There Are No Walls in the House of Jearl - Mystery DVD Supplemental

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November 25th, 2007

03:28 pm

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Mystery DVD Supplemental
Henry Fool
Once again I apologize for a long, paralytic pause in the Mystery DVD project. The Arranger set me the simple task of watching and responding to Hal Hartley's Fay Grim, and I have been crippled by its paradoxes. First I put off watching it, then I watched it, then I decided I needed to rewatch its prequel, Henry Fool, put off watching that, finally watched it and then Fay Grim again. And then I didn't know what to say. Hal Hartley's films are difficult for me, I think, because they present collections of fragile, unhappy people, sketch them out with great love and tenderness, and then set up terrible problems to threaten them. It's hard to make myself watch, but then I find the films delightful when I finally do. They are glued together with fabulous, absurd dialogue, and the actors pace around their sets and each other like tigers. Broken-down and encumbered, bleary-eyed from the bars but still very dangerous. Hartley moves people around very theatrically, and sometimes it's weird and distracting but usually it's awesome. He also composes much of the music in this series, and it's gorgeous.

Do not believe his lies.

In Henry Fool, the lives of a downtrodden little family in Queens is transformed by the arrival of Henry, who barges in determined to own every scene life tries to set him in. He talks like a bad, bad man on the run from a world not ready for his 'ideas,' which he has been setting down in school composition notebooks, his Confession. He inspires socially crippled garbageman Simon Grim to become a poet. He seduces Simon's mother and his sister Fay (Parker Posey). He's a satyr, a liar, a moocher and a bullshit artist of the first water. And I can never really figure how much of the chaos wrought in Henry Fool is actually Henry's doing, or if he just provides an obscene chorus of sorts. He does make Simon write. Things happen around him. But he's 99% crap and everyone learns this eventually. But they love him anyway, and in the end of the film, Simon and Fay help him flee to Europe ahead of a murder rap.

See Henry Fool for the second most quintessentially Parker Posey performance ever committed by a Parker Posey. The first is in Fay Grim, which I will grapple with in my next entry. Send dogs with brandy, and stout men with staves.

Tags: dvd review

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Comments

From:	xauenmurph
Date:	November 26th, 2007 12:18 am (UTC)

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huh, is he related to Nice Pete?

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From:	jearl
Date:	November 26th, 2007 04:53 am (UTC)

probably not

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He lacks the Southern airs of Nice Pete, and is way worse at getting away with crimes.

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From:	magdalene1
Date:	November 26th, 2007 04:05 am (UTC)

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Ok, I totally need to ~~watch~~ grapple with more Hal Hartley films. I've seen his shorts but not features.

Also, the cowbell is for you writing posts again. Do you know how much I quote/love/look forward to/tell other people about your reviews? It would probably scare you if you did.

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From:	jearl
Date:	November 26th, 2007 04:56 am (UTC)

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I think part of my paralysis was the worry that I am reading way too much into these films. Maybe they're just stories about losers. Is it just the hypnotic soundtrack and the rapid dialogue spinning my head around? I'd be interested in your take.

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