Henry Fool (1997)
Country: US
Technical: col 137m
Director: Hal Hartley
Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey
Synopsis:
When a free-spirited ex-con moves into the basement of a dysfunctional suburban family, his mixture of erudition and primal instinct has a profound effect on all their lives. (The introverted son becomes a world-class poet, the invalid mother commits suicide, and the tarty daughter marries him!)
Review:
As usual the director delights in the collision of the mundane and bizarre; at times the mundane becomes bizarre merely by virtue of being shown, as in the eponymous character's on-screen bowel explosion. But he is clearly toying with weightier themes than before: pornography, scatology, paedophilia, the question of what is acceptable as art, all make an appearance here without, for all the film's length, being tackled in a forthright manner. Still, there is much that is pleasurable for the weary aesthete.
Country: US
Technical: col 137m
Director: Hal Hartley
Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey
Synopsis:
When a free-spirited ex-con moves into the basement of a dysfunctional suburban family, his mixture of erudition and primal instinct has a profound effect on all their lives. (The introverted son becomes a world-class poet, the invalid mother commits suicide, and the tarty daughter marries him!)
Review:
As usual the director delights in the collision of the mundane and bizarre; at times the mundane becomes bizarre merely by virtue of being shown, as in the eponymous character's on-screen bowel explosion. But he is clearly toying with weightier themes than before: pornography, scatology, paedophilia, the question of what is acceptable as art, all make an appearance here without, for all the film's length, being tackled in a forthright manner. Still, there is much that is pleasurable for the weary aesthete.
Country: US
Technical: col 137m
Director: Hal Hartley
Cast: Thomas Jay Ryan, James Urbaniak, Parker Posey
Synopsis:
When a free-spirited ex-con moves into the basement of a dysfunctional suburban family, his mixture of erudition and primal instinct has a profound effect on all their lives. (The introverted son becomes a world-class poet, the invalid mother commits suicide, and the tarty daughter marries him!)
Review:
As usual the director delights in the collision of the mundane and bizarre; at times the mundane becomes bizarre merely by virtue of being shown, as in the eponymous character's on-screen bowel explosion. But he is clearly toying with weightier themes than before: pornography, scatology, paedophilia, the question of what is acceptable as art, all make an appearance here without, for all the film's length, being tackled in a forthright manner. Still, there is much that is pleasurable for the weary aesthete.