Crime Wave

"The Top! One man made it!"

John Paizs's "Crime Wave" is one of the most original film produced. Although I'm sure you've heard that before about countless other movies, unless you've seen this film you likely can't imagine just how unique it is.

Writer/director John Paizs pulls triple duty by starring as Steven Penny, a "quiet man" who is intent on creating the perfect version of what he hopes will be the best color crime movie ever: Crime Wave. For this reason, he is often re-writing his script and changing the lead characters for his future film. However, he suffers from an inability to write the middles to any of his (somewhat) different versions of Crime Wave.

Steven lives in the apartment over a family's garage. Their daughter Kim is excited to have him living there, and strikes up a friendship with Steven. Kim is excited to have a "real movie person" living in her garage, and does her best to support Steven during his struggle to write his movie. He reciprocates by teaching her how color crime movies work, and by showing her his stuff.

When Steven loses hope, Kim finds an ad in "Colour Crime Quarterly" placed by Dr. C. Jolly. Dr. Jolly, the ad states, is seeking fresh young talent to collaborate on a script. She secretly send Dr. Jolly a letter and the unfinished middles to Crime Wave, and he responds by sending a bus ticket to Kansas and expense money so that Steven can meet with him.

The movie gets quite odd at this point.

Now, the plotline to John Paizs's "Crime Wave" (not Steven Penny's film of the same name) doesn't sound all that different. It's when you couple it with all the other pieces of the puzzle, however, that you notice that a film like this hasn't been made before or since:

Though he is one of the main characters, Steven Penny has no lines of dialogue in the film; it is narrated entirely by his friend Kim. Also, aside from writing (which he only does at night by streetlight), Steven hardly seems to actually do anything when other people aren't around. One scene has Kim going up to visit Steven, and we see that prior to her arrival he was doing nothing but standing motionless in the center of his suite.

John Paizs's acting, though wordless, is very expressive yet perfectly subtle. You can tell exactly what his character is thinking at all times, or if his character is thinking at all. Eva Kovacs (Kim) also turns in a great performance that completely fits into the world of this film. There are some cast members whose acting is a little on the weak side, but for some reason it all seems to fit in with the film and wouldn't work if it were otherwise. And of course, Neal Lawrie's Dr. Jolly is absolutely one of the most riveting performances I've seen. Ever.

It's a shame this film wasn't distributed better, as it would definitely show up on a lot more lists of cult classics. However, it does tend to make Crime Wave seem even more special when you finally end up owning a copy.

If you would like to locate this movie, don't worry -- it CAN be done! After combing through all the video stores in your area, you may try finding this title on various internet auction sites. It appears that many video rental outlets will liquidate stock this way. Also, there are admirers of this film who will provide you with a copy (don't ask me - I'm not one of them). Since all of the companies that distributed this movie are now defunct, I would imagine that this is the only method of obtaining a new copy until it is (hopefully) re-released.

Also, Canada's CBC television network will broadcast this movie -- usually in a 2:00am or similar time slot. This is how I became aware of Crime Wave, incidentally.

So if this film sounds interesting, get hold of it at any price you feel comfortable with. I guarantee you will not be disappointed with it no matter what you paid.

Such a great film on so many levels! It is about a struggling Crime Wave writer that can only write the beginning and ending to any of his stories. Further more, he can only write by the luminance of the street light. But that is only the beginning, the whole film has such a delightfully surreal feel to it. Oh, and not to mention it is narrated by a small girl. There are murderous Elvis impersonators, bio suit wearing escapades, psychopathic cowboy doctors, truck driving dogs and that is just the tip of the bizarre ice berg. The film never gets boring and is just as clever as it is funny! A film that definitely thinks much outside the box to give the audience a thoroughly entertaining experience. The only downside is it is not on DVD at all. You must find an old copy of the VHS or hope your local independent theater is cool enough to screen it. If this ever gets a DVD release I know so many folks that buy it right up! It would come in from the North and move right to the top! (This last sentence will make more since once you see the film). :)

Most importantly for a comedy, Crime Wave is very funny. It's a masterpiece of black humor, with one twisted laugh out loud sight gag after another (I have too many favorites: the kid with the empty birdcage, the morgue tags, Ronnie up against the telephone pole, Steven's costume for the Halloween party, the drooping penis plant painting on a background wall, etc.). It's a comedy, but like Lynch's Blue Velvet, it also takes a retro 50s "normalcy" and reveals how bizarre, threatening, and, in the episode with Dr. Jolly, how downright creepy events can become within it. Paiz also shares Lynch's ability to make regular objects like street lamps feel stranger than they are. So, Paiz can't avoid comparisons as a sort of Lynch-lite. But he's also a grand surrealist who concocts layers of realities within realities.

