{"id":41,"date":"2007-06-18T23:21:27","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T04:21:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/?p=41"},"modified":"2021-08-26T09:17:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T14:17:00","slug":"todd-rohal-the-guatemalan-handshake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/18\/todd-rohal-the-guatemalan-handshake\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Rohal: The Guatemalan Handshake"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one of their podcasts for Four Eyed Monsters<\/em>, entitled \u201cLosers,” Susan Buice and Arin Crumley list the many reasons they consider themselves to be losers. One is that their film didn\u2019t get into Sundance, but rather Slamdance, thus making them losers because they were unable to come away with a distribution deal. The result has been a non-stop, grass-roots campaign to get their film shown theatrically, to sell DVDs, and finally to have it seen by over 500,000 viewers on YouTube this past week as a special\u00a0promotion with Spout.com.<\/p>\n

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Todd Rohal\u2019s The Guatemalan Handshake<\/em> (2006) apparently just barely missed getting into Sundance and also had to settle for the consolation prize of Slamdance,\u00a0even though his film won a Special Jury Prize. Rohal discussed the ramifications in a recent Filmmaker<\/em> <\/a>interview with Nick Dawson: \u201cI knew that the film would be a tough sell for anyone to see. There was never a thought that it would be distributed and put out in a million theaters, but it needed that legitimacy of Sundance taking it, saying, \u201cThis is a different kind of movie, and we\u2019re going to show it.\u2019” Rohal later comments: \u201cAfter the Sundance thing didn\u2019t come through, I said, \u2018This is going to be a long journey . . .\u2019 It\u2019s definitely been a struggle.”<\/p>\n

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In the latest issue of Cineaste<\/a><\/em>, there\u2019s an article by Rebecca M. Alvin on microcinemas that discusses the changes that have been affecting art houses around the country, most notably, the sheer expense involved in showing smaller films and the competition from home-entertainment systems that are taking away public audiences. She writes: \u201cBut it is the third factor \u2013 the intertwining of mainstream and art-house audiences \u2013 that is\u00a0most troubling in hastening the disintegration of art-house subculture.” The article talks about the effects of all of this, including the subsequent rise of microcinemas in out-of-the-way places as well as their attraction for people who still seek a community experience. Of special relevance here is the fact that Alvin\u2019s article provides an interesting perspective on the difficulties that indie films face in\u00a0being screened at theatrical showcases these days. It explains why, for instance, a pseudo-indie like Little Miss Sunshine <\/em>might play at an art-house multiplex, but not anything more risky or challenging like Mutual Appreciation<\/em>, Four Eyed Monsters<\/em>, or The Guatemalan Handshake<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The Guatemalan Handshake<\/em>, which\u00a0just finished up a limited-engagement, one-week run at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago is definitely not a mainstream movie. It\u2019s been associated with the mumblecore movement for reasons that elude me, except for the fact that Rohal has acted in Joe Swanberg\u2019s Hannah Takes the Stairs <\/em>(2007) and the film seems to be influenced by the work of David Gordon Green. Otherwise, it deals with entirely different subject matter than other mumblecore films. It doesn\u2019t focus strictly on the relationships of twentysomethings, and stylistically it bears little similarity to films by Bujalski, the Duplass brothers, or Swanberg. Shot in 35mm by the talented cinematographer Richie Sherman, The Guatemalan Handshake<\/em> is an ensemble film, much like Todd Solondz\u2019s Happiness<\/em> (1998) or Miranda July\u2019s Me and You and Everyone We Know <\/em>(2005). It involves multiple characters and multiple plotlines that revolve around three main events: the mysterious disappearance of a man named Donald Turnupseed (Will Oldham), a power outage that develops at nearby Three Mile Island, and a demolition derby race.<\/p>\n

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The film is narrated by a ten-year-old girl named Turkeylegs (Katy Hayward), who considers Donald to be her best friend.\u00a0Nasia\u00a0mythicizes George in David Gordon Green\u2019s George Washington<\/em> (2000); Turkeylegs does the same with Donald. Like Nasia, Turkeylegs isn\u2019t a terribly reliable narrator, mainly because she\u2019s only a child and her view of the situation is incomplete. Turkeylegs hangs on to a vision of Donald no one else shares. Little does she know that Donald\u2019s not necessarily deserving of her admiration.\u00a0Many of the characters have names that sound like they\u2019re right out of a children\u2019s book: Turnupseed, Turkeylegs, Ethel Firecracker, Lunchmeat, and Neckface. Another is scatological (Stool), or in the case of Sadie\u2019s heavy-set, African-American half-sister, Dalabia, laden with sexual overtones.<\/p>\n

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One\u00a0plotline involves an elderly woman named Ethel Firecracker\u00a0who has lost her little white dog. Donald, who\u2019s searching for the dog for his own selfish reasons, witnesses its electrocution as a result of a surge in the power lines early in the film, just prior to his disappearance. Ethel puts up posters, hallucinates seeing the dog while sitting in her car, runs across her own obituary in the newspaper, and then attends her own funeral wake. As she\u00a0blows her nose, Rohal creates a sound bridge to a bunch of neighborhood kids setting off firecrackers, which continues as she drives off in a hearse.\u00a0Mr. Turnupseed\u2019s abandoned electric car, which Donald was last seen driving, is stolen by a couple of boy scouts, who sell it to Dalabia\u2019s friend, Stool (Rich Schreiber), who in turn trades it to Ivan, the crazy and hyperactive father of Donald\u2019s girlfriend, Sadie (Sheila Scullin), for his run-down school bus.\u00a0Sadie moves in with Donald\u2019s father\u00a0after getting kicked out by Ivan, presumably for getting pregnant.<\/p>\n

