James N. Kienitz Wilkens The Big Black Girl 2010, 79 minutes color, with Max Lodge, Brandon D’Augustine, camera / co-direction Mike Crane, film report by craniv boyd.

James N. Kienitz Wilkens The Big Black Girl 2010, 79 minutes color, with Max Lodge, Brandon D'Augustine, camera / co-direction Mike Crane, film report by craniv boyd.

 

"All you need to make a movie is a gun and a girl" a diary entry from Francophone Swiss film auteur Jean-Luc Goddard, in the case of artist and film maker James N. Kienitz Wilkens latest film, The Big Black Girl, 2010, a knife will do, and as for the girl, well, she can remain a kind of white elephant in a prefabricated summer lakeside cottage somewhere in vacation land.

 

At the start of the film we have bold face white italic type that announces the titles rapidly and upside-down so quickly that you don't have time to say: "hey this is written upside-down!" illegibility or un readability ear marks this film as subversive. We are in a summer setting and view from a low angle a cottage with a porch up hill, two men crouch low entering the frame with stealth after a pregnant pause one steals quickly uphill entering the abode. We are then inside we see the young man inspect the cabin, he touches the dust on the counter top in the cooking space, blows the residue off his fingers harshly his posture and movements denote a certain hauteur or arrogance, we can know him in this moment by what he does on entering a summer cottage, his spindly legs step and pace about with a confident restlessness the camera lingers then returns down hill abruptly to his accomplice.

 

Exploration

 

We see that both men played by Max Lodge, and Brandon D'Augustine, are youngish, one is balding and the other is organized has a complicated choreographed way of sweeping that through its exaggeration gives definition to his character as abrasive, retentive and controlling. He is the man who entered the place first, he states the motive of the characters: "(to) take it easy" he demonstrates the found goods and tools in the cabin, commands the balding and smaller man to sweep then abruptly after words laconically delivers another contradictory order to "quit that shit lets go look around."   The pair embark on a brief tour of the wooded surroundings, the lake the nature figure weightily they are alone in the woods and impressed by the nature like American transcendentalists R.W. Emerson or H.D. Thoreau, the taller more arrogant character reiterates his leadership role by venturing forth first, having the idea of leaving the interior, his drive to be leader and emphasize his dominance by belittling his companion is incessant to the point of annoyance, one wonders whether the author of Walden would have been such a pain in the ass when walking with a friend in the woods.  

 

Relationship

 

Over the course of the film both characters address their togetherness and companionship that is at first unclear why or how, the reasoning is deliberately left in mystery, and the petty abusive nature of their friendship that culminates in ever increasing minor injustices over the duration of the film brings light to the issue of how their relationship is now rather than giving flashback of how their relationship came to be, the togetherness of both characters is a depiction of definition in action, how people in this instance ostensibly hetero normative white men define themselves through and against other heterosexual white men they associate with. The two characters are their in a strangers vacation cabin they have appropriated for their own use of doing nothing, doing nothing is a common practice both are choosing to engage in, and the inactivity and neutrality of the characters works against a common expectation many cinema viewers have of the fulfillment of the question: what happens? The relationship between these two buddies happens with power dynamics that oscillate between sexual tension and verbal abuse.

 

Meaning

 

Visual linguistic meaning is parodied at times in the film with minimal means that are elegant, there is an inventory of items in the cabin the voice of a character says a word and at first in the sequence we see an object in close up like canned beans that corresponds to the uttered words canned beans, then a sudden divide the displayed object of razors is set together with the uttered word of towel, frustration mounts as we are being told what an object is contradictory to the visual meaning we know it to be from seeing.

 

Whilst exploring the bald character finds a sand encrusted black bikini on the bank of the lake, it is a plus size cut for a portly lady. The camera arrives at his companion wrapped in his age of discovery phase attentively posing with a pair of binoculars. The other man enters the frame and announces "Hey look what I have found" we don't see what he has in his hand but one would almost await a second introduction to the black bikini, because following logic the audience was privy to his "find", no such luck, for the camera angles in on a close framing showing his "find" hand holding a living fish that after a moment of repose flops out of his grasp and escapes back into the lake. One wonders what happened to the Bikini?

