Stockholm Film Festival

GEORGE IS A YOUNG CALIFORNIAN computer genius who's found out that he will be laid off. As retribution he steals 450.000 dollars which he hides in the spare tire in his car. He begins a journey through the desert, towards the promised tax-free land of Reno. On his way, he picks up two persons who have crashed their car, Patty, a longlegged dancer from Las Vegas and her boyfriend Chevy, who turns ont to be a pathological professional killer. Little by little they become intrusive and threatening travel-company. A thriller-like road movie with a Volvo as the center.
Comment:
THERE IS CAUSE FOR SUSPICION EVERY time a film is described as a ''road movie''. A film about some people on their way towards a nowhere is in nine cases out of ten the same thing as a film about some people looking for a screen-play, ''Action? Whoops, we'll take care of that while we're filming.'' Besides, the whole genre smells of stale 80's more than a Wunderbaum. Much can be blamed on a director who handled the genre so well that far too many young directors were inspired to follow, Warum, Wim Wenders, warum?
Delusion, then, might be a road movie that deserves another name. An American film scholar played with the term ''film asphalte'', and why not; it resounds of the cynicaI 40's, just like this movie. The director Carl Colpaert follows what Billy Wilder cleared the way for in films like Woman Without A Conscience, and rides straight into the desert. The landscape forever belongs to John Ford, and Delusion might be described as a new effort to make a modern Stagecoach. It's about three ill-matched persons on the road through a threatening desert landscape, but in 1991 the means of transportation is a shining new Volvo. At one occasion the presence of John Ford's spirit is extra clear. When the psychopath in the company steers the car towards a desert sea he tells his girlfriend: ''This is where they recorded many of those old movies with John Wayne.''
It's clear that Delusion is the director's first film, for good and for worse. The intonation is ambitious, sometimes over-ambitious, but every now and then there is an instant of true brilliance. The revolver duel at the end, for example, is a gem. It starts out as a pastiche on a Sergio Leone-movie, with a low, heavily slanted camera angle, but ends as something quite different. The actors are convincing throughout. Particularly good is Jennifer Rubin, playing a woman who literally ends up between two men. She is the great bonus of this film. _
JAN GRADVALL

Medverkande

Jennifer Rubin, Jim Metzler, Kyle Secor

Producent

Seth M. Willenson, Christopher Henkel, Daniel Hassid

Manus

Carl Colpaert, Kurt Voss

Foto

Geza Sinkovics

Musik

Barry Adamson

Talat språk

English

 

Andra filmer från sektionen Midnight Releases

Se alla festivalfilmer från 1991