The 2009 Virginia Film Festival had the usual mix of classics, special guests, old and new offerings. Among the newest was a quirkily arresting thirty-minute film, Charlottesville Kitchen Killers, written and directed by Paul Whitehead. Whitehead, a well-known chess master and noir photographer (see Almostfatalinsomnia.com) created this his first film from scratch, drawing on local scenes and workers who improvise their lines. A surrealist farce with implicit satire on the sunny, self-satisfied town of Charlottesville, the film opens with an iconic scene of criminal vanity and shallowness. A woman backing up her car (played by Liz Porter, the one experienced actress) hits and knocks a man out of his wheelchair. As the man lies writhing on the ground, she remarks, "You're lucky I'm not a cop, or I'd write you a ticket." A plot unfolds as obscure as the plot of a nightmare; the artistic value, the meaning of the film lies in the evocative imagery of flippant slaughter and amused mayhem. We are down below in the hell's kitchen of the human id during one of its violent tantrums. But Whitehead takes pity on us and offers up some soothing illusions.
Cast as the feminine power of the universe, and played by the international model, Shakti, she's the visual high point of this first foray into cinematic art. She smiles and sways up and down dark stairways, luring all the male protagonists to their doom. She never speaks but she laughs – our Kali has a sense of humor – she laughs every time somebody is knifed or clubbed to death. It's all done in a farcical manner, with some well-woven vocals and guitar playing to sweeten the pill. The pill you have to swallow — as I read Whitehead's maiden movie — is that Charlottesville Kitchen Killers mirrors the real world: the robotic murderousness, the blithe insensitivity to suffering, the absurd bondage to eroticism. Surreality is here used as a way of commenting on reality.
Cast as the feminine power of the universe, and played by the international model, Shakti, she's the visual high point of this first foray into cinematic art. She smiles and sways up and down dark stairways, luring all the male protagonists to their doom. She never speaks but she laughs – our Kali has a sense of humor – she laughs every time somebody is knifed or clubbed to death. It's all done in a farcical manner, with some well-woven vocals and guitar playing to sweeten the pill. The pill you have to swallow — as I read Whitehead's maiden movie — is that Charlottesville Kitchen Killers mirrors the real world: the robotic murderousness, the blithe insensitivity to suffering, the absurd bondage to eroticism. Surreality is here used as a way of commenting on reality.
