Factotum

It would seem that Henry Chinaski takes Polonius' advice to heart. This adaptation shows a character who is always true to himself, no matter the consequences. Matt Dillon's portrayal of Chinaski is solid; his self-effacing style makes him way more likable than might be otherwise. Lili Taylor does a lovely job as his sometime girlfriend Jan. Their scenes together are always interesting (with or without bandages), with the characters being constantly developed.

The dialog has lots of pop. Somewhat a film noir, somewhat a comic book, the film has a nice feel with the first person narration of Chinaski taking us on his tour. It could have been in black and white but is nicely filmed in color. One of those slightly rare movies as at home at a film festival (Cleveland's, in this case) or at your local theater.

I saw the earlier Kitchen Stories by director Bent Hamer in a cinema in Berlin in 2004, which was an absolute delight. When I heard he was going to direct an adaptation of Bukowsky's work, I was surprised, given the very different material he handled in the rural Nordic settings in Scandinavia. So it seemed an odd choice to direct a movie like this, but it turns out to be a very refreshing and welcome take at "The Bukowsky Case".

Essentially, this film is about the despairs of alcoholism, frighteningly brought to life by an array of simply stunning performances. Matt Dillon as Henry Chinasky is literally sweating alcohol. His face is red and swollen, he looks absolutely horrible. Once handsome but now an absolute has-been, who's sole interests are booze, gambling, sex and writing. People don't interest him at all, including the women, sex is all that interests him, if only mildly. Lily Taylor is a perfect match as his female interest and fellow barfly. But the real kudos are for Marisa Tomei in a relatively minor role but she really burns off the screen, alcohol set on fire. A real treat.

It might not be a typical Bukowski-movie, in the sense of his sometimes brash, aggressive, perhaps even typical direct American style, so fans of his work might judge this movie very differently and perhaps argue this is not the real spirit of Bukowsky put to the screen. But director Hamer handles it with such warmth, humor, sly wit and at times very sharp observations that you really shouldn't care about this. Judge it on its own merits.

Camera Obscura --- 9/10

Hamer is a wonderful director and is well suited to adapt a life so besoffened as Henry Chinaski's is, with its peculiar humour. That said, the full potential of Bukowski is not realized and probably would never be outside of the books. Its still close though. Some sequences, like for instance, the pickle factory is very funny in true spirit of Buk's work.

What may scare most fans away from this though, is pretty face Matt Dillon. He does not have the personality, understanding or the looks to match Chinaski. This is the main hindrance of this movie. Lili Taylor and Marisa Tomei comes better off, giving solid performances.

If you're a fan of Buk, go check it out. If you're a fan of good cinema, check it out as well. Bent Hamer is a man of vision.

Factotum is a quantum movie. Or rather in its efforts to depict the chaotic life of radical writer Charles Bukoska's autobiographical alter ego Henry Chinaski, the paradoxes and inherent uncertainties of quantum theory seem an apt metaphor.

Hank, like Bukowska is a dedicated alcoholic drifting indifferently through any odd jobs he can con his way into then disdainfully neglect until he is inevitably 'canned', spend the pay-off on booze and then ricochet randomly off to repeat the process elsewhere. It is as if, like the theory, through his alcoholic haze Hank sometimes has an idea of where he's going but isn't really clear where he actually is. Alternatively he sometimes has sense of where he is, but none at all of where he's going. Like a particle with no discernible fixed identity, he bounces randomly around the world colliding with people, places and events of which he is part, but in which he makes no stable intentional intervention and to which he displays no discernible interest. This process is constantly re-fuelled by a 24/7 intake of alcohol and nicotine. If this sounds incredible then we should remember that the real Bukowska's body survived this punishing regime for 74 years until his death in 1994.

If this were all, then Norwegian Director Bent Hamer's film would not be the absorbing work that it is. For through this fog of alcohol shines the dim light of Hank's determination to write. Not in the least for its rewards or recognition, but because it forms the nucleus of his fragile identity. And through the excellent use of Hank as narrator, the stark, clinical, austere quality of Bukowski's writing emerges. This is the poetry of skid row, the unsentimental, unflinching account of life at the margins of normal society about which Hank is entirely indifferent and Bukowsa himself viewed with contempt. There is a brief, doomed, flirtation with the idea that we might have some control over our destiny through Hank's initially successful foray into betting the horses. Racing I guess offers the illusion that even if God plays with dice, with a bit of determined effort a man might beat the odds. Of course this ends in failure - the house always wins in the end.