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A derby race gradually develops in importance as one of the film\u2019s storylines when Sadie, despite also having a broken arm, proceeds with plans to\u00a0participate. Her major competition is her own father, who happens to be the reigning champion.\u00a0The\u00a0various plot strands at various times intersect, though it\u2019s more often as the result of sheer coincidence rather than motivated by either character or plot.\u00a0An example occurs when Mr. Turnupseed encounters Ethel Firecracker at the local caf\u00e9.\u00a0In response to her lost dog, Mr. Turnupseed offers the somewhat Buddhist explanation that if you love something you have to be willing to “set it free,” which must be his own self-delusional rationale for seeming to be unconcerned about the fate of his own missing son.<\/p>\n

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We get flashbacks in the film of past events involving Donald, such as his conversation with Sadie regarding his sick turtle in which she suddenly throws it into the creek because she really would rather have a dog. Sadie expresses her regret about the incident to Stool, who\u00a0reveals that he was the person responsible for the mishap at Three\u00a0Mile Island \u2013 something we\u2019ve actually seen earlier. Afterwards, in a pixilated sequence, Mr. Turnupseed signs insurance papers related to Donald. All of the characters, including the insurance agent, head to the demolition derby. While Ivan provokes a fight at the derby, Mr. Turnupseed spies his electric car, and,\u00a0adopting a Dick Vitale-like persona, drives off with it.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, even though Sadie\u2019s about to start the race, Stool passes her a note proposing they go to the beach, but she turns him down. Now without a car, Ivan begs Sadie to let him in hers, suggesting that they could become a powerful duo like Laurel and Hardy. Sadie refuses, but Ivan chases after her and manages to jump in through the open back window. The demolition derby becomes the film\u2019s climactic scene, as Rohal deftly crosscuts between the contest, chanting fans, Ethel seeing her dog at home, Mr. Turnupseed setting off fire works, the electric car rolling backwards, a turtle on the road, Mr. Turnupseed’s car being driven off by a stranger, and Turkeylegs\u00a0at the nearby amusement park. Sadie wins the race, but, even in victory, she still refuses Stool’s overtures. Donald never reappears, but the film ends on Turkeylegs, who\u2019s still perplexed about what could have possibly happened to him.<\/p>\n

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Rohal\u00a0deliberately\u00a0refuses to tie together the loose ends of his episodic narrative, to follow conventions or even alternative strategies of narration employed by other successful independent films. Rohal takes a great many narrative risks, the biggest one being that no one really seems to care about the central mystery involving Donald\u2019s disappearance other than Turkeylegs. Sadie seems depressed and regretful, but she doesn\u2019t try to locate him. In the new romantic plotline, the horny loser Stool attempts to replace Donald, but that proves to be a red herring because Sadie simply rejects him. The fact that Sadie wins the race also does not really matter in terms of the story, except to the locals in the small town.<\/p>\n

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I think most people agree that the first ten minutes of the film are a real tour de force, but the dramatic momentum of the overall narrative sputters at times from\u00a0too many incongruities. Like Harmony Korine,\u00a0Rohal is ultimately more interested in individual scenes, non sequiturs, and small details of characterization. Often a character, such as Stool, will simply give up or capitulate in a scene, thereby diffusing\u00a0the dramatic tension and energy. It\u2019s the\u00a0imaginative visual style of the film, however, that represents Rohal\u2019s real strength and achievement as a filmmaker. For every scene that misses, there’s another one that soars, especially the flashback to childhood involving Spank Williams or the adapted Moldy Peaches duet that Donald and Sadie sing together.<\/p>\n

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The Guatemalan Handshake <\/em>is richly poetic as well as chock full of visual sketches and ideas. Rohal\u00a0captures the texture of life in a small Pennsylvania town, especially one existing in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. In that sense it\u2019s really a small-town portrait (Stool even tells an Amish joke) —\u00a0a character study of some of its inhabitants.\u00a0Rohal\u00a0creates many scenes that are deeply heartfelt and affecting, but these often involve the\u00a0two\u00a0characters who desperately care: Ethel and Turkeylegs. The overall tone of The Guatemalan Handshake<\/em> is elegiac. Ethel Firecracker\u2019s love for her dog continues even beyond her own death. Rohal also does a superb job of capturing what it feels like to be a small child in a world that seems somehow confusing, mysterious, and full of intense melancholy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of their podcasts for Four Eyed Monsters, entitled \u201cLosers,” Susan Buice and Arin Crumley list the many reasons they consider themselves to be losers. One is that their film didn\u2019t get into Sundance, but rather Slamdance, thus makingRead More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":42,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4262,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions\/4262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jjmurphyfilm.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}