to Stand,” the groundbreaking short that he created as part of Canada’s Expo 67. Far from merely dividing the image in twain, Chapman developed a technique of isolating images and enabling them to move through the frame in concert with other images, like a moving mosaic. It was called “multi-dynamic image technique,” and it gained a foothold in popular culture a year later when deployed it in The Thomas Crown Affair.

Maybe it’s a Canadian thing, because Bruce McDonald’s The Tracey Fragments may boast the most splits any screen has ever seen. The story of a girl whose mind is shattered by disaffection and tragedy (a simile Tracey employs in her first monologue) is suitably embodied by a narrative and a screen image that is similarly fractured. Humans are notorious for holding multiple viewpoints and emotional states at the same time, and the mosaic method allows the film to display all of them at once. Unexpressed rage and undelivered ripostes share space with silent pain and vast landscapes, while grids of pictures give way to clouds of dozens of images, sometimes with a sharp triangle piercing the frame. One particularly memorable image features Tracey in a desperate run for freedom, perfectly overlaid with shots of a horse in full gallop while the score by Broken Social Scene lays down an appropriately desperate groove. Rarely has the complexity of the mind, especially that of a teenager, been captured with such fidelity. 

The Tracey Fragments is a technical marvel. The film supposedly took a month to film and nine more to assemble, and the work shows as McDonald, editors Jeremiah Munce and Gareth C. Scales, and sound designer Steve Munro create an impressively clear story out of a deliberately jumbled set of pieces. It’s frankly remarkable that it works as well as it does, given that Tracey’s story is pretty one-note. While her life does seem legitimately grim, the nonlinear approach represents her situation as an unchanging condition: disaffected teen girl, touched by tragedy, cast among the losers in high school, disdainful of her aggressively distant parents, and yearning for a bland boy who promises escape but evidently is a cruel, cavalier lover. (If we can believe what we see; our point of view is entirely Tracey’s.) It’s authentic, but it’s not dramatic.

This was Page’s first release following the starmaking breakthrough of Juno (although Tracey was shot first), and it solidifies the actor’s inclination toward challenging material. Page doesn’t always look as scruffy and homely as the character’s situation would suggest, and Tracey’s monologues sometimes feel inappropriately formal and clear-minded for a girl in such distress. The whole film rests on Page’s shoulders, though, and he carries it with confidence. Notably, some scenes have taken on a stranger veneer with the passage of time. One of Tracey’s tormentors verbally taunts her for her lack of perceived hot-girl femininity, calling her “It” and demanding, “Is It a boy or a girl?” Scenes with Tracey and her therapist are particularly odd, with the trans actor playing opposite Richings in drag in an ex post facto head-scratcher. 

Split-screen is hardly an obscure technique. If you’ve seen any heist movie, you’ve probably been treated to a collage of lasers, hands, and beads of sweat. What distinguishes The Tracey Fragments is the way it gives the split-screen a psychological dimension. Instead of delivering information, it delivers character and mood. It’s not an entirely successful effort, as that mood has little chance to develop and grow. It does serve as a valuable reminder that all the cool things we can do with image and sound have the potential to do much more, if we give them a shot.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The film’s split screens create a hallucinatory ripple effect, jumping back and forward in time, in and out of synch, and alternating between emotional states of characters to create an oddly cohesive whole… the results are breathtaking and exquisite…and a real mind-bending trip… no matter how otherworldly and strange the film feels and looks, THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS breathes with poignant genuineness and contains yet another performance of staggering and guileless determination by Ellen Page… Its shockingly bizarre and virtuoso use of cutting edge split screen techniques may have many people fleeing for the theatre exits within the first few minutes. However, if you’re patient and stay with the film it’s even easier to see what an absolutely thankless work of painstaking filmmaking resourcefulness and originality it is.” – Craig J. Koban, Craiger’s Cinema Corner (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by H. E. Martin. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.) 

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The Tracey Fragments

The Tracey Fragments

  • DVD
  • Multiple Formats, Color, Dolby
  • English (Original Language), English (Unknown)

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It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, Shorts

CAPSULE: LOT IN SODOM (1933)

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DIRECTED BY: James Sibley Watson,

FEATURING: Friedrich Haak, Hildegarde Watson, Dorthea House

PLOT: In ancient Sodom, young men revel in sensual choreography, inspiring the Lord’s anger.

Still from Lot in Sodom (1933)

COMMENTS: The first wave of the American cinematic avant-garde developed between 1919 and 1945. According to some of its pioneers, like Herman Weinberg, it encompasses everything except typical Hollywood productions. There is already a review of a compilation of American experimental films ranging from the movement’s early days till the 1970s on this site, which you can check it out if you are interested in learning more about this scene. It is in this context that we examine “Lot in Sodom.”

