Charles Bukowski has been a key figure on the cult literary circuit whose work can be counted besides William S. Burroughs, Allan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in having revolutionised the American landscape.
By using guttural, raw everyday language Bukowski finds poetry in the mundane, the ordinary. His characters, largely autobiographical figures drawn out from his own life experiences, are losers in life, alcoholics, the down-and-out, souls stuck in life limiting - soul destroying jobs with no prospect of a future - perhaps except the promise of the next drink.
However his attitude is not one of disdain or depression but almost a celebration of life from the bottom up.
This approach of Bukowski, the visceral and explicitly (almost profane) nature of his literary work has made him only approachable by independent, outside cinema.
Out of all adaptations of his work, the closest thing ever to mainstream was ‘Barfly’ of which he wrote the scenario, starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. It was no surprise when the film did not manage to find its’ audience and ended up lounging around the margins before becoming a collectors’ oddity.
Now Bent Hammer tackles one of Bukowski’s finest novels adapting it to the screen. His previous film ‘Kitchen Stories’ proved without a doubt that this Scandinavian newcomer had the required dead pan quirkiness that would be required to create a successful adaptation.
‘Factotum’ is the story of Henry Chinaski (Bukowski’s alter ego in his novels and stories.). Chinaski is a middle-aged author trying to exist in L.A. drifting from job to job, trying to succeed with his writing whilst filling his free time with women and gambling.
It’s a typical Bukowski scenario, describing his down and out years in L.A. working in a variety of dead-end jobs with deadpan humour. Add to the mix the various women he ends up with from Lili Taylor’s marvellous and mad Jan (Ms. Taylor is amazingly cute) to Marisa Tomei’s young plaything Laura.
Although the plot might not seem to amount to much, the trick here is Hamer’s ability to create and adapt Bukowski’s universe so excellently and imbuing it with the same deadpan humour for which the author was famous. The brilliant comic timing which the movie demonstrates almost makes you feel as if the whole thing was written as one big joke with an imaginary punchline punctuating through every few minutes.
However this film would not be successful if it did not have its cast to rely on. The performance given here by Matt Dillon is probably the best of his career. He plays Chinaski/Bukowski as a sort of clueless wiseman, a lost soul whose awareness of everything around him is extremely heightened but who nonetheless continues to exude a sense of aimlessness that makes him fit right in.
He displays the observational qualities that would make Charles Bukowski the brilliant author he is and this is no more evident than in the way which he delivers a running voice-over over some of the main events that occur in the film.
Lili Taylor is no worse than Dillon, being an adept and old hand at these kind of characters and subtly compliments the performances of the other players. The rest of the cast rises credibly to the challenge, as well.
However the film is not without its faults. Dillon is too young and good looking to ever allow us to believe he could be Chinaski the grizzled author, however good his performance may be, and it feels aimless, wandering, lost, moving along from one occurrence to the next almost like a sketch show.
Hamer obviously knows his material but needs to work out a way to make it - keep it connected and make it flow more easily. (Good example being the first scene with the ice delivery job, transition to the rest of the movie feeling almost perfunctory.)
But this is still probably the best adaptation of Bukowski that we’re ever going to see and fans should rejoice, whilst newcomers should allow this opportunity to ease themselves into the work of a master whose place was among the average man on the street.
Here’s hoping that Hamer can deliver further adaptations of a man who always deserved better.
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