Supertramp

Screenwriting legend Shane Black was the first one to introduce human tragedy into action films, when he had Mel Gibson in LETHAL WEAPON tell the story of how one time in Laos he killed a man with an extremely difficult long-range rifle shot. “Maybe eight or even ten guys in the world could have made that shot. It's the only thing I was ever good at.“ The loneliness and abandonment in his face, as he speaks these words, made the action hero killing machines of the day appear in a completely new light.

 

Writer/director Philippe Leone at first seems to be following in the footsteps of his namesake Sergio, when he presents the silent stranger in the form of the hobo Ben, getting roughed up by a gang of young hoodlums. He's losing the fight, but we sense something inside of him, something he's holding back, something dark and powerful. There's a bit of Clint Eastwood in his eyes, and you get the feelings that the punks should feel lucky that this guy doesn't have a magnum. We get to know this silent stranger, we understand his predicament, his trauma of killing another man, that is paralysing him to even take up self defence. Like Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, Ben has been brainwashed by his own guilt to not even self-defend himself anymore. He doesn't want to have this violence in his life anymore. But it's the only thing he was ever good at.

 

Of course we wish for Ben's deeper urges to erupt nonetheless, as the gang goes on to terrorize him and his only friend, a waiter at a Chinese fast food shack. We wish for it and still fear it, as we see the homeless man's wiry muscles flexing, his eyes twitching, his fist clenching. What happens then is a classic case of wish-overfulfilment: The eruption of violence is so visceral and horrid, so brutal and mean, that we immediately sense that there is no way to stop this. Ever. This man is indeed very good at this, and it's not a good feeling, not for him, not for the audience and least of all for the young gangsters he is beating to a pulp. And it ends as it has to end: The lonely stranger walks off into the sunset, still traumatised, still not wanting to do this any more, but still not being good at anything else. A tragedy, really.

 

It would be appropriate to dedicate several pages to the astonishing realism of the fight scenes, to the jaw-dropping stunt work and choreography, but let's rather focus on the cinematic style displayed here: The soundscape of groans, breathing and breaking bones is distorted into a surreal experience; there are flash cuts of traumatic memories structuring the plot and giving it a distinct rhythm; the colours are very smartly graded to produce surreal effects – in its moments of full effect this short film can become a kind of mind-blowing “gesamtkunstwerk” of images and sounds without ever feeling pretentious. On the contrary: All the distortions feel hyper-real, like a subjective, painful visualisation of what violence feels like if you were right in the middle of it. This is aided by a sublime performance by Dominic Kinnaird (and by sublime performances by everyone involved, actually) to reach a level, where what could have been an exercise in student film action choreography appears in a completely new light: that of human tragedy.

 

Interview with Philippe Leone

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