This short silent—only about thirty minutes in duration—combines a familiar Old Testament setting with a modernist stylistic approach, diffuse sensuality, and a heavy innuendo. The plot revolves around Lot and his wife, the only honest people in a town full of perverts immersed in immorality. But the narrative isn’t as important as the way it is used to create an atmosphere of depravity. Human—mostly male—bodies dance semi-naked across the screen. The camera is voyeuristic, eager to consume and fetishize their bodies. Along with an underlying hint of violence, “Lot” can be viewed as a predecessor of contemporary performance art in the vein of ” Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men” (1989) .

In the film’s latter half the female body makes its appearance, similarly sexualized. Through Latin intertitles comparing the woman to a temple and symbolic Bible imagery (a snake, white pigeons), the film implies a sexual climax and an immoral desecration of the female body.

The scenery, often quite pointy, is a tamer version of German . High contrast black and white lighting, along with distorting effects that multiply figures and objects, create a collage-like, almost cubist aesthetic. Archaic techniques like rear projection and superposition are also used extensively for a similar purpose. When examined in the correct historical context, this work is transgressive and daring. There is a pretense of moralism here, however, which makes it feel a bit dated. “Lot in Sodom” remains important because of its unique stylistic approach, but today its audience is mostly technicians interested in the history of visual effects.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…one of the weirdest movies of the early 1930s.”–Phil Hall, Film Threat

(This movie was nominated for review by Sal U. Lloyd, who called it ” Disappointing but weird nonetheless.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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Salome / Lot in Sodom

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    Capsules, Shorts

    CAPSULE: GIRL INTERNET SHOW: A KATI KELLI MIXTAPE (2023)

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    DIRECTED BY: Kati Kelli

    FEATURING: Kati Kelli

    PLOT: Selections from Kati Keli’s surreal, satirical YouTube channel mixed into a feature film, plus her only completed short, “Total Body Removal Surgery.”

    Still from "Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape" (2023)

    COMMENTS: It’s not the first thing Kati Kelli uploaded to YouTube, but the most accessible entry point to this bizarro YouTube creator’s world is “Marva the MILF,” a 14-episode series that works as recognizable satire. It’s the only strain where Kelli plays a consistent character, a 50-year-YOUNG unapologetic golddigger and would-be glamour influencer in a blonde wig wearing too much bronzer. Cluelessly arrogant Marva refers to her audience as “babies” (or sometimes “fuglies”) and complains about her daughter ignoring her beauty advice because she (eye-roll) “wants to be herself.” Marva even stays in character while jumping on the ASMR trend: while tapping her fingernails as she mimics applying mascara to the viewer, she whispers “I’m not sponsored, I’m just a big fan… I always blow hubby’s money on this brand.”

    But that focused character is a big departure from the usual inventory of her “Girl Internet Show” channel, which quickly turned manic when Kelli discovered the joys of Adobe After Effects suite. Future, non-Marva episodes quickly went techno-maximalist, with hyper editing, text flying about, shots of social media feeds, Kelli’s head swelling into a bulbous monstrosity, altered film speeds, random musical accompaniment, cartoonish sound effects, gif bluebirds circling her head, miscellaneous filters, stock photos of broccoli zipping across the screen, and basically any kind of embellishment that seized her short-attention-span fancy. Sure, she still mocked the vapid self-absorption of overly-dramatic V-loggers and beauty influencers, but the satire was more of an excuse for relentless experimentation and absurdity than the meat of her vegan aesthetic. Episodes might be anything from a fashion show to a commercial spoof to a fake confessional to relatively sedate entries like Kelli gyrating maniacally while holding a glass of wine or wearing a skull mask, playing a ukulele, or shaking a ragdoll to simulate dancing while singing monotonously. The entire “show” is shot in a single apartment, often with her pop-surreal, occasionally obscene artwork displayed on the walls; when it’s necessary to add another character, Kelli simply dons a wig, or incorporates a Barbie doll. (She does have, at least, the assistance of an unseen and uncredited cameraperson—and a housecat.) It doesn’t hurt anything that Kelli is conventionally gorgeous, with luminous olive-green eyes, full lips, and a model’s figure, which only makes her choice to specialize in completely uncommercial culture-jamming media hit harder. And although her comedy is mostly of the absurd non-sequitur variety, she gets across the occasional zinger, as when describing her multitudinous mental maladies, she muses, “I’m also diagnosed as being an amazing kisser… actually, by the same psychologist who diagnosed me as having daddy issues.”

    Kelli also made a parody of Spring Breakers featuring only Barbie dolls.