The paradox of quantum theory is that the precise and rigorous lucidity of the language of science, expresses a view of the world of matter that is devoid of certainty and inherently rests upon mere probabilities. Similarly Hank's island of lucidity is the drive to write; to create a meaningful response to a meaningless world. His behaviour is as random and unpredictable as the chaotic, senseless events of the world that provoke it. Yet an urge to coherence emerges through his irresistible drive to write about that world. He has simple appetites: alcohol, nicotine and sex and no moral, emotional scruple gets in the way of satisfying them. He is drawn into transitory friendships and fragile sexual relationships by the basic need to drink, smoke and have sex. The only relationship he has with any semblance of continuity and personal satisfaction is with fellow alcoholic Jan.They share these basics needs and arrive at a kind a stable modus vivendi where they are fully met without having to wander about the world hoping to pick them up in a run down bar. Jan's predilection for leaping into bed with every random bum she takes a fancy to, the dirtier the better, eventually fractures this sex-of-convenience arrangement. Here Hank packs his bag and leaves with the air of a guy popping out for a night's bowling rather than walking away from the only half-way stable relationship he's ever had. This fictional account mirrors Bukowska's own 10 year relationship with Janet Cooney-Baker also a long-term alcoholic who eventually lost her fight with the booze in 1962.

Hank lives in a down-beat, dead-beat world where his holy trinity of physical appetites are the only distraction from that world to which he is always, by choice, an outsider. The film is visually and aurally dark in tone. Yet through this, Hamer's screenplay, leaning I suspect heavily on Bukowska's own writing, cuts clinically and strikingly like a surgeon's knife making an incision to open up to the unflinching eye, the diseased or damaged part of life that may need surgical repair or excision. This is writing honed to a razor-sharp edge that is simply startling and despite inducing a sense of recoil, exercises a strange fascination. If I have a regret, it is that more might have been made of the occasional moments of darkly ironic humour flashing like flinty sparks out of the sheer absurdity of the many irredeemably hopeless situations Hank stumbles into. I don't now Bukowska's work but occasionally in this film Hank's blurred perspective seems to be a weary "so what?" in response to the world: at others there is a flash of rebellion that engages us much more.If there is much of Hank Chinaski to like we find it here.

Matt Dillon is a revelation and has never for my money done anything remotely in this league before. Lili Taylor is equally convincing as bed and bottle-mate Jan and even manages to tease a kind of pathetic tenderness out of the role. Marisa Tomei is effective as one of Hank's random, ricochet lays who is locked into a very weird foursome with two female friends and an older man who manipulates sex from all three by funding their booze and basic needs.

Factotum is no nice night out at the movies. Its darkness is as heavy as it context would imply. Yet it is constantly absorbing and thought-provoking. It is immensely successful in portraying the world and experience of an autobiographical character based upon a writer both Jean Genet and Jean-Paul Sartre called "America's greatest poet" This 'factotum', jack-of-all-trades, late in his writing life, by all accounts became master of one. Off-the-wall, in-the-gutter but cinematically on-the-money.

Zettel

Rourke played a Hollywood's Bukowski in Barfly. That is why Bukowski didn't like it. But if you have seen documentaries of Bukowski, footage, pictures and read his books, maybe you find that Factotum is very close to Bukowski's real appearance and attitude

Dillon doesn't look like Bukowski at all but he did honor him in this movie and this you can see in his walking, his soft and low voice and his whole attitude through the movie. It is hard to portray Bukowski's life in a movie but I remember particularly the scenes where you see Dillon dropping his writings in the mailbox, having bad jobs and being homeless, all of which was a big part of Bukowski's life before he reached fame and made decent money.

They even took the time to show a little about Bukowski's relationship with his father (whoever has read Ham on Rye could think that Buk's father in real life could have behave like the one in the movie (a despotic and acid man)

Also memorable were his thoughts on writing and writers. The movie gave me the same feeling I get when I read Ch B. poetry or novels, but this is only my experience. I do trust the feelings and I think that this movie was done with respect and love for this writer and all what he went through before being discovered.