SXSW. Podcast. Goliath.

Goliath saw its world premiere at Sundance, but David and Nathan Zellner were actually more nervous at their film's first screening at SXSW. Aaron Hillis talks with the brothers about the leap from shorts to a full-blown feature and about pacing a comedy. To download or listen, click here.

Freedom can be hell. Recently divorced, David Zellner's character is left alone with his house, his nowhere job and his ridiculous mustache. Munching takeout for dinner, he can watch anything he wants, and so we find him not in front of the TV but in front of the computer. He starts typing a URL and his browser's address bar, eager to help, calls up his recent history and dumps a string of porn site names for him to choose from, all of them hilariously, pathetically absurd. The music Aaron's chosen for this podcast? That's the site he lands on, and of course, it's anything but arousing.

Having it all can be hell, too. The house, the lawn, the car, all in a quiet suburban neighborhood that, as far as our antihero's concerned, might as well be called Desolation Row. When he's called in from his desk, where he watches some anonymous company's computers hum all day and his boss (Andrew Bujalski) tells him to fire one of the literally blue-collared guys downstairs (Wiley Wiggins) and take his place, he protests, "But that's not my world. Those guys... they fart in each other's faces; they light their own farts..." They are farty guys and he has, once again, become one of them.

At least he has his cat. Goliath. Who hasn't been around in the past couple of days. Our involuntary loner throws himself into finding that cat, his last lifeline to sanity. On top of the usual "kitty-kitty-kitty" called out into the night, he tries the can opener. A few scenes later, he's got the can opener in the open window. A few scenes later, he's actually walking the streets with a portable generator and holding up the buzzing can opener.

If Goliath slapped one gag after another, its comedy would hurt a lot less and overall the film would be far less memorable. Instead, we lope from one degradation to the next at the painful pace of reality towards a cringe-inducing but necessary catharsis.

More on Goliath, one of my own favorites at SXSW this year, from Scott Von Doviak (ScreenGrab).

And Alison Willmore talks with the Zellners for the IFC.

Posted by dwhudson at March 20, 2008 2:11 PM