City of a lost child
Michael Pitt has marked both The Dreamers and Bully with his drowsy, man-child sex appeal. But Rhinoceros Eyes may test the ability of Pitt’s shy, sidelong glances to carry a picture.
Chep (Pitt) is a shut-in straight out of indie-land who works as a gopher in a movie prop house. He only ventures out of that enchanted kingdom of giant maraschino cherries and other jumbo kitsch after dark, when he soaks in sappy romantic films at the local movie house.
Chep is jolted out of his somnambulist’s shuffle when beautiful Fran (Paige Turco) slinks into the prop house looking for real rhinoceros eyes. Smitten, Chep aims to please. But his unorthodox prop-seeking methods — busting onto porno sets and into an insane elderly couple’s love shack — soon has a dogged detective sniffing his trail.
Director Aaron Woodley clearly takes a page — make that 10 — from the childlike imaginations of otherworldly visionaries such as Jan Svankmajer and French fabulists Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. In times of stress, like when he’s pondering his seduction techniques, Chep imagines tiny dolls with creepy moving parts addressing him in whispery, sadistic voices.
Woodley (nephew of director David Cronenberg) throws every bit of oddball at the lens to see what sticks. As a result, Eyes has more freaks than a Paul Morrissey film, from man-hookers dressed like French courtesans, to ass-whoopin’ little old ladies in Brazil makeup, to comatose bikers prone to sudden spasms of lucidity. Cutesified violence seems to be Woodley’s preferred means of introducing conflict as the innocent Chep bounces along in this dire world’s brawling turbulence.
The film is dominated by a precious indie sensibility that, when it works (as in The Station Agent), can be charming, but can turn noxious and cloying when overdone. After a while, the Lillian Gish peepers and art boy adorableness prove taxing.
Unfortunately, Woodley’s previous experience as a short film director is evident in his first feature. His sugary little fable — the first from Madstone Films — about a cute-as-a-button misfit and his island of lost toys might have been a fascinating mood piece in about one-quarter of the time. Opens May 7 at Madstone Theaters. 
