ROAD TO NOWHERE is Monte Hellman's first feature film in over two decades and it proves to be worth the wait. An instant classic of the Movie-Movie genre, along with Jean-Luc Godard's CONTEMPT and Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT, with strong links to Hitchcock's VERTIGO, LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD, RASHOMON and Jacques Rivette's L'AMOUR FOU, it's a feast for the mind, eyes and all movie lovers. And, make no mistake, ROAD TO NOWHERE is every bit as original and artistically courageous as those time tested classics.
Hellman's on-again, off-again career, from Roger Corman produced horror projects like BEAST FROM THE HAUNTED CAVE, THE CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA and THE TERROR to the mind-bending, low budget western THE SHOOTING (the first psychedelic western and a possible template for EL TOPO) to the the celebrated 1971 TWO LANE BLACKTOP, which defined the mood of its era, and its road movie twin, COCKFIGHTER, has proved as iconoclastic as his vision and his films have not had an easy time with mainstream critics of their time. But they have lasted. ROAD TO NOWHERE is his most daring, experimental and uncompromising film yet, and it will also last. It has the twists and turns of Hellman's own career story built in but it also has a universal validity in its overriding concern with the nature of Art and the role of the Artist. The nonlinear, mind teasing structure is both a challenge and a gift for those who want to engage with a film on a creative level. It tells either multiple stories or presents multiple takes on one story: the fallout from a film being made about a shady politician, a femme fatale, murder, suicide and possible resurrection. The director becomes obsessed with his leading actress in the manner of a New Hollywood predator on a sophisticated prowl, but there's a supremely nasty surprise in store for him and for our conventional expectations as consumers of the genre. The mind can play funny tricks when sex, money and artistic ambition are in the brew.
RTN starts out as a crime film, a 21st Century Film Noir in which an obsession with cinema determines the fate of the fall guy. Mitchell Haven, the director of the film within the film, appreciates THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (clips of both are included in key scenes) as masterpieces in the manner of the real Monte Hellman, but Haven can't see what's unfolding right there in front of him, sometimes in his own bed. It questions our assumptions about the reality of everyday experience, the realities of the creative process and the reality we assign to the images we absorb from cinema. There is no set reality in RTN, this is a metaphysical thriller, which contains elements of the meta-fictions of Borges, atmospherically shot in North Carolina's ethereal Smoky Mountains. You won't be able to predict what's coming down in the next scene and, like Edgar G. Ulmer's noir classic DETOUR, only endless movement, existential anxiety and unpleasant change are certain.
If ROAD TO NOWHERE isn't a masterpiece, it's certainly the work of an American Master. It could be described as a haunted, haunting cautionary fable on what happens to people who watch too many movies. In our age of the Blogger and instant Internet searches it also evokes the irony of John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, in which the editor concludes, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Each image in RTN has an uncanny, minatory quality, sometimes luminous, sometimes dark, which suck one into the netherworld. It's beautiful, spare, mysterious, tragic and often possessed of a jet black humor. It could be described as a Country and Western Art film, the evil twin of COCKFIGHTER, another Hellman internal/external trek. Monte Hellman dares to allow the viewer space for creative collaboration. This is, perhaps, his authorial signature.
ROAD TO NOWHERE won't reveal itself on one viewing, it immediately seduces you but insists you come back for revisits. Like any memorable work of art it respects your intelligence and rewards your patience in spades.
Hellman's on-again, off-again career, from Roger Corman produced horror projects like BEAST FROM THE HAUNTED CAVE, THE CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA and THE TERROR to the mind-bending, low budget western THE SHOOTING (the first psychedelic western and a possible template for EL TOPO) to the the celebrated 1971 TWO LANE BLACKTOP, which defined the mood of its era, and its road movie twin, COCKFIGHTER, has proved as iconoclastic as his vision and his films have not had an easy time with mainstream critics of their time. But they have lasted. ROAD TO NOWHERE is his most daring, experimental and uncompromising film yet, and it will also last. It has the twists and turns of Hellman's own career story built in but it also has a universal validity in its overriding concern with the nature of Art and the role of the Artist. The nonlinear, mind teasing structure is both a challenge and a gift for those who want to engage with a film on a creative level. It tells either multiple stories or presents multiple takes on one story: the fallout from a film being made about a shady politician, a femme fatale, murder, suicide and possible resurrection. The director becomes obsessed with his leading actress in the manner of a New Hollywood predator on a sophisticated prowl, but there's a supremely nasty surprise in store for him and for our conventional expectations as consumers of the genre. The mind can play funny tricks when sex, money and artistic ambition are in the brew.
RTN starts out as a crime film, a 21st Century Film Noir in which an obsession with cinema determines the fate of the fall guy. Mitchell Haven, the director of the film within the film, appreciates THE SEVENTH SEAL and THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE (clips of both are included in key scenes) as masterpieces in the manner of the real Monte Hellman, but Haven can't see what's unfolding right there in front of him, sometimes in his own bed. It questions our assumptions about the reality of everyday experience, the realities of the creative process and the reality we assign to the images we absorb from cinema. There is no set reality in RTN, this is a metaphysical thriller, which contains elements of the meta-fictions of Borges, atmospherically shot in North Carolina's ethereal Smoky Mountains. You won't be able to predict what's coming down in the next scene and, like Edgar G. Ulmer's noir classic DETOUR, only endless movement, existential anxiety and unpleasant change are certain.
If ROAD TO NOWHERE isn't a masterpiece, it's certainly the work of an American Master. It could be described as a haunted, haunting cautionary fable on what happens to people who watch too many movies. In our age of the Blogger and instant Internet searches it also evokes the irony of John Ford's THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, in which the editor concludes, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend." Each image in RTN has an uncanny, minatory quality, sometimes luminous, sometimes dark, which suck one into the netherworld. It's beautiful, spare, mysterious, tragic and often possessed of a jet black humor. It could be described as a Country and Western Art film, the evil twin of COCKFIGHTER, another Hellman internal/external trek. Monte Hellman dares to allow the viewer space for creative collaboration. This is, perhaps, his authorial signature.
ROAD TO NOWHERE won't reveal itself on one viewing, it immediately seduces you but insists you come back for revisits. Like any memorable work of art it respects your intelligence and rewards your patience in spades.