‘Vulcanizadora’ Review: A Bleak Coming-of-Middle-Age Tale

Residing and dealing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Joel Potrykus belongs to a various American custom of eccentric, unbiased regional filmmakers starting from John Waters in Baltimore to Joe Swanberg in Chicago to Kelly Reichardt in Western Oregon. As with these of his non secular friends, Potrykus’s movies exude a home made high quality that stems not solely from their authentically non-Hollywood manufacturing locales, but additionally from their low-budget resourcefulness and friends-and-family-staffed manufacturing groups.

What most stands out about his work, from 2012’s Ape to, now, Vulcanizadora, is its relationship to time. Channeling the cynical, anti-conformist ethos of ’90s popular culture, Potrykus evokes the period of his teenage years with a lightweight contact, to the purpose that we could ponder whether his characters are devoted nostalgists or truly residing by way of the top of the twentieth century.

Vulcanizadora revisits two characters—Marty (Joshua Burge) and Derek (Potrykus)—launched a decade in the past in Buzzard. After we left them, Marty was on the run after his check-fraud scheme collapsed, and Derek was residing in his father’s basement (a realm generally known as the Occasion Zone) and nonetheless working on the mortgage firm the place he and Marty met.

In Buzzard, we’re invited to snicker at Derek’s loserish enthusiasm for collectibles and, maybe, reluctantly admire Marty’s anti-corporatist subterfuge, whilst we recoil from his sociopathy. It’s simple to think about each of them, who subsist on Little Debbie Swiss rolls and Gatorade, exhibiting up in Kevin Smith’s Clerks to carry one thing from the Fast Cease. However now, with Marty hollowed out from a stint in jail and residing together with his senile father (Invoice Vincent), and Derek divorced and estranged from his son (Solo Potrykus), their slacker antics aren’t so humorous anymore. These middle-aged males, defeated by life, are figures of pity greater than of ridicule.

Nonetheless, as they embark on a tenting journey within the woods on the movie’s outset—trudging alongside, in profile, in a protracted take paying homage to Gus Van Sant’s Gerry, solely scored to heavy metallic—Derek can’t be deterred from his quest to enact such time-honored male bonding rituals as strolling like a samurai, poring over porno mags, taking a bottle rocket to the face, and dancing to Godsmack’s “Voodoo.” Marty, as Derek’s taciturn foil, isn’t having it, as their Occasion Zone days are over and he’s clearly preoccupied with different issues.

Burge’s huge watery eyes inform us every part about Marty’s inner state as he stares down one other potential conviction and jail sentence, this time for burning down a tire store—which, he says slightly convincingly, was an accident. Derek received him out on bail, and the pair have made some type of pact, the main points of which come progressively into focus, first after we glimpse a sinister piece of metallic headgear that Marty has customary, then when he brings out a home made M-80.

Ten years in the past, Marty was a prankish imp who, in avoiding work, usually expended as a lot effort as his undemanding however soul-sucking temp job required. Now, all of his misdirected creativity and glee at pulling cons are nonexistent, and Vulcanizadora is probably most memorable for the way in which that Burge frighteningly embodies this emotionally desiccated shell of a person.

However the movie additionally marks one thing of a turning level for Potrykus as a writer-director—the type that tempts critics to declare a newfound “maturity.” Because the idiotic banter of Vulcanizadora’s first half provides approach to a solo quest within the ultimate stretch, we see Marty, in contrast to Potrykus’s different anti-social misfits, attempting to take duty for himself. Burge mines bitterly comedian irony from Marty’s efforts to come clean with and make amends for his errors, his each try at confession thwarted in an sudden approach. No person, not even his father, will maintain him to account.

Vulcanizadora is as a lot a warning as it’s a reckoning. In projecting ahead into the later lives of his amusing, troubling creations, Potrykus appears with out flinching on the final penalties of everlasting adolescence, a frequent topic of sunshine comedy however one hardly ever handled with any actual weight. Whereas Kevin Smith fawns over his beloved Gen X clerks in exceedingly self-mythologizing sequels, Potrykus’s newest effort stands as a mannequin of great, engaged filmmaking that grows richer and extra poignant as time goes by.

The submit ‘Vulcanizadora’ Evaluate: Joel Potrykus’s Bleak and Poignant Coming-of-Middle-Age Tale appeared first on Slant Journal.