The Blackout

What is real stimulating about an Abel Ferrara movie is that, whether you like it or not, it'll never leave you indifferent. In my point of view, "The Blackout" is not among the better ones, I'd even call it a failure, but has some great moments and several points of interest. After all, it comes from Ferrara, one of the most personal looks in cinema today, and what comes from a great director, even if it's not that good, at least it's worth trying.

Be aware: it's difficult to come into "The Blackout" because it's basically confusing (too much I have to say). But even if it's not well handled, this style is coherent with the argument as far as Ferrara wants to bring to images the point of view of an alcoholic during a monumental hangover.

If you are capable of going through the first thirty minutes, you'll be rewarded with an stimulating reflection about addiction and the limits between fiction and reality: the key of the main character's enigmatic hangover seems to be found in the filming of an experimental movie... another excuse to reflect on the dark side of movie making and the status of the director.

Try it. Maybe you'll like it or maybe you'll end leaving it in the middle, but at least, this film will make you react in some way, which is not very usual in cinema today.

Neurosis and character antipathy do not make for commercial success. THE BLACKOUT bypassed cinemas in the US, and here in Australia. The multiplex monster has no room for mavericks like Ferrara.

As there are no others quite like the rebellious Ferrara, he takes liberties from his own catalogue. This time, there are shades of SNAKE EYES (1993), and it pre-empts NEW ROSE HOTEL (1998). In form though, it owes much more to Hitchcock, and VERTIGO.

Like VERTIGO, THE BLACKOUT masquerades as a thriller, but is more concerned with the nature of identity. Relocating to Miami, the film is aesthetically great, though Modine looks (justifiably) clueless. The axis of the film is the concept rather than plot and the clash of high-art pretension with low-brow sleaze is conscious.

Some ideas don't come off, and the form of THE BLACKOUT is awkward. But if it is too cold and removed for most filmgoers tastes, it is still a showcase for an uncompromising, daring director, willing to upset accepted conventions.

The biggest disappointment is that his invention is left in this case to an unheralded release, and will go largely unnoticed.

Abel Ferrara's "Blackout" stars Matthew Modine as Matty, a self-loathing addict and Hollywood actor. Essentially a feature length short story, the film watches as Matty attempts to both crawl his way out of addiction and atone for an event which happened during a memory blackout. To say any more would be to spoil Ferrara's plot.

Suffice to say that Ferrara's aesthetic perfectly echoes Matty's hallucinatory mindset. Hazy and trance-like, and set in the slime-world of a neon-lit Miami, the film moves like a lava lamp. When he's not salivating over drugs and booze, Matty's knee deep in strippers, beautiful women and pornography. This, of course, all echoes Ferrara's own life; he was himself once an addict and pornographer.

"Blackout's" plot eventually becomes something akin to Hitchcock's "Vertigo". Here Matty is revealed to be a deeply disturbed man who chases doubles and who hungers irrationally for ghostly women. Unsurprisingly, Ferrara's portrayal of an addict/alcoholic is sympathetic and crackles with authenticity; Ferrara knows his material well. Strange for a film which features copious female nudity, the film sympathises with its women. Ferrara's nudity may be gratuitous, but is rarely erotic. The film co-stars a mostly inept Dennis Hopper and a occasionally raw and powerful Mathew Modine.

7.9/10 – Worth one viewing.

Back in the hazy days of grip/electric life, I got a call to work as the BB Grip on my 2nd (and last) Abel Ferrara film - "The Blackout". I accepted the gig with one non-negotiable caveat - I would never be willing to enter what I term "the meat grinder" (defined as any space within 150 feet of the madman auteur). "The Blackout" IS Abel Ferrara....albeit a PG-13 version. In a sense, the experience of making the film was an act of performance art...art lived as actual "life" or perhaps life lived as a Bosch nightmare...on the one hand, it was genius; on the other, pure madness. What remains is a snippet of documentary into the soul of AF.

It takes a while to get into the movie's mood - Modine's druggy trawl through a razor-sharp Miami is not very well differentiated despite Ferrara's excellent handling, teetering at the edge of surrender to the prevailing decadence but always retaining a distinct alienation and fascinated disgust. Later on the style becomes more tightly formal and controlled, befitting Modine's cleared up state, and Ferrara's portrayal of his obsession and disquietude is very effective in a more conventionally expositional way. Towards the end the mechanics of the ultimate revelation really take over, but Hopper's final long profane shouting fit at Modine after he learns the truth is too hard-hitting to be set aside, and the high-risk final image is oddly touching - the movie is a plausible account of a true lost soul grappling for stability in a world of temptation and internal darkness, with neat (albeit stunt) casting.