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| Images courtesy of Liberation Hall |
The career of actor-writer-director Paul Bartel continued on
until his death in the year 2000 with posthumous role or two coming out. But despite keeping busy until the end the
indie dark comedy filmmaker’s ninth and final feature Shelf Life from
1993, a kind of proto-Blast from the Past by way of Dogtooth freakout
of experimental theater, never saw the light of day until now. Unable to find distribution until after Paul
Bartel’s death when his personal 35mm print of the film was donated to the
Academy Film Archive and was eventually picked up by new niche and clandestine
boutique label Liberation Hall to be unveiled to the public for the first time. While the results look and sound rough and
scratchy, this previously unreleased film and former live theater brainchild of
the principal three cast members O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein and Jim Turner comes
to home video packed with plentiful extras including new interviews with all
three actors and a running commentary trying to make sense of the madness.
Circa 1963, a small Californian family with three happy-go-lucky
children Tina, Pam and Scotty, heads into an elaborate well-supplied deep underground
nuclear bomb shelter following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
fearing World War III. Over the course
of thirty years and the film’s sardonic opening titles sequence set to Brian
Wilson & Andy Paley’s In My Moondreams, the film jumps into
then-present 1993 with all three kids grown into adults Tina (O-Lan Jones), Pam
(Andrea Stein) and Scotty (Jim Turner) still foraging in the bunker with their
long since deceased parents now skeletons in their bedside. From here, the film follows the day-to-day
activities these overgrown adults with the mental and emotional maturity of
minors spend including but not limited to watching TV, role-playing of numerous
caricatures and fighting over whatever remnants of food are left.
A darkly hilarious, nightmarish, grating and maddening
vision of what The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser might’ve turned out like if
the poor man never escaped captivity, the final never-before-seen swan song of
Paul Bartel is truly an unexpurgated slice of outlaw cinema. Experimental nuclear bunker theater featuring
childlike characters in adult bodies, it sports some of Bartel’s best direction
of stage and set pieces. Featuring
uncanny threatening production design of the claustrophobic bunker by Alex Tavoularis,
a screwball synth score by Andy Paley and tight, trained cinematography by
Philip Holohan, Bartel and his three main actors let loose into their roles
including child-playing “adults” like a mock-up grade school classroom. That everything they’re acting out comes from
what little they see on an old black-and-white CRT television from 1963 only forecasts
the VHS rental tape bouts of freedom glimpsed in the equally surreal yet far
more provocative Dogtooth.
O-Lan Jones is one of those character actresses who shows up
in tons of bit parts for notable films including Miracle Mile, Edward
Scissorhands, Beethoven, Natural Born Killers and The
Truman Show. Usually playing a
waitress or otherwise frumpy seductress in movies, one of the most familiar
faces in film here is allowed to completely come unhinged in a role that’s
loose and maniacal. Easily the most
committed performance of this insane chamber piece, playing everything from scared
crying child to sultry seductress to spoiled brat, O-Lan attacks this role with
everything she’s got like a wild animal in the stage of feeding. Almost upstaging her are her co-stars Andrea
Stein as the more maternal older sister while Jim Turner as the ‘kid’ brother
competes with O-Lan as who can be the most increasingly infantile of the
group.
Shot on a low budget six weeks after the original Lex
Theater in Hollywood stage show ended, the film was screened at the Palm
Springs Film Festival as a workprint but was passed on by Toronto and Sundance
before effectively failing to find theatrical or home video distribution. A deal that never worked out which Paul
Bartel kept under his belt, the film like its characters wouldn’t see the light
of day until some thirty years later thanks to this new blu-ray edition from
Liberation Hall. As aforementioned, the
picture and sound quality of this thing is rather rough with cigarette burns
and scratches as well as pops on the soundtrack but given this is all that
exists of an otherwise previously unreleased film it is a serviceable
transfer. Fans of Bartel and the
original stage play will be keen on the extras including a zoom video Q&A conducted
by the American Cinematheque featuring the three principal actors. Fans of Paul Bartel will be delighted by this
release while the uninitiated are inclined to both buckle up and surrender to
this movie’s peculiar, certifiable but nevertheless infectious charms.
--Andrew Kotwicki
