Disappearances


Rating = B

I'm not sure this is really a B movie but the whole experience of seeing it at the Cape Cinema with a talk by the director before the film was shown and questions and answers by the director (still mostly talk by him) was definitely at least a B movie-going experience. The director teaches about movies at the college level, so he is very articulate in describing his own movie. With its touches of magical realism and subtle allusions to French Canadian folk legends, I'm not sure what was happening in the story would be so clear without the director being there to explain things.

The film has Kris Kristofferson in its leading role, although the story is actually a coming-of-age story about the son of the character Kristofferson plays in the film. He is very good in the role and, according to the director, was instrumental in other good actors joining the cast of this low budget independent film.

According to the director, Kristofferson worked for scale and gave two benefit concerts at which $70,000 was raised to fund the film. Other funding came from 1,400 donors ($500,000) and from selling $1,000,000 in shares in the film at $10,000 per share. Altogether the movie cost $1,700,000 and took 25 days to film (compared with $50,000,000 for the average Hollywood film), it looks fully professional.

Other broadly recognizable actors included Genevičve Bujold, Luis Guzmán, and William Sanderson (of the “Newhart” — “I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl”).

The movie is apparently the third in a trilogy of films set in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont based on books by Howard Frank Mosher. According to the director, this area of Vermont was sort of a “wild west” of its own, and he was explicitly making it as a “western.” In addition to teaching about film and making films that take place and are filmed in the Northeast Kingdom, he also teaches film making to young people. He definitely is an interesting guy.

[2007-08-19]