Frownland

In a year of pretentious muck like "Synecdoche, New York" a film born out of Charlie Kaufman's own self-indulgence, comes a film that is similarly hard to watch but about three times as important. "Frownland" is a labor of love by the crew, the actors and the filmmaker, shot over years by friends. It traces a man who cannot communicate through his thoroughly authentic, REAL Brooklyn world. The people that you see are a step beyond even the stylization of the "mumblecore" movement. They are real people, painfully trapped in their own self-contained neuroses, unwilling to change, unable. The real world to them is their own set of delusions and because this is a film about people who are so profoundly out of touch, it is very difficult to watch. It is 16mm film-making without proper light, money or any of the other factors that would make a film "slick", but its honesty can not be understated, a fact that would cause a room full of people to dismiss it and for Richard Linklater to give it an award as he did at SXSW. This does remind of films like "Naked" or the best of the "mumblecore". It is a film that is not for everyone, but one that challenges you to watch and grows on you the longer you think about it.

I found the film quite expressive , the way the main character was lost but at the same much more clear about certain things in life than people who mocked him ( his flatmate for example ) .

he was tortured and you loved to watch him being tortured ! it had this perverted side which was frightening but we were all happy to see him come out of the misery again .

it was like a game character or pan-man through a mine-land or to enemy and we love to watch him under sniper attack or fire but then at the end we are happy to see him survive ...

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This is a film about a few New Yorkers who are struggling in life. It is actually very good at moments, but not great at others. The tone of the film is very uneven and unbalanced, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it feels unintentional here. At first we think maybe this is a comedy but we realize slowly that it is not.

The acting is actually very good. It feels strange at first until we realize that these are not the kinds of characters we normally see in films. But they exist in real life and here we get a chance too see them on the screen.

The writer and director of this movie stated that he was influenced by the highly acclaimed film Naked, and it is clearly evident here. In both films the characters speak fluently to each other about philosophy and their opinions on life. I felt like it actually felt more real in this one. It was better done. But it never felt completely real in either film, in my opinion. But maybe that's just because I don't encounter people who talk like that in real life. Maybe they're out there.

I like the camerawork a lot. The film felt a lot like Slackers at times, but maybe that's just because of the grainy 16mm look and the clothing the characters wore. The characters at times felt like they could have come from the world of that film, but at other times they felt like they belonged more in a John Cassavetes film.

It feels a bit like a Cassavetes film in several ways, particularly toward the end. The ending is very good and gritty and raw and not your typical Hollywood ending by any stretch. And while I feel like the story itself could have been revised and made better, the story as it was could not have been told any better.

What happens when someone has so much social anxiety that they cease to function? How alone can one man get? When the mundane crap we have to do in order to be part of society gets to be too much, what happens? Frownland explores these questions. Definitely a startling original debut from Bronstein. The tone is strange and claustrophobic as we get inside the mind of a guy named Keith that is so messed up he can hardly form a proper sentence. We follow him around as he tries to make contact with people and function day to day. Most of us have known people like this- people that say "sorry" too much or "i appreciate it" when there's nothing to appreciate. So we know there are people out there like this but why would someone want to make a movie about them? Well, because its interesting and Bronstein and the lead actor, Dore Mann, do an excellent job. This film is about as un-commercial as a film can get. A few friends filmed it over the course of a few years as they saved money. It was shot on 16mm and the scratched film look is beautifully low budget. With no distributer, this may be a tough one to find, I think it's been screening randomly for the past year or so. Hopefully it'll be on DVD at some point. I saw it at the Silent Movie Theater here in LA. There were 10 people in the audience, among them Crispin Glover, if that tells you anything about how weird this movie is. Highly recommended.

Frownland is like one of those intensely embarrassing situations where you end up laughing out loud at exactly the wrong time; and just at the moment you realize you shouldn't be laughing, you've already reached the pinnacle of voice resoundness; and as you look around you at the ghostly white faces with their gaping wide-open mouths and glazen eyes, you feel a piercing ache beginning in the pit of your stomach and suddenly rushing up your throat and... well, you get the point.

But for all its unpleasantness and punches in the face, Frownland, really is a remarkable piece of work that, after viewing the inarticulate mess of a main character and all his pathetic troubles and mishaps, makes you want to scratch your own eyes out and at the same time, you feel sickenly sorry for him.

It would have been a lot easier for me to simply walk out of Ronald Bronstein's film, but for some insane reason, I felt an unwavering determination to stay the course and experience all the grainy irritation the film has to offer. If someone sets you on fire, you typically want to put it out: Stop! Drop! And Roll! But with this film, you want to watch the flame slowly engulf your entire body. You endure the pain--perhaps out of spite, or some unknown masochistic curiosity I can't even begin to attempt to explain.

Unfortunately, mainstream cinema will never let this film come to a theater near you. But if you get a chance to catch it, prepare yourself: bring a doggie bag.