“Hell is Other People”-Jean Paul Sartre

“From now on I’m going to take the stairs for the rest of my life.’-Lana from ELEVATOR LIFE

The idea of being stuck in a small, enclosed space with a complete stranger is a fear that many of us have. After seeing the main characters in ELEVATOR MOVIE, it is definitely a fear of mine. The initial premise is simple enough. Jim (Director Zeb), our nose-picking, anal sex obsessed, id-madness a go-go protagonist, ends up in an elevator with a pretty brunette named Lana (Robin Ballard). Before they get to her floor, it gets stuck and with a faulty intercom. Their elevator is stuck, they are stuck, and we are stuck with them for the whole ride.

This is a weird movie and it knows it. Jim is a social and sexual retard who reveals to Lana within minutes of knowing her that he wants to genetically engineer a Venus Flytrap that performs fellatio. (Insert Penis Flytrap joke here.) So what does Lana do? She suggests spooning while they sleep and has him blindfold her to ensure she will sleep real good?!? Maybe I’m paranoid, but there is no way in hell I would spoon with a stranger, especially one that wants to be orally serviced by fauna. But alas, that’s the beauty of cinema, I guess.

The situation gets stranger as their food supply, consisting of a meager bag of groceries Lana was carrying is mysteriously replenished every morning. Their stay in the elevator goes from days to weeks and eventually months. In addition to the lapsing of time, at one point Jim has a hammer inexplicably strapped to his arm and Lana has one of those cheesy pine tree car air fresheners around her neck. This is no Chekov’s gun, so within a few minutes, both items are gone, never to be seen again.

A film that is structured like this is basically putting all of its creative success on the writing and acting. It’s not like you can distract the viewers with eye candy, because there is none. There is some nice, artistic framing in some of the shots, but that is often diluted by some bad framing, like character’s heads being crudely bisected by the camera. The music is extremely minimal, so you can’t really rely on that either.

Luckily, both Ballard and Haradon are good in their idiosyncratic roles. The characters themselves are a little twee in their similarities and differences. Both are sex obsessed. Jim’s obsession is because he’s never had any and Lana because she has denied herself due to her religious beliefs. He’s a staunch atheist and she’s a born again Christian and reformed party girl. It’s like The Odd Couple with a gender twist and anal obsession. In fact, if one was to play armchair psychologist here, you would guess that both Jim and director/writer Haradon never progressed past Freud’s anal stage. Between the loving shots of the turds floating in the coffee can, Jim’s obsession with sodomy, and even the fact that Lana’s alcoholic uncle “found” Jesus in his feces, there is a definite butt obsession going on here.

Doing a feature film that is literally two characters talking in one room with extremely minimal special effects is an admirable gamble for a young filmmaker, with gamble being the operative word. Shot in b&w, super 8mm film, the look of this film immediately harkens back to the gritty and shadowy world of the Cinema of Transgression. The sex obsession almost plays out like a more puerile and juvenile version of Richard Kern, minus the pulp tones. However, it’s clear that the big influence is David Lynch, particularly works like ERASERHEAD. There’s also a smattering of Cronenberg’s venereal horror as Lana’s body begins a series of crude, man-machine transformations. Sex and biology are the horror movie monsters here, which is a nice change of pace from zombies and torture mad killers. (Nothing wrong with either of those subjects, when they’re done well.)

The biggest problem with ELEVATOR MOVIE is that it is too knowing of its weirdness. Experimental cinema is not for everyone and much like improv Jazz, it takes a mixture of pure instinct and skill to truly pull it off. It’s almost like a little kid cursing, knowing it will shock you, but it doesn’t work because you are already in on the game. In this day and age, nothing is shocking or even that weird. Outre elements can work awesomely, but only if they are woven into the whole tapestry of the film.

Pathfinder has produced a nicely presented DVD, complete with a basic batch of extras. There are bios on Haradon and Ballard, not to mention an assortment of colorful trailers from their library, including Takashi Miike’s GOZU.

All that said, this is a compellingly weird movie and I applaud anyone willing to do something different, especially in this age of big budget remakes. It is nice to see something that isn’t trying to ape Hollywood, which can often be the curse of the Indies. It beats the hell out of anything by Michael Bay.