The
micro-budget do-it-yourself black-and-white lean mean indie film has proved to
be an important introductory chapter to many a filmmaker’s illustrious
careers. Among those which immediately
come to mind include David Lynch’s Eraserhead,
Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone, Tom
Huckabee’s Taking Tiger Mountain and Darren
Aronofsky’s π. Flying
under the radar in the mid-2000s was art-school dropout turned filmmaker Otto
Buj’s peculiar but intriguing little 16mm black-and-white number The Eternal Present, a student film
destined for the midnight movie circuit with an eventual cult following.
Told in a fragmented, elliptical perspective,
the film follows a young obituary processor named Tim (first-time actor Craig
Gloster) who becomes ensnared in a web of intrigue involving the death of an
elderly woman he may or may not be responsible for. As his paranoia grows while more people he
comes into contact with wind up dropping dead, Tim’s own foggy point of view
becomes increasingly surreal, leaping rapidly between past, present and future
with premonitory visions of a deep state which may be the key to the bizarre
deaths he’s caught up in.
Running
a mere seventy-seven minutes, The Eternal
Present treads a fine line between experimental innovation within the
thriller genre and collegiate arthouse pretension. Lifting heavily from such notable French New
Wave influences as Godard, Resnais and Rivette, newcomer Mr. Buj admittedly
rips off of all the right people but at the same time turns over a still
startling debut with a striking leading actor.
Craig Gloster isn’t much of an actor but whose lanky figure so closely
resembles Conrad Veidt’s iconic villain from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari he winds up giving a performance worthy
of a horror film.
Though
an obvious sophomore effort, The Eternal
Present nonetheless is an interesting exercise in experimental
filmmaking. Fans of do-it-yourself
guerrilla filmmaking will find much to enjoy here while others unaccustomed to
this kind of weird underground movie will tire of the film’s many extended
black screens and jagged, hyperkinetic editing.
Yes, Otto Buj’s film is indeed derivative of other homegrown gritty
black-and-white thrillers but for a first-time director he shows promise. Not a masterpiece but a curious little movie
sure to take you the viewer down dark cinematic alleyways both familiar and
uncharted.
--Andrew Kotwicki
