Sunday with the Kuchar Brothers

Before John Waters, Andy Warhol, or David Lynch, America had the Kuchar Brothers. As teenagers in the late 50s and early 60s, these twins roped their friends and neighbours to participate in their 8MM short films. The soundtracks would be provided by a music cassette played in sync with the films, containing songs from their vast LP collection.

We got so see some of these short films this afternoon at the Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. A Woman Distressed is about a mother committed to an insane asylum because she doesn't understand how she could be pregnant (she was on the pill); Night of the Bomb is about a Beat party which descends into an orgy when an atomic bomb explodes and everyone realizes their minutes on Earth are counted; The Confessions of Babette is about a woman's insatiable desire for punishment and love; Anita Needs Me, a homage to "New Wave" cinema, features one of the Kuchar's providing a voice over "that dives into the deepest shades of purple prose" (Ryan Sarnowski); I Was a Teenage Rumpot features overweight women with excessive make up -- interesting only as a probable inspiration to John Waters' career -- and The Slasher is about a psycho-killer hellbent on snuffing out the lives of sinful people.

The real greatness of these short films lies in the combination of the soundtrack with the images. Scenes with a woman crying on her bathroom floor to the sound of a Rumba, or a pregnant mother wailing to chaotic drumming, bring out the kind of weird black humour and pathos which we are now used to seeing in the films of David Lynch, for example. One of the Kuchar Brothers even recorded a special intro for our particular screening; he sat beside a dummy alien corpse, watering his plant, briefly discussing each short film while the camera cut from him to pigeons outside his window, or beggars on the streets below his apartment.

After Kevin has taken his nap, we are going to see Tarnation (another film that relies on home footage -- should be really cool) and, if I'm not too bleary-eyed, Love and Human Remains.

P.S. I bought some wickedly expensive jeans at Sisley and a dirt cheap pair of black trousers at H&M. I'm almost ready for Summer.