The Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival

Summary:

The Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival is a mixture of events. And for the majority of that find digesting whole impression hard, it should be best to discuss each part by detail.

Fist subject matter is about The Brown Bunny. It is a film by the actor and director Vincent Gallo that had a world premiere at the 2003 celebration of the Cannes Film Festival. The plot was about a rambling cross country by a driver in search for the love of his life who was carrying his offspring. The movie begins with a motorcycle race which Bud (Vincent Gallo) participated. Then he must head to California for the next race. Along the way, the story unravels in some gas pump where he has to refill the vehicle without any association to the movie aside from realistically running out of fuel. Mostly, it’s all about road trip, an hour’s length of seldom broken road trip.

And that’s how The Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival earned its heavy ridicule. For more than an hour’s length of unbroken windshield view, refueling, sleeping at some motels, waking in underwear, taking shower and drive again for most it is even tedious to keep their eyes on the screens, let alone close their mouths from constant yawning. And to massage aching jaws, one must boo and jeer. The audience of the Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival did just that. The road scenes especially receiving the most flaming as well as the sequence where Bud has to park and wash the van –in real time.

Vincent Gallo may be a recognized painter, male fashion model, alternative musician, motorcycle racer and break-dancer, but he did suffer a severe case of narcissism, as much as the movie tells anyway. And it is quite evident in The Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival. All the scenes were about him, his habits and his manliness. No one needs to see Gallo in his underwear except if the script needs it. No one needs to see him drive on his motorcycle except if the script needs it. And no one especially needs to see him receiving an un-simulated fellatio from ex-lover Chloë Sevigny even if the script needs it.

The story might have aroused sympathy if the story was delivered correctly, but no, Gallo himself had to star in just everything: producer, director, writer, director of photography, camera man and of course lead actor. So the story flunked in a thousand possible ways, depending on the critic. And a war of words soon erupted between one acclaimed critic Roger Ebert and Vincent Gallo himself who staunchly defended the film. Ebert wrote that The Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival was the worst ever screening in film history and Gallo responded about cancer and colon.

At the end of the day, Brown Bunny in the Cannes Film Festival was still a serious flop. A reedited edition was screened again in the Toronto Festival, with Ebert giving a positive remark and Gallo making peace.