Starring Homer Nish, Mary Donahue. Written and directed by Kent Mackenzie. (STC) 72 min. Screens Nov 14, 7pm, Nov 18, 7pm & Nov 19, 8:45pm at Cinematheque Ontario (317 Dundas W).
The Cinematheque Ontario program hails The Exiles as “this year’s Killer of Sheep,” and there are indeed myriad similarities between Kent Mackenzie’s 1961 feature (about a group of Native Americans living in Los Angeles’ now-demolished Bunker Hill area) and Charles Burnett’s 1977 classic (about an African-American community in Watts). Both films were debuts made on a shoestring using amateur actors; both successfully transplanted Italian neo-realist aesthetics into an American urban space; both were featured in Thom Andersen’s essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself and subsequently re-mastered for re-release. (Killer of Sheep director Burnett has been instrumental in getting The Exiles back into theatres.)
If The Exiles is the more ragged of the two films, it’s by design: whereas Burnett composed his images for maximum poetic effect, Mackenzie — a native Englander who conceived the project during his stint at USC — imparts a restless momentum that’s closer to early Cassavetes, but that’s not to say that the black-and-white cinematography doesn’t allow for a handful of stunning tableaux. The film unfolds over the course of an afternoon and evening, diffusing its narrative attentions across a group that includes sullen, alcoholic Homer (Homer Nish), on a booze-fuelled gambling bender, and his lonely wife Mary (Mary Donahue), taking a Monica Vitti-ish stroll through the city at night.
Mackenzie observes their comings-and-goings with a keen eye (and an even keener ear for jukebox ambience) but he also audaciously takes us inside his characters’ heads, undercutting the prevailing documentary texture with credible and revealing interior monologues. The Exiles isn’t always flattering in its depiction of a subculture struggling to adapt to its new surroundings, but it’s never less than compassionate.