First Failure

FIRST WINTER (C)

This indie curiosity is a perplexing, lightweight film that we will file under survivalist porn. A bunch of horny hippie yoga enthusiasts from Brooklyn gather in a remote farmhouse during winter, and all is utopian, communal bliss -- an urban hipster's steam-punk fantasy -- until some unspecified apocalyptic event causes a blackout. The cult-like yogi who leads the group is a stereotypical sexual predator. The women just can't resist hopping (often two at a time) into bed with him. What gal can resist the Grizzly Adams look; his ridiculous mustache and beard would constitute a full head of hair on top of any adult head.

As the blackout endures and the transistor radio's intermittent reports grow more ominous, the guru and his first lieutenant spot a huge billow of smoke on the horizon. A subset of the group is sent out as a posse to round up provisions. They never return. Food supplies dwindle and the dinner circle grows grumpy and anxious. The first lieutenant self-medicates by snorting heroin. The radio transmission dissolves into constant static. The terror peaks with the grotesque death of a member victimized by tainted canned fruit.

First-time director Benjamin Dickinson has a messy failure on his hands, but he shows incredible promise. His hand-held camera captures some lovely images, and he develops an appealing intimacy with his characters, as undistinguished as this cast of actors is. Some brief scenes border on the profound. A hare krishna musical jam session turns into the soundtrack for a sped-up sex scene (played as cute TV farce) and ends with a memorable blurred shot of our heroin hero sedated by a good snort. Toward the climax, Dickinson shoots the dinner circle by zooming close on the pot and spoon serving up exactly two scoops of rice and beans, dish by dish, and as the camera painstakingly tracks back and forth we see the bowls being emptied by the ravenous diners.

But the beauty is undercut by clunky touches: I stopped counting how often I had to watch a character pee; close-up shots of food preparation grow tiresome; oddly, animals are virtually non-existent out in the wilderness, until, that is, they conveniently show up merely to serve the clunky plot; a crying jag is straight out of Bad Acting 101; a love story never comes together with any dramatic force.

In the end, a thaw finally does come, and the ending is elegantly rendered; but it makes the 90 minutes leading up to that coda feel so inconsequential that it seems as if it was all slapped together as filler to tack onto the beginning of an amazing six-minute short film. Et voila, a feature film.

Dickinson has mood and style; next time he needs to add a story that sticks to the ribs and more interesting characters. I eagerly await his next film. Namaste.