Reviews

Horrific feast for the eyes
Mar. 10, 2006. 01:00 AM
PETER HOWELL
MOVIE CRITIC



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Rhinoceros Eyes



Starring Michael Pitt, Paige Turco and Gale Harold. Written and directed by Aaron Woodley. 92 minutes. At Canada Square. 14A

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In this 2003 psychodrama finally freed from contractual purgatory, a timid recluse named Chep (Last Days' Michael Pitt) toils in the confines of a movie prop house, trying to keep a grip on reality while his nightmares become ever bolder.

Chep feels safe surrounded by such B-movie detritus as a 50-pound cherry, fright masks and fake prosthetic limbs. He often hides inside a grotesque mask patterned after Plan 9 From Outer Space star Tor Johnson.

The outside world beckons via the comely face and figure of Fran (Paige Turco), a perfectionist movie art director who is driven to acquire increasingly weirder props, including a pair of genuine rhinoceros eyes.

The smitten Chep is determined to make Fran happy any way he can, even if it involves theft, or worse. He attracts the attention of celebrity-obsessed detective Phil Barbara (Gale Harold of TV's Queer as Folk), and his problems multiply as reality and artifice begin to blend into one.

It's obvious that writer/director Aaron Woodley has seen the films of his uncle, David Cronenberg, but the real influence likely comes from the exceedingly twisted worlds of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Delicatessen, Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko and the freaky animations of the Brothers Quay.

That's not to take anything away from Woodley, who displays a sureness expected more from a veteran filmmaker than a first-timer.

A disturbing movie with new talents to watch — including character animator Veronica Verkley, whose junk pile monsters are a horrific highlight.

This is an edited version of a review first published during the Toronto International Film Festival.

www.thestar.com

Rhinoceros Eyes (3 out of 4)
Starring Michael Pitt and Paige Turco.

Dark and moody, Aaron Woodley's feature directorial debut Rhinoceros Eyes is obviously influenced by the works of the director's uncle, David Cronenberg. And though this obsessively claustrophobic and three-dimensional world is fascinating and eerie, it unfortunately lacks any emotional quality to make a lasting impact.

Chep (Michael Pitt) lives within his factory of props, surrounded by every possible object to please even the most demanding customer, who happens to be Fran (Paige Turco), a movie production designer who's a stickler for detail. Fran's demands are so particular, in fact, that Chep has to make several night excursions, many of which turn violent, to secure the goods and keep his customer happy. And when he's not out committing a crime, Chep likes to hang around dark movie houses watching romantic melodramas. Enter Phil (Gale Harold), a cop with a fascination for movies, whose job it is to investigate the crimes committed by Chep and who soon becomes immersed in the suspect's fantasy life. In fact Chep soon loses grip of reality, as he's unable to separate his real life from the images he sees on the screen when he goes to the movies.

The detailed atmospherics are effective and disquieting, but Rhinoceros Eyes (which refers to one of Fran's demands) remains somewhat dull and lifeless. And while Pitt and Paige perform adequately their interaction remains cool and aloof. But as a feature debut, the pic is promising.

Rhinoceros Eyes

By ken eisner

Publish Date: 30-Mar-2006

Starring Michael Pitt and Paige Turco. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, March 31, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

Rhinoceros Eyes is an exercise in opulent strangeness, with saving moments of visual brilliance, and it will infuriate at least as many moviegoers as it wins over.

Michael Pitt, who has yet to play a role straight enough to let us gauge what he can do (one of his last outings was as the Kurt Cobain–like character in Last Days), stars as the oddly named Chep, whose whole world is the dilapidated Toronto prop house he rarely leaves. Let’s put it this way: if the young protagonist of François Truffaut’s The Wild Child had been raised by art directors rather than wolves, he might have turned out something like this: a holy innocent with art deco lamps and a 20-kilogram cherry.

