The Brown Bunny

One of the most controversial films of the year, Vincent Gallos The Brown Bunny was vilified in some quarters when it had its première at the Cannes Festival. (Incidentally, the film was screened before Gallo had finished editing.) In large part, this response seems to spring from misguided expectations. Far from being a conventional American indie, The Brown Bunny pushes the limits of the medium, demanding much more of its audience than the dominant, Hollywood-lite approach often taken by indie films. The film follows hero Bud Clay as he packs into his van after a motorcycle race and drives off towards his home in California. Periodically, Bud attempts to communicate with the people he meets en route: a snaggle-toothed young girl in a filling station, a middle-aged woman in a rest stop, his girlfriend Daisy's senile parents. All these encounters are decidedly strange and marked by a peculiar sense of desperate intimacy. The Brown Bunny turns American road movie conventions on their heads. (Steve Gravestock)