A dog groomer infatuated with one of his customers, a dog kidnapped by transvestites, a pitch to a producer of a reboot of CARRIE involving dogs instead of the likes of Sissy Spacek and John Travolta whilst the dog groomer in his spare time watches an early work of Travolta in THE BOY WITH THE PLASTIC BUBBLE.
Take a bit of time to absorb what I have just written and begin to wonder where all this is going to take you.
OK – all good? Yep – that is effectively the long and short of a brand-new experimental feature film from one of the top music video producers in the business.
Michael Reich certainly has a pedigree in the short form content world, with his work creating content to compliment the music of the likes of My Chemical Romance, Ryan Adams and The Shins and fans of his work will certainly be up for tapping into what he has to offer in his debut film.
Yet, for a movie entitled SHE’S ALLERGIC TO CATS, cats don’t play a central role in the film, although the lead character’s sleazy musician-cum-landlord provides a little relief with a cat called Mozilla (so named when he couldn’t decide which Toho Studio monster to pick between Mothra and Godzilla – keep with it people, it gets even more bizarre!!).
You see, Mozilla has been provided by landlord Honey as a solution to a rat infestation in lead character Mike’s apartment (played by the director’s long-term collaborator Mike Pinkney, who effectively plays himself in the film) who in this film seem, in his eyes, to have eaten his bananas.
Yet, this world is about to be turned upside down by the arrival of customer Cora (Sonja Kinski), with whom Mike has a tremendous desire to interact. His producer has already forced him to consider that the CAT-RIE idea is a bad one, which leaves him with not a great deal to consider, except the date with this girl. Is love in the air…..?
Seemingly based on Reich’s own experiences in both LA and as a dog-groomer whilst networking in the city’s underground punk movement, SHE’S ALLERGIC TO CATS is shot in a very grainy retro VHS style, with a bombardment of surrealist textures that throw the audience into all manner of internal reflection (ie losing their way whilst passing the time)
This is a movie that belongs in the back of a downtown LA-bar projected on the walls before and after a new band’s gig and given the music video style of the film is probably something viewers will look at for a couple of seconds and then look away resuming their conversations and drinks with the people of their own real dreams and ambitions as they pursue their own interesting paths in life.
Fans of Paul Schrader’s CAT PEOPLE and the Roman Polanski film version TESS will certainly perk up with the arrival of Sonja Kinski, who invests the same screen presence as her mother Nastassja back in the day of those two classic films. It certainly will be great to see her in more showcases as and when the current crisis fades and we can all resume our lives as we should do.
It’s a shame that Reich has gone down the purist experimental route with this film, as a straightforward narrative film shot in proper 35mm or Digital would make this an appealing work. He certainly knows his way around camerawork and editing and hope that his next work will be a little more straightforward rather than surrealist.
