A BAD SITUATIONIST - REVIEWED

Sam Seder introduced his film A Bad Situationist today in its final form to a good sized audience at the Austin Convention Center. The showing was started a bit late after the Netroots Keynote address given by Gov. Howard Dean. In contrast to Howards generally empowering message to take us forward, Sam's sad comedy reminds us of a different reality.

Sam plays the part of Arthur. Arthur is the son of a loser who grows up as a trust fund baby. His character is unable to do anything for himself including sell the story about how the Bush Administration accomplished a fascist coup.

Arthur does have one talent that helps him survive. Arthur is a con-man. He is able to create his reality within his own weakness and crawl through his ego while accomplishing absurd comedy.

You will laugh. It may even hurt. It may hurt in more ways than one.

I found myself laughing at the constant betrayal Arthur must endure. His father betrays him. Women reject him. The only relationship he has with a woman is one all of his friends has already enjoyed. His friends ultimately reject him. His hero rejects him. Al Gore betrays him by not forcing a Florida recount. It goes on and on until Arthur can endure it no longer.

Crapping, toilets, and flushing seemed to add odd dimensions. Arthur is after all an anal explosive loser who often does not even understand his own spew. In this way he even betrays himself. In one scene Arthur is found sitting on the ceramic throne taking a dump and pondering his lot in life. In another scene Arthur essentially attempts to regain control of his life through violence only to have it backfire into something very similar to flushing himself with a cannon made of what appeared to be toilet plumbing parts. Don't forget that this is brought to you by Poopy Productions.

Arthur's assistant played a relatively minor role but an important one to me. He handled most of the daily work and appeared generally happy in his equally meaningless life. I think it says something that two people involved in the same hopeless endeavors can get such opposite levels of satisfaction in their existence.

There are a lot of lessons one could get out of this film. The value of violence is clearly over rated and the consequences in this film prove that. The satisfaction of working and accomplishing tasks is not as blunt but clearly on display. The cast is amazing. You will recognize almost everyone. The film is raw and unhappy in a comical way.

If you want a film that explains itself, this may not be the movie for you. But this film will work for you if you want to laugh while validating the value of our daily struggles.