Yes, “Rubber” is a movie about an automobile tire that is a serial killer.
And yet it’s more than that.
Well, it would have to be, right? “Rubber” is actually a cheeky little exercise in meta-cinema: it’s not just a movie about a killer tire, it’s a movie about people watching a movie about a killer tire.
We’re warned at the start, by a sheriff (Stephen Spinella) who addresses the audience and reminds them that a great deal of what they see in movies happens for no reason. Actually, in some of the examples he gives, there’s a very good reason for what happens, so he’s an unreliable narrator.
There’s an audience onscreen: a bunch of people in the desert with binoculars, watching and commenting on the story of a lone, abandoned tire that can kill with its fiendish vibrations (lots of exploding heads in this one — so many that one death is relegated the end credits). Longtime villain Wings Hauser plays the most truculent audience member.
The tire stalks a French girl (Roxane Mesquida), checks in at a motel, and gives what I would call a bald performance. (Sorry.) The sheriff keeps reminding us that everything is make-believe.
Maybe there are movie-goers who forget that. But in general, this all seems like something a first-year film student would find seriously heavy.
A talented first-year film student, I should say. Because “Rubber” is funny and agreeably madcap. It is directed by Quentin Duprieux, who is also known as a purveyor of Euro-electronic music under the name Mr. Oizo. I can’t help looking forward to his next project.
Also playing at the Northwest Film Forum is “Empty Quarter,” a minimalist documentary by Portland filmmakers Alain LeTourneau and Pam Minty. The film lays out a series of black-and-white shots taken in eastern Oregon, a place of low population and large pieces of ranchland and farm.
There is no narrator or stated goal, but occasionally a voice comes on the soundtrack, capturing a viewpoint on life in this irrigated land. When someone speaks, no image is present, just the gray screen (and perhaps the after-image of the previous shot in our mind’s eye).
The film’s audience will be limited to those with a yen for empty places and fans of experimental movies. Certain shots have a hypnotic quality, particularly the repetitive power of machines working across farmland.
The empty interiors include the inside of a mostly-empty Asian restaurant, a place you’ve seen a thousand times. Great detail: the sway of cheap paper lanterns caught in the flow from the air-conditioning vents, as much a sign of industry as those giant tractors.
“Rubber”
Crazy slice of meta-cinema about a tire that is a serial killer, but also about the audience watching a movie about the tire. It’s as obvious as a first-year film student’s project, but pretty funny for all that.
Rating: R, for violence, nudity, language
Showing: Northwest Film Forum
“Empty Quarter” HH
A minimalist documentary about the open spaces of eastern Oregon, rolled out in a series of black-and-white shots. An experimental film that sometimes catches the eeriness of empty places.
Rating: Not rated; probably PG for subject matter
Showing: Northwest Film Forum
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
