When a television crew covering last year's Cannes Film Festival asked Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert what he thought about that day's film, "The Brown Bunny," they unwittingly unleashed what might have otherwise been a quickly forgotten art-house flick onto the world at large.
Ebert's response to the television crew's question - that it was the worst movie ever shown at the festival - prompted the film's writer, director, producer, editor, cinematographer, and star, Vincent Gallo, to fire back with some criticism of their own. Gallo called Ebert a "fat pig" and, in a comment later detracted, put a cancer curse on the critic.
"My film is archival," Gallo told The Observer. "Roger Ebert will be dead of prostate cancer - if my curse works - within 16 months, and my film will live far past the biopsies that are removed from his anus."
It was Ebert's rebuttal though that assured "The Brown Bunny" a place of infamy in the history of film, or at least the history of film criticism. "I had a colonoscopy once, and they let me watch it on TV," Ebert wrote in a review of the film in the Sun-Times. "It was more entertaining than 'The Brown Bunny.'"
With press like that who needs PR? Before anyone even knew what "The Brown Bunny" was about, endless buzz surrounded the film that was flatly dismissed by a major critic and vociferously defended by its creator. More than anything else, what spurred people on when it came to "The Brown Bunny" was a simple case of rubber-necking: Just how bad could it possibly be?
Thanks to a limited release of a radically slimmed-down version of the movie (nearly an hour of the original was excised), filmgoers will finally get a chance to experience "The Brown Bunny" for themselves. Most will be disappointed to find that it isn't the train-wreck they anticipated. Even Ebert couldn't bring himself to hate Gallo's shortened version of "Bunny;" he gave it a thumbs up on his television show.
The story of Bud Clay (Gallo), a motorcycle racer who travels cross-country to Los Angeles, "The Brown Bunny" starts out listless and uneventful, and doesn't improve much along the way. About 20 minutes into the film, we learn that Bud is returning to his wife Daisy (Chlo? Sevigny) who is somehow estranged from him. In the meantime, Bud picks up girls named after flowers - there's a Lily, a Violet and a Rose - before quickly abandoning them. The film ends after Bud returns home and reunites with Daisy, but not before a "Sixth Sense"-like twist ending (don't worry - it's too trite and ridiculous to properly ruin) and some oral sex.
Even at a svelte 93 minutes, "Brown Bunny" doesn't have enough plot to exhaust its running time. Instead, Gallo's movie whiles away celluloid with the filmic equivalent of twiddling your thumbs. There are interminable shots of passing landscape through a fly-splattered windshield, terrible folk music (think Gordon Lightfoot) and what can only be described as Bud just "doing stuff:" Bud pumping gas, Bud staring off into the distance, Bud buying a Coke, Bud dressing, Bud urinating, Bud eating Chinese food in a mall.
Don't be duped into thinking that all this dead-air is a stab at authenticity or, worse yet, an artistic statement. Even if it were, Gallo doesn't have the heart or the skill to really make everyday minutiae jump to life. But without a clear purpose for these on-screen meanderings, "The Brown Bunny" ends up becoming a road movie minus the movie.
And while there are some things to like about "The Brown Bunny" - Gallo's vague but likable performance as Bud - it's impossible to ignore some of the movie's more disastrous choices. This brings us to the oral sex scene. It's the part of "Brown Bunny" that viewers will remember most vividly, not because it's particularly offensive (although it is rather long and gratuitous), but simply because it's one of the few moments in the film where something actually happens.
As poor Chlo? Sevigny makes a sacrifice for her art and Gallo moans along, there's a moment when the film achieves a real clarity and viewers can see just how vapid and pointless the last hour of "Bunny" really is. You can only delude yourself that the movie's obliqueness is intentional or "for the sake of art" for so long. In the end, Gallo's the only one here getting off.
Is "The Brown Bunny" the worst movie I've ever seen? No, not even by a long shot. In today's culture of camp and crap aesthetics ("Pink Flamingoes") and multi-million dollar fiascos ("Gigli"), for a movie to be crowned the "worst" it must be unmercifully, impossibly bad. "The Brown Bunny" just isn't up (or down) to that task, although you certainly can't fault it for trying.
