Look Ma, I’m a Vagrant!

I first hear about Vagrancy Films through my old roommate, who says, “They’re weird. Like you.” And so, my partner Thom and I attend our first show:

Andy Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein. January 18, 2008.

Not know there’s going to be costume contest that night, my zombie outfit fits right in. A strange man with flaming orange hair and pop-bottle glasses dances a hobo jig in the aisle. Someone yells, “VHS Trade!” and several guys start handing out old movies to random people. A slide show of vintage advertisements play on the screen while a crowd of 80 files into Rainbow Cinema’s biggest theatre.

James Bialkowski, head honcho at Vagrancy Films, is not what you’d expect. A giant man with crazy eyes and cartoon skeleton-patterned shoes, his deep voice welcomes the crowd through a megaphone and starts gathering contestants for best costume; first prize is $51. Cash. His creepy sidekicks, the Grim Brothers, begin verbally abusing us for not being rambunctious enough, and thus the heckling begins:

Watching a movie at Vagrancy is not simply about watching a movie. It’s about making fun of, reacting loudly to, and partaking in the experience as fully as possible. Throwing back to the golden age of Grindhouse, Vagrancy allows audience members to dress like Neon Maniacs, repeatedly yell “Fuck her in the spleen!”, or, as one man so chose, announce “All of you are sick, this is disgusting,” and storm out of the theatre. At Vagrancy there is something to offend everybody and that is why it’s so engaging.

I love James’s trailer reels; for me they’re the highlight of each show. Splicing old commercials, ads, and cartoons amongst original 35mm trailers, the ten-fifteen minute pre-show is unpredictably and creatively cut together. In the past year and a half, D and I have seen such previews as Sonny and Jed, They Call Her One Eye, The Black Cat, Telephon, Black Frankenstein, Tom Thumb, and Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS. During Flesh for Frankenstein, set in the charming countryside of old England, a subway train rips through the screen in a trailer for Der New York Ripper. My favourite promo, though, is The Exorcist seizure teaser trailer which premiered at Vagrancy’s Dirty Bird Pt. I in May 2007. One minute and forty seconds long, it consists of a demon’s face flashing in the darkness and is so terrifying that it was originally banned in some theatres.

Some pre-shows screen short films made by the Vagrants—promotional videos where they hunt for porn in the late Cinema City, a 3-year anniversary music video featuring Mr. Karaoke, and introductions to the feature presentation. After each trailer reel and before the main film, the ‘Restricted’ Vagrancy Cat runs across the screen; an old, animated ratings warning which portrays a blue cougar prancing through the vicious jungle, this is the Vagrancy mascot. He marks all merchandise, such as rare films and t-shirts, which are available during ticket sales.

James and his gang regularly hand out free posters and movies for answering film trivia, for being a newcomer to Vagrancy, or for no particular reason at all. They love introducing people to interesting and bizarre films from the horror, giallo, and exploitation genres. Upcoming shows include Wicked Wicked, Savage Streets, and the 4-year anniversary show in September.

Vagrancy@FaceBook

VagrancyFilms@MySpace

www.vagrancyfilms.com

Ken Russell’s “The Devils” (1971)

Dir. Ken Russell; Starring Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Reed, Dudley Sutton

Using Aldous Huxley’s The Devils of Loudun as his point of departure, Ken Russell gives a vivid and unsettling portrait of renaissance history: religious intolerance, repression, and corruption are at the heart of The Devils, an exotic film about the adulterous priest Urbain Grandier and his supposed possession of a local convent. Amidst the political turmoil of 17^th century France and Cardinal Richelieu’s desire for absolute power, Sister Jeanne of the Angels has become sexually obsessed with Grandier, and her sisters follow suit with mass hysteria; Grandier is charged with witchcraft and the nuns must be exorcized.

Forget Sean Penn. Forget Mickey Rourke. This is Ollie Reed in his greatest role, sweating and seducing and praying—and evoking the audience’s simultaneous empathy and disgust. His intensity never lets up for a moment, but then again, neither does Russell. Sister Jeanne’s wild dreams about Grandier are loaded with colour, biblical transgressions, and unsettling sexual imagery. Vanessa Redgrave’s Mother Superior will, in short, terrify and haunt you as few nuns can: be wary of her giggling piety.

Some may disagree with me, but I particularly like this depiction of the Loudun Possessions because Russell does not go over the top. Yes, the film is image upon image upon image, but he never decisively tells the audience how to feel about Grandier; Russell offers several options—admiration, sympathy, condemnation—yet leaves it to the viewer to decide. We are swayed from believing the heretical accusations to sensing it was a political ploy set up by Richelieu in order to desecrate Grandier’s reputation. After several screenings I still do not know, which is perhaps critical to the film’s beauty.

I have on good film-snob authority that Mark Kermode’s 2002 documentary Hell on Earth is “bloody brilliant.” Additionally, be sure that you see the uncensored print of The Devils with the infamous “Rape of Christ” scene. Controversy led to the film being re-rated, re-cut, and banned outright in many countries, and it is through Kermode’s perseverance that the deleted scene was recovered, although official copies of the film remain without it. But guess what, kids? Do you think Vagrancy would sell a censored version of one of the greatest films ever made? Certainly not.

Russell’s absurd portrayal of Louis XIII as a flaming homosexual provides some much-needed and well-placed comedy in an otherwise terrifying film about sexual and religious perversion. Although Russell has obviously taken some artistic liberties, the creepiest thing about The Devils is that it actually happened. Don’t heckle this one, you beer-guzzling buffoons; sit back in awe. One of the most disturbing films I have ever seen, my first viewing left me curled in a foetal position, horrified.

For sale from Vagrancy Films, $10.

www.vagrancyfilms.com

Excerpt from “Re-Membering”

Re-Membering

I cut out his heart first.

Then his eyes. The nape of his neck. His tongue.

After that I laid out all of my favourite parts, the ones I had loved best, formed them into a picture of what he used to look like. I kept changing the shape, making the heart centre and encircling it with the others, or twisting the useless, hanging veins into patterns like Rorschach inkblots or butterflies.

I broke his jaw so I could extract his teeth.

I skinned his fingertips and hung up the prints like stained glass.

And finally, I smashed in his skull so I would be able to see his brain. Hold it. Follow the folds of the frontal lobe and trace the contours of his cerebellum. Pull away the temporal lobe until I could pick out the amygdala and feel its hyperactive buzz. Find his mind in the mess of entrails that lay around me. I was knee-deep in blood and this is where I began my search.

He had asked me to do this to him. We loved each other more than life; we loved each other so much it transgressed into death. We wanted to know the dividing line. He asked me to find it.

Asked me to kill him.

For truth.

For soul.

Because in mortality we could never love each other enough.

[Order the full "Re-Membering" & "Acts of Omission" chapbook through www.myspace.com/sunflowerskins or sunflowerskins@gmail.com]