Buffalo film review

Do you want to fragrantly waste a mind-numbing hour and a half of your monotonous life? If you just threw you hand up in the air and shouted yes’, then Vincent Gallon’s film Buffalo ’66 is for you. You will be subjected to a remarkably mundane plot, which will leave you hopelessly confused and a little afraid. It’s only rendering feature is, perhaps, the artistic style in which it is created. The film Is set In the overly Industrialized town of Buffalo where our mall character, Billy Brown. Who Is played might say, badly by Gallo himself, was born with regret ND raised with disinterest.

We are fist introduced to Billy as he is being released from prison. We become reluctant voyeurs of his life. His first problem that he had to face after being released is searching for a bathroom. Yes! You real that right. For the first maybe 20 minutes of the film, he is running around in his bright red boots, and ill fitted clothes, looking quite Like a child holding his genitals searching for a place to relive himself. I really don’t understand the meaning of this either. But what an entrance to a movie. Throughout his hunt for a restroom, we are introduced to Lay.

Gallo has decided to put her in a virgin blue dress, a doll like face and alienated from the rest of her dance class. In fact she looks very much like a prostitute. Gallo chooses to sexuality her, focusing the camera around her breasts. Maybe this is why Billy kidnaps her. Yes! I said kidnaps. Told you this was a weird movie. Well Billy makes Lay drive him to his parents house, because he can not ‘drive a stick, but along the way he makes her pull over so he can relieve himself behind a tree. Any normal person would have Just driven off and got the hell out of there. But

Lay is not normal, she is alienated from society because of her lack of lets call it social skills. She decides to stay, and continue being kidnapped. Apparently his playground talk of ‘If you do this for me, I will be your best friend, you will be the best friend I have ever had’. However if we gallantly ignore this entire aimless and dreary plot all we have left is Gallon’s amazing use of techniques such as his use of colors, music and camera angles. Throughout Buffalo ’66, Gallo focuses on the abundant use of pale colors and lurid scenes, which portray a lonely sense of emotion and feeling.

Gallo an accomplished musician composed a very suitable score to accompany the film. Having himself creating most of the songs Gallo was able to carefully control a great deal of the mood and feeling of each scene. His song ‘Lonely Boy playing at the start of the movie in the opening credits, starting when the Billy Picture is shown Is a good example of child in the picture. Another technique is Gallon’s use of overlaying images or videos over the top of the already playing film. He does this to show flashbacks to inform us of Billy’s past. Through these flashbacks we discover that Billy’s childhood was very harsh.

We see his loss of innocence through his Fathers anger on his dog Bingo, and his Mothers lack of care when Billy has an allergic reaction to chocolate. We also see his innocence in the events that sent him to prison. With Billy’s Mothers obsession with the town’s local football team the ‘Buffalo Bills’, we see her lack of care in Billy as a child again. When Lay asks Billy’s mum to see a photo of Billy as a child, She then replies to husband “Where’s the Billy Picture? ” He had one picture as a kid, ONE!! But as you walk into the house you see a bunch of pictures of Buffalo players.

This is a major key to Billy’s alienation. He didn’t have a normal home and was treated like he wasn’t wanted. You will quickly grow tiered of Bill’s need to constantly repeat everything he says. You will find yourself getting frustrated and wishing you could somehow reach into the film and bring him to his senses, perhaps by rearranging his facial features. In the bowling ally scene we notice we see Billy and Lay in the photo booth, “Spanning time” together, Just “Spanning time”. At this point I found my self shouting at the screen telling him to Just “shut up”.

One important event in the film is the scene between Billy and Lay in the hotel room. We witness them laying on a bed together and Billy looks very, well, uncomfortable, while Lay looks like she has been in this type of situation many times before. We have a bird’s eye view of this whole scene so we see every movement that is made. Slowly, very slowly Lay’s hand moves towards Billy’s, leaving them awkwardly holding hands, well touching hands. After what seems like an incessant amount of time, Billy rolls over, out of his very what must be uncomfortable position and him and Lay kiss. KISS!

You heard me right. I thought it was Lay’s imagination to be honest. If you think it couldn’t get more awkward he curls up in the fetal position in Lay’s arms. WEIRD! But this does portray Billy’s childlike behavior again and his need for affection that his parents lacked to provide for him. I think I was thankful at this point in the movie though, because finally, finally, they ended up together. They are not alone anymore, because they have each other. Bit click©, but never mind that. If forced to offer a quick summery of the film, I would answer in a forceful honesty, hat it is Just plain boring.

So bleak and uneventful is the plot, that I would rather go bird watching. It’s only rendering features is Gallon’s cinematic techniques. There, in my view, are the movies great strength and manage to Just salvage it from complete ruin. So masterful is Gallon’s use of cinema that I should recommend this film to English school teachers and others that appreciate the subtle and obscure artistic works. To the rest of us, I would issue a warning to avoid the film, like stay at least give it 5 stars out of 10.