Budding screenwriter Steven Penny writes the starts and endings of scripts but can't seem to fill in the middles (layer 1). We are shown "clips" of what Steven has written as though they had been filmed (layer 2). While the scripts lie in limbo waiting to be finished, their characters "come alive" and hang out in Steven's room and fight with each other (layer 3). Steven doesn't narrate his own story, in fact he doesn't talk at all, and the film is seen and narrated through the viewpoint of Kim (wonderfully played by Eva Kovacs), the young teen daughter of Steven's landlords, who comes to admire and help Steven. Meeting one odd character after another in one strange event after another, Kim's blaze, take-whatever-comes attitude anchors the film in yet another reality (layer 4). And, she speaks directly to the camera, the "objective" film, to us, the audience (layer 5).

Eventually Steven writes a script about Steven who is a screenwriter who made it big with the scripts we saw before. He opens a Disney-like theme park based on his work featuring those characters. Still, he feels at a personal loss until he meets and is redeemed by no one less than Jesus. At this point so many subjective viewpoints have converged that I can't tell you at what layer number we're on (6? 7? 8?) but what I can tell you is that we're in front of some epic inner-connected complex at the level of Borges or Philip K. Dick. As cool, objective, and deadpan in tone & presentation as Crime Wave is, it throws in everything including the kitchen sink (police chases, serial killers, rat infestations, chemical disasters, and so forth). Still, I don't want to give people the wrong impression here. Crime Wave is not a puzzle, nor is it at all confusing or hard to get, it has a straight-forward plot that simply involves a lot of episodes with differing sketch material that, as a whole, ends up covering a lot of ground. If the film has any sort of theme beyond the fun, Crime Wave is ironic about & mocks the lengths people will go through to become successful.

Consciously or unconsciously, many have borrowed from Paiz: Lynch in Mulholland Drive, Maddin in Dracula (his "From the East" a direct crib of Paiz's "From the North"), The Coen Brothers in Barton Fink, and Abel Ferrera in Bad Lieutenant (whose main character is also redeemed meeting Jesus). And yet, Paiz, the funniest & most imaginative filmmaker to come out of Canada next to Maddin and Norman McLaren, is but a minor cult figure. Why such injustice? Both he and his great Canadian cult film comedy deserve a much wider audience & recognition.

I only saw this movie once on CBC years ago so it's fuzzy, but the scene with the cowboy and the main character has stuck with me because it has the kind of creepiness that leaves the mouth dry.

Okay, Lynch may not have "ripped" the scene from this movie but when I saw the scene in Mulholland Drive with the cowboy I only took me a fraction of a second to drag out this little scene from Crime Wave which was lost somewhere in my memory banks. I think this is a good thing, because how else could I have reclaimed my interest in Piazs' film, introducing it to you now and maybe even getting you to be interested in it too?

Both scenes have similar settings, a failing light from above, and both involve a meeting with a menacing character in a cowboy hat. When I saw Mulholland Dr. I just KNEW Lynch had to have seen this movie too.

Anyways, you all inspire me: Maddin, Paizs, Lynch, Georges Melies, Miranda July, Godard...

I had the opportunity to see the newly restored print of this Canadian cult classic at TIFF '14 (free screening, no less!) The director was present and told us the DVD release date is in November. The print is awesome, with great sound, brilliant colour and fine detail, very unlike the VHS release. I last saw the tape about 15 years ago, and quality aside the quirky humour, micro-budget sets, costumes and effects, and lovable non-actors still work together perfectly to create outsider movie magic.

After the screening i remarked to Mr. Paizs that the overall tone of pre-Peewee's Playhouse naive child-adult humor was brilliantly counter-pointed by the sleazy "colour crime" sequences, and the occasional acts of gory violence got the biggest laughs due to being totally unexpected. I was rewarded with a lovely silk-screened poster, which i have framed and put up in our guest room.

If this sounds like your cup of tea, be sure to give it a viewing. It really is The Top!