Clay Fields (2003)
Ramzi Abed is perhaps the greatest
jokester currently at play in the cinematic field.
I'll give him this: For a long time I thought he was
serious. I mean, after all, he made two of the most
awful short films I've ever seen. His short film "The
Interview" dumbfounded me at first. Now I see it for
what it is, a absurdist take on the absurdity of the
horror film genre. His next film, "The Tunnel," used
cinematic icons, like "American Movie" star Mark Borchardt
and Tromafilms pioneer Lloyd Kaufman to discuss the
sorry state of films today. In Abed's fecund mind,
the state of films today is so ridiculous and sublime
that they defy explanation, much like his films.
You have to understand this about
Abed to get "Clay Fields." First and foremost, the
feature is a Lynchian take on existence. Abed puts
several reminders in his film to substantiate this.
An early shot in the film includes a poster for Lynch's
absurdist masterpiece "Lost Highway." Later on, we
will see an image from "Eraserhead," Lynch's groundbreaking
first film, as well. Abed also includes dream images,
dopplegangers, deluges of industrial monotone sounds,
and profoundly elusive dialogue and plot much like
Lynch to explore this cinematic world he creates.
One might think Abed was just a
cheap loser, a freshman suckling at the tit of Lynch,
if he were not familiar with the filmmaker's work
prior to "Clay Fields." After all, the piece is shot
on poor quality home video and often looks as if it
were edited cheaply by using the old VCR to VCR method
employing home decks. The piece also uses the most
technologically unadvanced graphics techniques imaginable.
The visual effect is this: Abed seems to have created
the film using the oldest and most technologically
inept equipment he could find. And the reason is simple.
By being just as drab and cheap and ordinary as he
can be, Abed laments as well as ridicules the current
state of computer technological advancements, which
have become the mainstay of the industry. Abed derides
technology, much like he derides story, characters,
logic, sound, editing, visuals and dialogue with "Clay
Fields."
A perfect example of Abed's contempt
here is his choice of actor to play the main character.
Eric Fleming plays the protag here and is in nearly
every scene. Fleming, while probably a nice guy in
real life, is amazingly unattractive. He looks like
Ron Jeremy and Gene Simmon's bastard child. He has
hair all over his out-of-shape body and Abed delights
in showing us as much of it as possible. Fleming has
his shirt of much too often. It becomes unbearable
to look at. And his dialogue is so inane and dull
that Abed often echoes or distorts it.
"Clay Fields" is Abed's absurdist
take on existence. Infatuated with pop culture, magazines,
sex, movies, music, image and entertainment, we have
become less than human. Abed shifts us into an alternate
world where nothing makes sense and all of our illusions
about happiness and what is important sink in the
quicksand of absurdist doldrums. People turn out to
be not real here just as friends and friendship have
ceased to exist in our modern landscape. It's no accident
that the titular protagonist here exists in a lifeless
and uninteresting apartment complex here. His life
is meaningless and uninteresting just as, according
to Abed, all of life in modern society is lifeless
and uninteresting. The monotonous use of sound echoing
and distorting just how inane and insipid existence
in modern society has become.
"Clay Fields" is the cinematic equivalent
of exhuming a corpse and find it so decomposed as
to be disinteresting. Here, the corpse is modern existence.
Notes:
Abed plays the role of "Jimmy."
Filmed in Dallas and premiered at
the 2003 Dallas Video Festival.
Viewed in April 2003 on a VHS tape
provided by the filmmaker.
