Gallo's humor

By Doug Levy Catalyst

Send comments to: catalyst@wildcat.arizona.edu

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Vincent Gallo and Christina Ricci in Gallo's directoral debut, "Buffalo 66." The film, which features Angelica Houston and Ben Gazarra as Gallo's emotionally oblivious parents, was also written by Gallo.

Upstate New York is not a fun place to live.

It's bleak, it's boring, and it's really damn cold.

Having spent a number of years there, I know what strange things it can do to a person.

Growing up upstate could prove extremely traumatic, and that would explain a lot about Vincent Gallo, former Calvin Klein model and writer, director and star of Buffalo 66.

Gallo spent a good part of his childhood in Buffalo, where the film takes place, so his depiction of the pseudo-suburban lifestyle and its stifling overtones of entrapment is spot on.

As Billy Brown, the actor is a vehicle for all of the paranoia, self-deprecation and hatred that comes from an undernourished youth spent with uninvolved parents and an uninspiring community.

The film opens with Brown's release from prison after five years spent suffering for the crimes of another man. With little more than revenge on his mind, he feels obligated to check in first with his folks, two of the most disturbing caricatures of anti-parenthood imaginable, played to perfection by Ben Gazarra and Angelica Houston.

The Browns don't know their son's been in jail, though, because for the past decade he's been feeding them the lie that he's been on the go with government business and a wife who doesn't really exist.

To make the lie convincing, he kidnaps a young girl named Layla, played by the ever ubiquitous Christina Ricci, to take on the role of loving wife.

The relationship that develops between Billy and Layla is both comic and tragic; the contrast between the 32-year-old emotionally-stunted virgin with more hang-ups than a telemarketer and the teen-age girl who is equally lost in the world, although decidedly more sane, is stripped away as the characters are revealed for what they truly are - people desperately searching for love and self-affirmation they've never really known.

If the film suffers at all, it's only from the fact that the role of Layla is a bit too underwritten. We never really find out anything about her, while we're given almost every detail of Billy's life. Does she go to school? Does she live with her parents? Is anyone wondering where she is? About the only information we get on her is that she's a vegetarian who takes dance classes. Not a lot to go on.

But it's constantly clear that this is Gallo's film, which makes one wonder if perhaps the other roles weren't stripped down on purpose to keep the focus on him at all times.

As Billy, he's a truly involving person to watch, spouting neurotic dialogue that's often reminiscent of a Quentin Tarantino rant, only with much more acting ability than his fellow director. Billy's not a nice person, but it's clear that he wants to be and just doesn't know how.

In the end, the question of whether he will go ahead with his wild plan for revenge, or reach out from the depths of his fatalism and find a better way is answered in a sequence of starkly inviting scenes, including some uniquely progressive camera shots which speak strongly of Gallo's filmmaking sensibilities.

Of course, we're left with the question of whether it's true that even the most degenerate among us can really find love and happiness, but that's where the distinction between movies and reality becomes strongest. It's true that love can often be our only saving grace, but off screen it can leave you colder than a Buffalo winter storm.