CLEAN, SHAVEN - DVD review

Whatever its limitations, Lodge Kerrigan's "Clean, Shaven" (1993) is certainly a film that jangles the nerves.

The story is simple enough: Peter Winters (Peter Greene, better known as Zed from "Pulp Fiction") has returned home after a long time away, and now he wants to find his daughter Nicole (Jennifer MacDonald) who was placed for adoption while he was gone. Complicating this straightforward scenario is the fact that Peter was absent because he was being treated for schizophrenia. The treatment doesn't appear to have helped, which makes you wonder why he was released in the first place; perhaps he escaped.

Kerrigan plunges the viewer deeply into Peter's fracture psyche, staging a full-blown audiovisual assault intended to show the world from Peter's tormented perspective. The effect is unsettling, to say the least. Visually, Kerrigan shows a world of fragments and uncomfortable close-ups. Instead of a complete face, we only see a person's mouth; when Peter makes a sandwich, we see a tomato up close, being sliced to bits, its juicy pulp oozing out in all directions. There is no comfort zone provided, no personal space. For Peter, the world is an indecipherable code of isolated images, a data stream that overwhelms his senses, never giving him a chance to fit the pieces into place.

As visually jagged as the film is, the soundtrack is even more disorienting. Schizophrenics often experience audio hallucinations; in the film, they are represented as a car radio that seems perpetually stuck on "Scan," long stretches of squawking static, punctuated by angry outburst from stations only half-received. And if that's not jarring enough, the soundtrack often has no obvious relation to the image track, providing no clear interpretation for what we see or hear. Are these sounds Peter's garbled memories, or just the endless feedback constantly filling his head?

Peter attributes the noises to transmitters planted in his head and in his finger, leading to two of the film's most cringe-inducing scenes when he tries to remove the implants. The scene in which he rips off his fingernail made quite an impression when the film was released in 1995, and quickly became a staple for all film school brats at the time (as I well remember.)

While Peter's incessant paranoia stems from an organic disease, the film suggests that it is not entirely unjustified. Detective Jack McNally (Robert Albert) stalks Peter, suspecting him in the murder of a little girl. Kerrigan doesn't provide any answers on this front: Peter may or may not have done it. We certainly believe he could have done it, and still not even be aware of it. For his part, all Peter wants to do is find Nicole, something both his mother and Nicole's foster mother want to prevent. He eventually finds her, and the voices in his head go quiet, if only for a brief idyll.

"Clean, Shaven" was shot over the course of two years on a shoe-string budget (approx. $60,000) and it is a triumph of post production. Student filmmakers can consider this an object lesson in the critical importance of the sound design. With a more traditional, less expressive soundtrack, the movie would be just another indie formula pic about a troubled loner seeking a connection with the world. Instead, this discordant, angry sound collage transforms the film into a unique and unsettling viewing (listening) experience.

As impressive as this accomplishment is, the film still feels a bit like a gimmick, which is not necessarily a bad thing to be (think "Memento" or even "Reservoir Dogs"). Still, Kerrigan wisely brings the film in at just 79 minutes (budget constraints might have helped him make such a "wise" decision), and even at that length it feels a bit stretched. It's also such a grueling film that most viewers would probably find it challenging to endure two hours of life as filtered through Peter's senses. I've always thought 70-80 minutes was a wonderful length for a film: no frills, no indulgences, just get in and get the job done. Such films were commonplace in the 60s and 70s, but are very rare today. What a shame.

I hesitate to say that Kerrigan has only worked intermittently over the past decade. For all I know, he's been working full-time. However, he has released only two feature films since this debut film: "Claire Dolan" (1998; starring the late and great Katrin Cartlidge) and "Keane" (2004), another film about a troubled schizophrenic. I haven't seen either film, but even with such a small body of work, Kerrigan has carved out a reputation as a respected and original independent filmmaker. "Clean, Shaven" is where it all began.

Video

The film is presented in a 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen format. The restored transfer is excellent, though the image quality is not as pristine as you might be accustomed to with Criterion simply because the source print was hardly in mint condition.

Audio

The DVD is presented in Dolby Digital Monaural. Sound design is crucial to this film, and even though it's only mono, the audio transfer is quite effective. Optional English subtitles support the English audio.

Extras

"A Subjective Assault" is a 9-minute video essay written and narrated by (sadly, now former) Village Voice critic Michael Atkinson, and really captures the sound texture of the film in a condensed form.

"Audio Selects" are also offered, including the original soundtrack by Hahn Rowe, and selected audio tracks from the film's final mix. These can be accessed from the DVD, or downloaded on your computer as MP3 files.

The major feature on the DVD is a feature-length commentary track, a conversation/interview between Steven Soderbergh and Lodge Kerrigan. This commentary track is more interesting than most because it consists of substantive talk between two working filmmakers who share ideas, and ask each other questions about their own creative processes. I love academic analyses of films, but this pragmatic approach represents a nice change of pace.

The insert booklet features an essay written by (also sadly, now former) Village Voice critic Dennis Lim.

Film Value

I remember being amazed by "Clean, Shaven" when it first came out; in fact, it was one of the first movies to get me interested in the American independent film scene. Seen today, I am not nearly as awestruck by it, but I'm still impressed by Kerrigan's resourceful use of sound. I should make sure not to fall into the auteur trap here; several crew members are credited in the sound department, but the point is that "Clean, Shaven" demonstrates the possibilities available even to filmmakers on limited budgets to use sound as an expressive tool, not just as a subordinate element to the image.

"Clean, Shaven" was previously released on DVD by Wellspring, but I do not have that edition to make a comparison.