    Kelli’s final completed piece was the short film “Total Body Removal Surgery,” a Kickstarted project which was not posted to YouTube (it’s the only truly exclusive content included on the Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray). Although Kelli plays a new character named “Tippy Rose” and for the first time includes other actors (memorably, the freakishly lantern-jawed Dr. Locker, played by none other than Escape from Tomorrow‘s Roy Abamsohn) and non-apartment locations in the video, the fractured multimedia aesthetic will be completely familiar to “Girl Internet Show” fans. The brief story concerns the titular medical procedure and the satire of cosmetic surgery is obvious, though done with Kelli’s usual verve.  Sadly, Kelli died suddenly—of, of all things, an asthma attack—only three days after “Total Body Removal Surgery” was completed. This mixtape version of her legacy, assembled by admirer and her husband Jordan Wipple, flows well and is a fond remembrance of her out-there artistry. Rather than being a completed product, Kelli’s work suggests a talent that was just beginning to find her legs in her late 20s, cut off just as she was ready to launch. It’s a shame that she was never able to expand her canvas beyond YouTube, but her work should inspire a generation of independent artists looking for a template for how to create engaging art with nothing more than a camera, a few wigs, dolls, the After Effects suite, and broadband wifi.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “…not just a hilarious, weird anthology, but also an elegy and a tribute to a loved one and an outsider artist.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures

    Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape

    Girl Internet Show: A Kati Kelli Mixtape [Blu-ray]

    • Region Free Blu-ray

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    Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

    IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: COMING APART (1969)

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    DIRECTED BY: Milton Moses Ginsberg

    FEATURING: Rip Torn, Sally Kirkland, Viveca Lindfors

    PLOT: A psychiatrist sets himself up in an apartment overlooking the East River where he beds a series of women, all the while heading steadily toward a complete mental breakdown.

    Still from "Coming Apart" (1969)


    COMMENTS: It’s hard to appreciate just how strange the conceit of Coming Apart must have felt to moviegoers in 1969. Here in the second quarter of the 21st century, when people document their lives frequently and extensively, the sheer strangeness of a man choosing to capture his illicit second life on film just doesn’t come across the same. Viewers at the time were surely perplexed by a film that seemed to be composed entirely a footage taken from a single vantage point. It must have seemed like nothing short of voyeurism, the worst kind of candid camera. Contemporary reviews of the film frequently flail about for the one point of comparison they have at hand: James McBride’s groundbreaking pseudo-documentary David Holzman’s Diary. But while this intentionally self-aware movie has similar vibes, Coming Apart is something very different. Ginsberg crafts a silver screen salute to a man who feels compelled to chronicle his life for a very compelling reason: self-loathing.

    Torn’s erstwhile analyst has ditched his career and his pregnant wife, creating a new identity for himself by setting up shop in a Kips Bay love nest. He doesn’t seem at all clear as to why he’s doing this, and for reasons even he can’t begin to unpack, he decides to film everything, making this an early example of the found footage genre. The footage we find is largely his attempts at seduction, successful to varying degrees; but while this is a film with plenty of sex, it’s much more about the manipulations and deceptions that are perpetrated just to get to the act. The wayward Dr. Glaser is an easygoing seducer, but he gets no enjoyment out of it, neither the hunt nor the kill.  He’s like a man grazing at the buffet not because he’s hungry but because there’s food. Anyone approaching Coming Apart looking for sexytimes is likely to end up as disappointed as Glaser.

    For anyone who knows Torn primarily from the lacerating deadpan he brings to later projects like Defending Your Life, Men in Black, or “The Larry Sanders Show,” his work here is revelatory. He deploys his gravelly baritone infrequently, communicating largely through the subtlest of expressions. It can feel like he’s hardly acting at all, until a crucial scene late in the movie when he goes nearly catatonic and you realize just how emotive he has been all along. Most of the women opposite him, such as Lois Markle’s aspiring fetish-lover or Lynn Swan’s mercenary young mom, are richly detailed, although they can feel melodramatic by comparison. The characters who avoid sex are the most grounded, like Viveca Lindfors’ ex-mistress who tells Torn to his face that his charms won’t work on her anymore. Standing out among the crowd is Sally Kirkland, whose growing mania is grounded by her shockingly total lack of vanity or guardedness. Her role could easily be viewed as “the crazy broad,” but she earns respect and sympathy by giving nothing less than her all. The idea that Torn’s hidden camera captures these people so authentically justifies the gimmick.

    While the filming technique suggests gritty realism, the characters and situations we encounter feel forced, as most of Glaser’s sexual partners bring their own lunacy to the show. Were it not for the bad doctor’s slow-motion breakdown, it might be easy to interpret the film’s message as “women be wack.” It is interesting, though, to see documentary formalism deployed in an experimental manner. In the early hangover following the sexual revolution, Ginsberg’s daring feature has the smarts to get out of the way and let the stories of the shellshocked survivors speak for themselves.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “… almost every image is half real, half the reverse of reality, which is, I suppose, a legitimate cinematic equivalent of the way one automatically supplements reality with fantasy in conscious experience…  the screenplay, like the film, eventually drifts in a horizontal direction into a kind of foggy confusion.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

    (This movie was nominated for review by Joel Heller. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)     

    Coming Apart [Blu-ray]

    Coming Apart [Blu-ray]

    • Rip Torn (Men in Black) gives one of the great screen performances as a psychiatrist secretly filming his own mental breakdown in Milton Moses Ginsberg’s classic exploration of dark eroticism and self-referential cinematic form

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