Review: Michael Madsen pops up in Mas Bouzidi's movie Concessions
The century old Lafayette Theater in the town of Suffern in New York state doubles for the down-at-heel Royal Alamo, which has reached the end of its useful life and is gearing up for its final day of screenings as we join it and its oddball staff. There's owner and manager Luke (Steven Ogg), whose father built the place. Lorenzo (Jonathan Lorenzo Price) and Hunter (Rob Riordan), who sell hot dogs and nachos from the concessions stand which gives the film its title. And über-cool box office assistant Deana (Lana Rockwell, daughter of New York indie stalwart Alexandre Rockwell and Flashdance star Jennifer Beals). She's photographing staff and punters alike on this final day.
Actor Michael Madsen died in July (Image: PA) Parked outside for the Alamo's last stand are local TV reporter Linda Chung (Ivory Aquino) and perma-stoned busker Sergio (Volkan Eyaman) with his two bandmates. They're selling CDs but mostly they provide commentary, both social and filmic. Lines like: 'Wanting is for the material drones who fall prey to the pitfalls of capitalism'. Or: 'Orlando has wonderful mise-en-scène.' The second is a reference to Sally Potter's celebrated 1992 adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel. Sergio is a big fan of the English director Potter and of Orlando's star, Tilda Swinton. Under his poncho he wears a T-shirt bearing her name.
That's just one of the threads cinephiles will enjoy pulling at in a film which also nods to Richard Linklater (Slacker is an obvious touchstone) and Robert Altman (Luke makes regular M*A*S*H-style tannoy announcements) but which points in other directions as well. To Goodbye, Dragon Inn, perhaps, Tsai Ming-liang's ravishingly beautiful study of a Taipei cinema's last screening, King Hu's 1967 wuxia epic Dragon Inn. Or, as Lorenzo and Hunter discuss the lack of Black and Jewish characters in the early Star Wars films and Bouzidi executes a 'dolly zoom' shot, to Alfred Hitcock's Vertigo, which first used the technique, and perhaps also to 1975 summer blockbuster Jaws, which made it famous.
Two cinema patrons in Tsai Ming-liang's masterpiece were actors in the film the cinema is showing. Bouzidi plays the same trick. Sort of anyway. Enter the late Michael Madsen in one of his final roles as ex-stunt man Rex Fuel, one time stunt double for Kevin Bacon (or 'The Baconater' as he calls him).
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Rex has turned up to see another film he worked on, Bad Bloke On Bedford Avenue, about an Aussie cop in Brooklyn. Like the other two movies the Alamo is screening – Taft! The Musical, a Hamilton-style riff on inconsequential 27th US president William Howard Taft, and Schindler's List: Refuelled, whose plot is better left unguessed at – it isn't real. But Bouzidi shows clips from it anyway.
Elsewhere discourses abound – on the impact of streaming on cinema-going, for example – and rabbit holes open for us to fall down. In one glorious segment, a patron breaks the fourth wall for a straight-to-camera mini essay on cinema's ability to melt reality.
Concessions is downbeat and occasionally patchy – but tyro director Bouzidi has served up a defiantly indie debut with lashings of verve, confidence and passion. A world premiere, Concessions features in The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence strand of the EIFF and is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.
Concessions screen as part of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on August 16-17 (venues vary)
For tickets for Edinburgh Festival shows, click here
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