Chep speaks, a little anyway, but his only frame of verbal reference seems to be the crappy melodrama currently (and forever) playing at the local third-run cinema, where he studiously ignores the attentions of a similarly antisocial box-office clerk (Nadia Litz). If his lines can’t be lifted from the movie he’s just seen, he doesn’t know what to say. His limits, and his resourcefulness, are tested when a beautiful designer (Paige Turco) comes into the shop one night looking for the orbs of the film’s title. Her demands for authenticity then become even more obscure—to a dangerous degree.

Things reach a turning point when the longhaired lad is dragged out on Halloween by his bosses, the foul-mouthed Bundy (Matt Servitto) and the forever stoned Hamish (James Allodi), who plunk a rubber likeness of old-school wrestler and grade-Z movie actor Tor Johnson on his head. The mask presumably gives him courage for acts he would otherwise avoid, including a B?&?E at a neighbour’s house, where a crazy lady (Jackie Burroughs) ritually abuses old suitors and is spied dancing with the detective (Queer as Folk’s Gale Harold) sent to investigate Chep’s transgressions.

Lost yet? Actually seeing the movie won’t help you. But for the many baffling interludes, there are a number of poignant or at least striking images. Most of these come during the love-action animated segments that represent increasingly psychotic episodes. These are heavily influenced by weird Czech director Jan Svankmajer, but the cockeyed combination of wistful comedy, creepy hints of horror, and dogged obscurantism has a unique tang of its own—not that unique always means good. Still, as with anyone rummaging through old props, it depends on what you’re looking for.

Rhinoceros Eyes takes you far from Hollywood schlock

Fri, May 19, 2006

Cronenberg's nephew delves deep into a world of surrealism.

By JIM SLOTEK, SUN MEDIA


THREE WORDS -- "David Cronenberg's nephew" -- make for pretty facile shorthand to prepare you for Rhinoceros Eyes, the debut feature film from Aaron Woodley.

To be sure, this surreal little movie about a naive young misanthrope prop-shop worker whose inanimate "companions" begin to assemble themselves into a living entity could be mistaken for something from Uncle Dave's early oeuvre. It's directed with an unCronenberg-like affinity for a joke (there's a subplot about guys in gorilla suits, for example), but otherwise it fits the bill.

And both are directors with visions that shine through. Woodley's film -- inspired by a walk through a dusty, now-defunct Dufferin Street prop house -- is an expressionistic fable about detritus, human and other, that suggests other influences as varied as Guy Maddin and David Lynch.

Chep (Last Days' Michael Pitt) is a shy, misanthropic kid who lives and works in a prop house, virtually under the foster care of its owner Bundy (Matt Servitto), whose motto is, "I only hire idiot savants." Chep actually knows the contents of the labyrinthine warehouse better than its owner -- not surprising, since he lives, sleeps and eats in the mess.

His only visits to the "outside world" are to an old movie house, where he watches the same turgid golden-age Hollywood love story over and over, to the chagrin of an adoring, mousy box office employee (Nadia Litz), who'd love to join him.

But Chep only has eyes for Fran (Paige Turco), a movie prop buyer with arcane requests (an antique prosthetic arm, a human finger, a pair of accurate rhinoceros eyes), which Chep acquires by any means necessary.

His disguise is a mask of old horror actor Tor Johnson that conveys an inner horror Chep's blank visage otherwise withholds. On his tail is a detective/song-and-dance man wannabe (Gale Harold). Why do the police assign a guy to investigate stolen props? It's just more surrealism.

As Chep loses his soul to a fantasy romance, bits and pieces of props begin assembling themselves in creepy stop-motion around him, from fetus to baby to malevolent doppelganger. Canadian in every way but financing, Rhinoceros Eyes features the work of terrific locals.

A hit at the 2003 Toronto Film Festival, Rhinoceros Eyes sat for 2 1/2 years after its American production company went bankrupt. That was a shame, but its belated release is a great chance to see what a movie-and-a-vision looks like, minus studio shenanigans interference.

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Today/Entertainment/2006/05/19/1587686-sun.html