Film series goes underground

During Spring Break this year, I thought that life certainly could not get any duller. But a call from my cousin saved me from me from almost utter despair. She asked me to go to the opening screening of the Fifth Annual New York Underground Film Festival and drive there with the producer of the film, a good friend of hers.

The NYUFF, a five-day celebration of alternative films, has been called "a festival for films that defy convention" by the New York Times. "Clearly, this is not your father's or Robert Redford's film festival," Variety declares. The Village Voice describes the NYUFF as "gaining momentum like a nipple-pierced Sundance." Even though I consider myself an amateur film buff, I was in for a big surprise.

The kickoff film turned out to be Surrender Dorothy, a 90-minute psychosexual drama from writer/director/editor/actor Kevin Di Novis. Considering the film's nature, don't expect to see Surrender Dorothy on the big screen anytime soon, though you may find it in your local video store someday. For a low-budget film by a first-time director, the quality of the film is impeccable. With this movie, Di Novis defines himself as a rising star – look out for him in the future.

Shot in Philadelphia in black and white, the movie focuses on Trevor (Peter Pryor), a 27-year-old sexually frustrated busboy with significant misogynistic tendencies. Though Trevor exhibits homosexual inclinations, Di Novis emphatically states that Trevor is straight. In one scene, the character takes home all the cutlery that has touched female lips and uses it to sexually stimulate himself.

Trevor dominates the film until Lanh (Di Novis) enters, a homeless heroin-addicted pretty boy who becomes Trevor's roommate after fleeing from a drug dealer. Taking advantage of Lanh's heroin addiction, Trevor forces him to wear women's clothing and do housework.

Slowly, Trevor realizes that he could transform Lanh into Dorothy, his warped conception of an ideal girlfriend. First, he burns all of Lanh's masculine clothes. Then he sneaks estrogen pills into his heroin and reads up on castration rituals. When Lanh discovers Trevor's plans, the movie comes to a heated climax.

Di Novis describes his film as purely a critique on the abuse of power, specifically in the domestic setting. His inspiration for the film derived from an historical account of the Roman Emperor Nero. After the ruler's wife died, Nero asked a male slave who resembled her to castrate himself. The slave would gain his freedom by becoming Nero's wife.

"I suspected that by dramatizing the escalation of domestic abuse in a relationship in which the traditionally female role (read: victim) has been recast as a man, Surrender Dorothy would supplant one social taboo with another (homosexuality) and then let the audience decide which transgression it considers worse," he comments on the the film's website (http://www.tlavideo.com/dorothy/notes.htm).

The black and white cinematography gives Surrender Dorothy a wonderfully dark atmosphere, and Di Novis uses creative splicing, innovative camera angles and eclectic music. Pryor's great psychopathic tendencies contrast well with Di Novis' comic appearance. After all, the director is dressed in drag for half the movie.

The film still has the raw look and feel of amateur film, comparable to Kevin Smith's Clerks (1994). But with significant financial backing, perhaps Di Novis' and producer Richard Goldberg's talent would blossom even more.

Surrender Dorothy recently won the Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance Festival in Utah and has received rave reviews from the Berlin Film Festival and the Directors Guild of America. Goldberg is optimistic that the film will continue to gain popularity and might eventually be picked up by a big-name producer.

When I met Goldberg, he looked like what my grandmother would call a typical mensch. His discussion of the business side of film production led me to expect a relatively tame movie. However Surrender Dorothy was quite different from what I had anticipated and definitely fit its surroundings.

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Entering the Anthology Film Archives in the Lower – if not the lowest – East Side of Manhattan, a life-sized blowup mannequin of unknown gender greeted me with open arms. The walls were plastered with movie posters depicting violent sexual images and sideshow freaks. Looking around, there were more than a few live freaks among us.

But this defines the New York Underground Film Festival – a blatant rejection of social norms and mainstream cinema. If you want to mingle amongst the strange and bizarre and watch films that will blow your mind, check out the sixth annual event next year.