 

Borrachos

 

There is a loud noise from the cabin the smaller man is out side and hearing his taller cohort scream goes rushing, abound into the sliding door we see him enter from a stationary angle position high in the room and the screaming commences again a moment after his concerned arrival, queries of how are you? Are answered loudly with "Blaaah!" "Blaaaah!"  Nonsensical statements that are an instance of youthful exuberance, "Blaaah!" accompanies the arm of arrogant man holding a bottle of whisky issuing forth from the darkness of the loft storage space above the cooking area of the cabin. He jumps down and continues screaming and laughing his companion responding back just as loud with "Shhhhhh" we have some moments of "Shhhh" vs. "Blaaaah" arrogant man give smaller man a bottle of whisky for himself and a cock fight of "whisky dick" ensues punctuated by laughter and repeated petitions for quiet and reduced volume.

 

Nocturne

 

Darkness falls evening we have both men absorbed in the drink relaxing, with whisky time, the framing provides a profile silhouette of the small man in the right hand corner of the frame, the taller man is now consumed in his role of disc jockey, the discs are vintage vinyl of blues and Jazz music the gramophone is a wind up antique, the record winds down to a halt after its mechanism has come back to a state of rest, the disc jockey explains that it the gramophone "is old" he cranks up the player again sets a new record on and dances like a nervously like funky chicken in a way that is set starkly against the music playing.

 

The silhouetted figure speaks in a slur repeating monosyllables that indicate his latent sexual desire emerging from the influence, big, black, bikini, girl, big, black. The object he found in the sand described around spoken of or hinted at to his companion whose initial amusement with the thought of a "big black girl" becomes irritation when he stresses the total point of squat is to be with out girls, with out any thing. He abrupt cuts off this speech with the announcement that he must fulfill a call of nature.

 

Distance

 

In the dark that follows we are closer to the taller man than previously in the film a head-lamp light shines on his stream of urine hitting a tree trunk. Then there is his face the closest that we as viewers are introduced to him we can read the minutiæ of his facial expressions now as he lights a self rolled cigarette, the drawing of his breath and the subtle smile afterwards indicates illicit goods that he is inhaling alone, he continues and enjoyment segues into paranoia or vulnerability, he hears sounds in the darkness, his arrogant mask constructed for the torment or reassurance of his companion cracks when he is alone in the dark. The viewers are close to a character that deliberately sets himself apart by playing it tough or cool, his Christopher Walkin esque demeanor falters in this close view of a man who avoids closeness.

 

Back in the cabin, with continuation of the same framing in the Nocturne scene paranoia continues and a reaction to forget the fear of the night and its sounds he heard while smoking alone, he picks a fight and assumes the role of inquisitor or interrogation shining the glaring light of his head lamp on his companion demanding that he find more to drink since he found the whiskey for him. The posturing reaches a new nonsensical threatening where the man with the head-lamp gets loud and repeatedly badgers the silhouetted figure who is "rimmed" by cold bluish white Light Emitting Diode, light comical in that the harassment of the rowdy inquisitor is counter acted by "Shhhhhhh" the mere sound seems to propel the interrogator back onto the couch where he falls back for dramatic affect, his aggressive yet childish posturing setting a further rift between himself and his companion, the silhouette he provokes. 

 

Separation

 

Minor insults and conflicts of direction bring the bald man to define himself as separate and equal with his companion who leads by leads inconsiderately, his separateness is made know by the double secret that he keeps of the hidden black bikini that he carefully wraps around a doubly pilfered bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee special hid in his Knapsack.

 

Their conflict abruptly comes to a head when the seated arrogant man says with the expectation that his companion will follow him because that's just what he does, the statement "lets go look around", "no, I'm good" his companions rejoinder is mutinous in its import yet arrogant guy takes it in stride rising from his chair and leaving, we see the brand of the maker of the cloth chair sewn on the white cotton duck it reads "Hej" Scandinavian for both hello and goodbye. The film ends later with heightened drama a close up of the bald man wearing a straw hat and swim trunks whose wardrobe changes more than three times over the course of the film, his companions remains largely consistent short pants white tee shirt with optional hooded gore-tex jacket. There is a passage in the film where the arrogant man rows a boat in a fog filled lake that is blank so minimal that it reminds one of the work of Japanese artist Hiroshi Sugimoto who photographs bodies of water in conditions where sky and water are difficult to differentiate we are offered action conflict and then darkness, accompanied by a resolution in the form of the spoken word. By craniv boyd.