{"id":6512,"date":"2022-09-06T10:45:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T10:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=6512"},"modified":"2023-01-22T21:56:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T21:56:29","slug":"film-fubar-2002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=6512","title":{"rendered":"FiLM REViEW: FUBAR, 2002"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Watched this during another insomniac wee small hours spell. A spoof documentary, or, as they call \u2018em now, a mockumentary, FUBAR<\/em> follows a film-maker, Farrel Mitchner (Gordon Skilling) who is himself following two white-trash stoner headbangers, Terry and Dean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set in suburban Alberta, Canada, it takes a while to get used to, and was filmed on a Canon XL1, giving it a very lo-fi verit\u00e9<\/em> flavour. With a core cast and no script, the movie was largely improvised, some scenes involving \u2018John Q Public\u2019, unaware it was actually a work of fiction. Apparently the fist-fighters, for example, were genuine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry (Dave Lawrence, who made the film) and Dean (Paul Spence) are two young long-haired rocker slobs. Continually shotgunning beers, smoking (fags or weed), and living on diets of appalling junk food. They\u2019re dumb, foul-mouthed and pretty nihilistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first I found myself thinking, what\u2019s the point of this wallowing in the kind of hippy dream turned sour that has created zombie hordes across the US, and – this is set in Canada – North (and no doubt also South) America?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dean and Terry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was horrifyingly salutory to see how large a part of the MAGA\/Trumpite crowds of Jan 6th were longhaired losers looking very like the two chief protagonists of this film. But there\u2019s also everyone else; the lads\u2019 families, partners, friends, co-workers\/employers, etc. And Farrel and his documentary crew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these others, inc Troy\/Tron, a former party animal gone \u2018square\u2019, are the \u2018straight\u2019 world. Dean\u2019s mom [sic!] recites a poem, \u2018Woman Is A Danger Cat\u2019, by her son, whilst he plays his sensitive acoustic ballad \u2018Rock & Roll Is My Guitar\u2019. Terry\u2019s employer (or is it Dean\u2019s? I forget!) corrects his delusional embellishments on his professional responsibilities. And Troy\u2019s partner tells it like it is, regarding women and their effects on slacker slobs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some ways this film, as awful as it is in many ways, has a resonance for me, in that I lived for a while a life a little bit like theirs. The ubiquity of \u2018cuss-words\u2019, the aimless boozing and smoking, and the \u2018us against the straight world\u2019, were all part of my early twenties hippy-dream-gone-sour interlude. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But whilst we were naive, we were never so moronically dumb, nor so grotesquely ignorant and hypocritical. These dolts love to trash stuff, leaving a trail of litter in their wake (\u2018the park ranger\u2019s\u2019ll clear it up\u2019). This particular brand of white trash rocker types seem peculiarly American (or Canadian; I have Canadian ancestry*) in their boorishness. From their \u2018hockey mullet\u2019 hairdos (very obviously wigs!) to their mix of heavy metal and \u2018sportswear\u2019 clobber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* My grandfather and one of my uncles were Canadians. I still have relatives over there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hangin\u2019 out on the stoop\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But, not unexpectedly, several threads are introduced to being a bit more depth. First we learn Dean has testicular cancer. And is kind of in denial. And second, the interactions between Farrel and his crew and their subjects lead to\u2026 well, we\u2019ll get to that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The whole cancer thread is, kind of ironically and paradoxically, the saviour of this movie, which otherwise might\u2019ve been a pointless exercise in Ali-G\u2019esque social satire. In the end it\u2019s awkwardly straight Farrel whose reaction to Dean\u2019s medical emergency catalyses the catatonic headbanger into taking appropriate action, with some chiding from his ex, Trixie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farrel starts out mostly off camera, but gradually becomes a more and more key character, until\u2026 blam! He\u2019s gone. I won\u2019t say more, not wanting to spoil it too much for those who haven\u2019t seen this. But everything around this crucial episode is very well done, and, like the revelation re Dean\u2019s monster nut, it elevates an otherwise mundane movie, bringing pathos and a degree of subtler human observation that\u2019s actually both well observed and quite moving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film was a success at Sundance, and has spawned a sequel, Fubar II<\/em>, a TV series, and some sort of online offshoots. So it\u2019s done well for a super low budget indie affair (financed by a maxed out credit card and a parental re-mortgage; phew\u2026 that could\u2019ve ended very<\/em> badly!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dude\u2019s got style\u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s very sad to say this, but the film\u2019s low key trashiness, and the imbecilic Everyman types it portrays, make it perfect for the efflorescence of serf-culture that\u2019s been so assiduously cultivated by the evil machinations of recent populist governments – Trump in the US, BoJo in the UK – in the so called developed Western world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I genuinely didn\u2019t know which way it\u2019d go at the end. And it was nice the way it did turn out. But maybe that\u2019ll be the aspect that makes it so very much a work of fiction? And perhaps the rise of the kind of cultures it documents in the real world won\u2019t turn out to have such a happy ending? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Far from essential or classic, nonetheless, not too shabby. And, whilst I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d say \u2018worth watching\u2019, it wasn\u2019t a total waste of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Like, wig city, man!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watched this during another insomniac wee small hours spell. A spoof documentary, or, as they call \u2018em now, a mockumentary, FUBAR follows a film-maker, Farrel Mitchner (Gordon Skilling) who is himself following two white-trash stoner headbangers, Terry and Dean. Set in suburban Alberta, Canada, it takes a while to get used to, and was filmed … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FiLM REViEW: FUBAR, 2002”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[89,110,77,15,74,68,58,104],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1H2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6512"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8122,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6512\/revisions\/8122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}