SFIFF. Palindromes.

The palindromically named Aviva is the center of this latest glimpse into the Todd Solondz universe, an innocent, soft-voiced 13-year-old whose main goal in life is to have a child. What sounds on the surface like an After School Special-ish plot - teenage pregnancy, runaways, etc - is turned inside out by Solondz's unique ability to hone in on all that makes up our failings as a collective people and as individuals. The catch, though not the gimmick it could have been, is that Aviva, a cousin of Welcome to the Dollhouse's Dawn Wiener character, is played by a series of actresses of various shapes and ages, with Valerie Shusterov playing her the majority of the time, while two African American actresses play her prominently as well, as does, most conspicuously, though still mesmerizing, Jennifer Jason Leigh. (I half-expected Philip Seymour Hoffman to attempt it at some point, but fortunately, Solondz restrained himself.) Aviva, then, is a bit of cipher, although she certainly has emotional range; but what the device does is serve as an entryway into the journey that we take with her. Think of it as a Fractured Fairy Tale for the arthouse set.

It's a looking-glass way of opening to interpretation irreconcilable differences in American values, most overt in the abortion plot (which Solondz's describes in his press notes as essentially a "MacGuffin"), while, front and center, there is still only one component for how Solondz depicts the human landscape in general. It may be suburban New Jersey, but it's the suburban New Jersey that exists within the director's mind, and it's not a pretty landscape. Although the film primarily takes place in the drab, almost suffocating interior locations that represent much of Solondz's milieu, he's opened it up a bit more to keep it from being too claustrophobic, and we see hills, creeks, woods, roadsides. With the dreamy, creepy score and the iconography of childhood strewn about the landscape, it's easy to feel that this is both a nightmare and a dream. And yet the plotlines could just as easily be ripped from today's headlines.

No one else making films can teeter so much on the edge between pathos and mockery as Solondz can. Unforgettable: the collection of Sunshine Singer Christian teens with various disabilities earnestly singing pop songs like a disturbing offshoot of N'Sync (despite Solondz's protestations to the contrary, it's a bit hard not to feel they're being mocked - or, at the very least, it's easy to find it alarmingly hilarious - but he does seem to have a genuine affection for the sheer delight in which they take to performing). And moments where Ellen Barkin's mother character tries earnestly to explain the situation to her daughter, to comfort her, border on the hilariously mawkish or inappropriate. As always, it's never clear where he stands on anything. To his credit, as eerie as the Sunshines may appear, the matriarch of the clan comes across as well-meaning and, in her own sense of the word, loving, as she tries to feed and shelter wayward children. Some have also misinterpreted the film's riffing on abortion as mocking pro-choice activists - while others see it in the reverse (certainly, the film has little sympathy for the latter, who are ultimately depicted as murdering hypocrites themselves). But that's not to say he's not tapping into something real here, either. Barkin's character may be seriously flawed (who in a Solondz film isn't?) but as portrayed, she's achingly true to earnest motherhood gone awry, while the male characters are mostly a sorry lot of American archetypes, albeit crafted in three dimensions. And there's a diversity of faces beyond just those masking Aviva; some of the people populating this world seem to have stepped out of an R. Crumb strip.

I'm still not convinced about the necessity of having Dawn Wiener's character die, to start the film with her funeral, or really to have any overlap with Welcome to the Dollhouse (Solondz has said he'd wanted Heather Matarazzo to reprise her character for the film but she had no interest and so he did her the "favor" of killing Dawn off). Possibilities: Solondz' own fixation with the film or a desire for closure. Despite that and a few tonal missteps along the way, and a few flat scenes, I'd rank it not as his best work, but as a brave piece that will infuriate as many as it captivates. One may wish for a bit more underneath, but the mirrors of Palindromes reflect back upon Americans' attitudes on taboos and perceptions, and for that we should be grateful, if not fully satisfied.

Posted by dwhudson at April 23, 2005 1:41 PM