Movie Monthly: Get Low
Death has long been a reliable source of comedy on the big screen whether it be for the oddball Harold and Maude in 1971, or more recent horror spoofery of the Scary Movie franchise, where Death himself was one of the best characters. Typically, whenever death and comedy are mixed up the results are out-and-out bad taste, but Get Low (out on 6 August) is a more subtle creature, a story where the black humour is reined in to allow breathing space for dramatic mystery.
Set in small-town Tennesse in the Thirties, Get Low is loosely based on a folk tale that screenwriter Chris Provenzano originally heard from his grandfather-in-law (a retired undertaker) at a thanksgiving dinner. Provenzano took the tale and, with co-writer C Gaby Mitchell, fleshed it out.
Eccentric hermit Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) and feared local legend, makes a rare foray into town from his wooded isolation, with a shotgun and a fat roll of greasy dollar bills in hand. Realising he's going to “get low” (Bush's euphemism for going to the grave) the laconic mystery man goes to the church looking for a memorial service. However, he wants it while he's still alive so that he can hear what people are going to say about him. The preacher says that such a thing can't be bought, it comes for free by asking God's forgiveness. This irks Bush and he stomps off. When it comes to the business of death, struggling undertaker Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) is less scrupulous. Together with his honest apprentice Buddy Robinson (Lucas Black) they seek out the old man for the deal that could save the business and so begins preparations for a “living funeral".
The big question throughout the film is what is driving Bush to have this funeral, a dark, unspeakable secret that is premised in the opening scene of a distant wooden house, engulfed in flames. A human figure, on fire, leaps from a second floor window, and runs through the night. The significance of this scene, which I found myself constantly turning back to in my mind's eye, is withheld by director Aaron Schneider to the end. This would feel a little too much like being toyed with if the unfolding mystery wasn't handled so adeptly.
The film's humour comes with the way characters approach normally delicate situations of dying and trust. Murray as the spiffy undertaker, obsequious, desperate, and secretively alcoholic, is in sharp contrast to the gruff, straight-talking Bush. The youthful Buddy provides another counterpoint, the straight man for Murray's dead pan humour (Murray has the best lines) and someone who Bush can place his trust in. Sissy Spacek also plays a minor part. The actors do a great job, particularly Duvall who thoroughly inhabits the role of wildman of the woods and who easily switches gears from comedy to scenes that evoke the theme of forgiveness and reconciliation at the heart of the film.
Also, coming up this month is the humourous Soul Kitchen (13). Fatih Akin’s film, which won the Special Jury Prize and the Young Cinema Award at the 2009 Venice Film Festival – tells the story of a restaurant owner who strives to keep his business, despite a series of mishaps.
With its themes of friendship, love and a village-like community, the film has been described as reminiscent of a German genre made popular in the 1950s called “Heimatfilm” (homeland film). – i.e. the Soul Kitchen restaurant. It looks like a busy soundtrack with funky instrumentals from Kool & The Gang, R&B tracks from Sam Cooke, Hamburg hip hop and electro sounds, live rock music, Greek rembetiko, and a de rigueur DJ-set and a “heimatfilm”. For good measure there's also a song by Hans Albers, apparently one of the top German actor-singers in the ’30s and ’40s.