Kustom Kar Kommandos

This is simply a three minute short film - maybe closer to what, if Anger had been working by the 80's, as a music video - where a man is shining a sexy convertible with a fluffy white piece that looks like one of those expensive looking cats. That's all you get here, nothing quite as complex as what Anger did in Scorpio Rising, but what he does is enough: cars are a fetish object, and so we see it as just that.

Like Scorpio once again music and image get put together in such a way that meaning is unmistakable: "Dream Lover", not the faster version but the more slow-dance tempo, is meant to croon us into loving the car and seeing it as this boy may see it. There's also the inside of the car too, which has so many things to look at that it feels like something grandiose like a spaceship.

At the same time it's a specific intention here: cars like this may be made and driven today, but back then (or more specifically even the 1950s which this hearkens back to), if a guy couldn't get a girl then at least he had his car, and if he did get the girl then it's double the pleasure. Perhaps what Anger then is saying is... the car could be enough, right fellas?

There is not a lot of things to say about that film, it is only 3 min. What is remarkable is how Anger is capable of sexualizing objects and render the 1980s look 15 years in advance.

This is from the second DVD of a set called "The Films of Kenneth Anger"--a collection of avant garde films by this odd film maker. I found the first disk to be more satisfying--the second has a lot about Aleister Crowley and Satanism that I found a bit dreary.

KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS is about the closest you'll come to making love to a hot rod! Kenneth Anger met a guy with a beautiful custom-detailed hot rod and got him to agree to having the car and himself filmed. There is no dialog, just a slowly moving camera with deliberately intense colors. It's like a love song or poem all about the beauty and lines of the car and is the sort of film that hot rod enthusiasts might love. Otherwise, most will see it as a reasonably short and pleasant stroll down memory lane--but not a must-see film.

I have tingles and chills after watching this!

What a master Kenneth is. The combination of imagery and perfect music evokes an utterly erotic sensation in the viewer.

Without explicitly showing anything that would be considered taboo it still manages to cause the viewer to feel vaguely "naughty". As if they are being a voyeur. Ideas of sexuality permeate. Secret delights.

First of all, this is a movie Kenneth Anger never finished. Its only 1/8 of what he planned, so its probably difficult to give it a fair judgment as a whole. First time I saw it, I didn't get it at all. Its a three minute short movie about a very 'gay' looking man caressing his expensive car. Very visual, and nice colors.. but thats it! He uses a powder puff to brush the shiny car.

What Anger wanted to do with this movie was to make us think about the growing bubblegum-mentality in youngsters of America. The teenage of California in a world of hot-rod and customized cars. How crazy it is. How our standards as humans in some circumstances are far above anything normal.

I thought it was an interesting project and I'm sad he never found people to support it financially to complete it.