A sustained encounter with a disturbed personality,
Frownland is nothing like a conventional comedy. But funny
moments are the engine of this extraordinary 16 mm film, capable of
mounding observations together into something like an experience, of
turning repulsion so far inside out that it starts to feel like
empathy.
(The origins of this tiny-budget film are unusual, too. It’s the
first film of a full-time projectionist, starring a nonactor who is a
distant relation the director met at a family funeral.)
As the film opens, Keith (Dore Mann), a greasy, disheveled heap of a
New Yorker, is eating popcorn and eggs in his bedroom, which is also
his kitchen, and watching a late-night creature feature in which a
furious monster crushes a violin with his hands. The analogy between
Keith and the monster is obvious, but until another human being shows
up—a blubbering high-school student (Mary Wall) who might be his
girlfriend—you have no idea how far it goes.
Keith works as a door-to-door coupon-book salesman, possibly the
worst job ever for a guy who can barely string two sentences together,
much less look a customer in the eye. When he tries to apologize for
some slight to his boss, it’s clear that the apology—and the
apology for the apology (“It’s like a troll,” he explains, referring to
himself, “comes out of the water and starts pouring garbage on
you”)—is much worse than the original offense.
Packed with vertiginous close-ups, Frownland doesn’t mock
Keith alone for long. There are too many other freaks in the world,
from a compulsively irresponsible roommate to a would-be LSAT
instructor spewing polysyllabic bullshit and filching other people’s
toys. By the time the film returns to its disheveled antihero, you no
longer have the will to keep him at arm’s length. Keith’s final descent
feels as tragic as Lear’s.
