Putty Hill (6/10)

November 29th, 2011

Putty Hill will, I’m sure, divide opinion. You hear a lot about slice-of-life movies: this is one to the nth degree. It zigzags from movie to documentary, even mockumentary at times, it cost $20,000 to make, and the actors are all non-professional. It’s a damning indictment on those poor have nots, of which there are more and more each day, and it is heartfelt and one of a kind.

Most movies have a central figure, and Putty Hill is no different. However, it is almost unique in that – and the only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry - the main character is dead. Cory is his name, just a mid-twenties kid, dead of an overdose. To tell the truth, nobody seems that surprised. Cory was headed for an early demise for as long as people can recall. Now his friends and family are preparing for his memorial service, due in two days time.

It’s a wooded, low-rent suburb of Baltimore, and its inhabitants don’t have obvious futures ahead of them. Drugs and diffidence rule the roost, and Cory’s friends do what they can to enjoy themselves. His brother, for example, tries a little paintballing to pass the time, others congregate down by the river for a bit of splashing and groping, and there’s always the ubiquitous skate-park when all else fails. The characters are introduced in these settings, and in a novel way: the film breaks the fourth wall often by pulling these people away from their friends and interviewing them. An off-screen voice asks them questions: how do you know Cory? Have you ever been to a funeral before? The interviewer genuinely doesn’t seem to know the answers. The effect is schizophrenic, as if writer/director Matthew Porterfield thought of one idea but changed his mind half-way through filming. Nevertheless, it works a lot better than it ought to.

Porterfield clearly grew up here and knows the area well. His composition is simple but effective within the constraints of his budgetary limitations, slow-tracking from one conversation to another as the mostly young kids discuss their mundane lives and routines. Most know that their lives won’t amount to much and so, therefore, death becomes less frightening. It’s just another thing to chat about when you’re looking for your crack pipe down the back of your sofa. There are some exceptional, pitiful scenes here, most notably the memorial service itself, in which all the characters we’ve met in the lead-in congregate to pass on their respects. As you might expect, their thoughts are less than erudite and the service soon turns to karaoke and denial.

I admire what Porterfield has achieved here, but the picture it paints of low-rent neighbourhoods is bleak. This makes Putty Hill a tough film to love, no matter how nobly-intentioned and competent it is. Once you decide you don’t love a movie, you start looking for reasons to justify why. I choose here to highlight a scene involving the dead lad’s cousin, a tattooist, who discusses life and death with a client as he’s drawing his latest masterpiece on the client’s arm. The conversation is inaudible due to the tattoo needle, and is instead shown with subtitles. Guerrilla filming is one thing, but sacrificing clarity for nitty-gritty another. I love the chances Porterfield took in this movie, most of which come off spectacularly well, but its end result was both too bleak and too pitiful for me to recommend. As the world’s population grows neighbourhoods like this will only increase, which worries me no end. There’s nothing more distressing to me than doomed lives.