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Howler is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.
DIRECTED BY: Richard Bailey
FEATURING: Rhonda Boutte, Jenny Ledel, Abel Flores, Blake Hackler, Laura Martinez
PLOT: A grisly hunter threatens the woods as Leni, an attuned poet, prepares to accept a life-changing award.
COMMENTS:
“Your life is going to change.”
—”How do you mean that?”
“Oh, not in the sense you might hope.”
This exchange is intended more as a kindly tip-off than as a threat, but, as with most wisdom, it is not well received. The words here are talismanic; but then, in a way—and especially to a poet—all words are. Words are simultaneously weighty and evanescent. They are everywhere, and nowhere. And, from my vague understanding, one primary task of a poet is to nail them down and convey them—at least in their fleeting significance.
Howler is another meditation from director Richard Bailey on the nature of communication, perception, and the intersection of reality and unreality. Two earthly plot lines anchor the discourse: one concerning a poet, the other concerning the “grisly hunter” mentioned prior. But as per usual form, Richard Bailey the (word) poet and Richard Bailey the (image) poet are inseparable. Time and again the screen is just non-human sound and natural imagery. A triptych of floating blossoms recurs throughout as punctuation between conversational musings on vengeance, serenity, annihilation, and regrowth.
A poet’s lot is often an unhappy one, toiling away at building spiritual insight using words, punctuation, and line breaks. But the joy it can bring, even to just one witness, makes their ordeal worth the sacrifices. Bailey dissects his vocation and that of his peers, through the lens of natural and human friction and coexistence. The ominous figure of the hunter is, I’d wager, symbolic: though I could not commit as to what. Perhaps he is our path toward ruination of self and surroundings; perhaps he is more tragic than malevolent.
There is much to misunderstand about humans and humanity. With Howler, Bailey takes another stab at capturing truth essence through the primitive tools of language, image, and sound.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
