Oh Parker Posey...

Henry Fool(dir. Hal Hartley)
A masterpiece. It's hard to articulate my thoughts on this film. It's easily his most darkest film I've seen and his most Bresson-esque. His other films have Bresson qualities like how the characters act and talk in a fairly deadpan way almost like a comedic version of Bresson's signature non-acting and his characters usually at the end of his films attain a sense of grace. This film seems more Bresson-like mainly due to some shots of hands and body parts that were a staple to Bresson's visual grammar and some of the characters reminding me of some of the characters from his films like Simon Grim reminds me of the main character from Pickpocket, Simon's mother reminds me of Mouchette's mother with her being ambiguously ill, and Pearl definately reminds me of Mouchette. The film's world was also a cruel place much like the world in some of Bresson's films. This film has one of the most bizarrely moving moments I've ever seen. The moment consists of Henry Fool taking a massive dump a la Dumb and Dumber Harry Dunne-style and Parker Posey's character Fay Grim comes in and starts kissing his hand (another Bressonian touch) because he proposed to her. At first, the moment just seemed ridiculous and juvenile with Henry alone shitting on the toilet, but Hartley was able to morph the scene into something awkwardly and amazingly beautiful. Another memorable moment and probably the funniest was when Simon ends up barfing on a woman's bare ass cheek. She was forcing him to kiss her ass so the barfing on seems deserved. It's disgusting yet hilarious. This film deals with art. Henry Fool is a self-proclaimed brilliant struggling writer, but like his name implies, he's in fact a fool. Simon Grim lives a grim life and when Henry comes into his life, he is inspired to write "poetry." Some reviewers including Gene Siskel say the film should have shown Simon's poetry or at least gave some lines because the poetry is so controversial and is a major focus in the narrative, but that would have been just silly. The reactions to the poetry are what important, not the poetry itself. If the audience knew what the poetry was like, they would immediately come up with their own opinion of it. If they weren't left in the dark, the reactions that the audience don't agree with would seem unreasonable especially with the heated labels the poetry receives like pornographic. The narrative is driven by Henry's and Simon's quest to get his work published so the world can see it and cherish it. Henry also has his own work that he wants published once he's finished that he feels will change the world. This is were the foolishness of Henry Fool comes into play. Henry is overly grandiose and pretentious with his artistic endeavor. Everyone that eventually reads his work think it's garbage, but only 2 people in the film read it, which brings another point up: if Simon's work was only read by 2 people and the 2 people disliked the work, would he be in the same place as Henry? Henry could have easily became what Simon becomes if he had someone like himself in his life rallying his work. Hartley hits on this point near the end with Henry switching places with Simon to escape the law and this also hints at the notion that Henry and Simon are equally foolish, it's just that Simon had Henry to inspire him and help show off his work. The end also shows the sacrificial selfless nature of being an artist. Sure, you got to have a little Henry in you to want to make art, but once the work is out there, it's not yours anymore, it's the audience's. Simon takes a beating in this film literally and critically, which hammers the point of having to suffer for your work even further. There's still many layers to this film and I could probably spend even more time writing about it, but I think I've written enough. It's his best film that I have seen. It doesn't have as moving of an ending as Simple Men or Trust, but it's his most consistently great film. The endings in those films made me overlook some of their flaws, while this is practically flawless. I could see how someone thought it went on for too long, but I thought it's pacing and length was pretty much perfect. Gotta see Fay Grim now. Don't be a fool, see Henry Fool.
**** out of ****