Americana

A personal project for actor-producer-director David Carradine, playing a loner Vietnam vet (is there any other kind?) who drifts into a quiet Kansas town, befriending a pretty flower-child and coming upon a dilapidated carousel in an overgrown field. Carradine's obsession with the merry-go-round is steeped in the hypothetical, but we can appreciate his mysterious drive, as can Barbara Hershey (she was Carradine's real-life girl when much of the film was shot in 1973). Although screenwriter Richard Carr based his script on Henry Morton Robinson's novel "The Perfect Round", this feels very much like a semi-remake of (or homage to) Akira Kurosawa's "Ikiru" from 1952, and the troubled final result went through a number of title changes (at one time it was announced as "Butterfly"). Michael Stringer's cinematography is quite good, with sunset reds and dusty browns, and Carradine's anti-hero of very few words--while familiar--is still quite interesting. **1/2 from ****

Americana is a good movie about a Vietnam veteran—played by the film's director, David Carradine—who drifts around the country after returning from the war. We get the idea that he basically just walks the earth, wandering from town to town until he finds someone or something that could use his help. It turns out that the thing that makes him stop in a dried-up little town in rural Kansas is an old, dilapidated carousel.

The drifter stops in the town to fix the thing. He makes it his mission to get it back up and running, stopping at nothing. He sleeps in the tall grass in the field where the carousel has been left to rust and he even gets a job to help pay for the parts and equipment he needs. He meets several of the locals and he wants to make the people of this town happy again by fixing their carousel. After all he's been through in war and in life, that is his goal, to bring happiness to a bunch of strangers who are his family on this earth he wanders that is his home.

But not everyone is happy that he's there. He's laughed at and hated by some bullies who don't understands him and want him gone. In the end, they force him into a compromising situation which causes him to question his principles and weigh his goals against his morals.

I think one of the reasons I enjoyed this film so much is because the basic idea has always been one that appealed to me. A mysterious drifter stops in a lonely town and stays for a while. He makes a few friends and some enemies as well. We don't know much about him, but we know that he's a man of morals and he's been through some stuff and he's not going anywhere until he finishes what he started. He's not going to let anyone down again like he may have done in his past, least of all himself.

It's a simple story and one we've seen many times before, but I feel like I had never before seen it done really well. Usually we see it on TV in shows like Then Came Bronson or Route 66, but television shows rarely measure up to good movies in terms of quality. Furthermore, I felt the episodes in those shows eventually became forced and too similar to each other, and the main characters quickly became boring and predictable as we got to know them too well, episode after episode. I wanted a character who we only see for a bit, just for this one chapter of his life. We don't know much about him and we don't learn much about him, but we do learn a thing or two from him and from his situation.

I even began writing my own story along these lines, as I felt one needed to be told, but I ended up putting it on hold when I couldn't think of anything good to add to it. So I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Americana. I didn't know much about it—other than that its star and director were David Carradine—and when I realized that the story was eerily similar to the one I'd been trying to tell and wanting to see, it made me happy. I didn't feel like I'd lost my idea; I felt like someone had made my movie, only better than I could have ever hoped for!

Americana might not be for everyone, but it was very good for me, and I'm glad I got to see it. It's just the sort of thing I'd been looking for.

"Americana" is one laid back film. David Carradine wanders into a small Kansas town, evoking curiosity among the locals, as to why his obsession with repairing an old carousel. That's it, and if that sounds like not much of a plot, you are correct. With non actors playing the folksy inhabitants, Barbara Hershey in a rather meaningless role, and Carradine sleepwalking, the movie totally lacks momentum. One curious aspect is a nice assortment of dogs that appear throughout. You can try and imagine meaning in every scene, but my take is that this is simply a very understated film, that demands extreme patience to finish. Not really boring, but far from exciting. - MERK

Normally when actors direct a film it can go from so-so to awful. And David Carradine's work here isn't so-so its pretty good. Very slow! With some layers packed here and there.

Any fans of David or Barbara should give this a watch. For those of you who liked "Into the wild" you might find The American Soldier's obsession charming enough to finish the film.

Could also be a good pairing with 'Easy rider'

This film was directed by Carradine himself, and embodies his unique screen presence and character. It is a minimalist, somewhat surreal film of an American midwestern drifter, and depicts a certain odd aspect of the midwest that few films have been able to. A certain maladjusted yet benevolent alienation at the core of the loner.

Wim Wenders' "Paris Texas" comes to mind as another film that portrays the cultural impotence of midwestern existence.