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Rating: Here GVS attempts for the second time (the first was unsuccessful, his autobiographical “Alice in Hollywood” from ’81 remained unfinished, stopping at 40 minutes) and with a black and white film, given the lack of funds due to a budget of only $25,000 he managed to save by working as a designer in the previous two years.
The plot involves three boys: Johnny and Roberto, two young undocumented Mexicans living by their wits, and Walt, an American whom they call “Frocio”, owner of a small drugstore frequented mostly by hobos, and some alcoholics who go there to stock up on beers, cigarettes, etc. It is based on the work of the same name by Walt Curtis from ‘77, an author very close to the Beat Generation.
Walt has a crush on Johnny, who claims to be 18 years old but is surely still a minor, and tries in every way to have sex with him and here I’ll stop.
The film is defined as a road movie in the style of “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac and is performed by Walt along the lines of a kind of diary, where the characters live in a perpetual inconclusive atmosphere and corresponds to what will later be called “Queer Cinema”, it leaves little room for optimism or any constructive future, it is steeped in a disconsolate self-destructive present that leads nowhere but so be it.
PS I just noticed while sending that there already exists a review from 2008 on this film, oh well I've written this one now, then I'll read the other…
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By desade
"I would have been able to guess that the director of 'Mala Noche' is Van Sant even without having read a guide."
"It is precisely the lack of considerable funds that required the renunciation of certain equipment, including lights, and indeed the work, made in black and white, places its peculiarity in the use of beams of light that literally cut the scene."
