Giuseppe Andrews’ Airplane Pillows (2008)

2008-09-22

Symbolically, what do airplane pillows represent? Comfort at 40,000 feet? A cheap way of providing minimal relaxation to the tired traveler? A miniature facsimile of the real thing? Empty promises and little relief? As with most symbols of a crass consumer culture, the rough little puffs with their diminutive status can signify something different to everyone who comes across them. The same can be said for the latest wonderwork by actor turned complete cinematic genius Giuseppe Andrews. Taking its title from the aforementioned in-flight fluff, what we end up with is another mesmerizing look at how the marginalized manage to maintain their errant dignity while dealing with the dilemmas of an uncaring world.

Baby Swiss is obsessed with a strange science fiction film. She fantasies about living in its futuristic ideals, and keeps a separate DVD copy in a strongbox under the house just to be on the safe side. Naturally, this drives her unattended husband to the local whorehouse, known as The City on the Moon. There, he meets up with other unhappy men and drowns his sorrows in high priced call girls. In the meantime, Baby Swiss discovers a kind of platonic love with a like minded neighbor. He is so desperate to be part of her life that he will wait outside her window. Their relationship will turn on whether she cleans the glass, or closes the blinds. And all the while, a homeless Greek chorus champions the freedom of living on the streets, unencumbered by the mindless machinations of being part of this so-called “proper society”.

Airplane Pillows is Giuseppe Andrews’ impoverished interpretation of Peyton Place, a lifetime of soap opera intrigue boiled down to 30 attention-grabbing minutes. It’s couples fighting, parents pleading with their distant offspring, lovers looking for the light in the window of their paramour’s soured soul, crime, punishment, Pope pimps, and unhappy men seeking solace in the arms (and thighs) of a paid partner’s embrace. Utilizing many in his creatively rich company, including the magnificent Vietnam Ron, Sir George Bigfoot, Ed, and the always electric Karen Bo Baron, while introducing several new intriguing faces, it’s a return to the days of sense memory surrealism and random narrative drive. You can figure out what’s going on here based on genre requirements. But Andrews always makes his movies much more than simple cinematic stereotypes.

As with any aggressive auteur, the standards of the sudser are indeed perverted by Airplane Pillows to make room for more of the maestro’s fascinating free association. In many ways, this wacky little treasure trove reminds one of David Lynch’s cult crackerjack Twin Peaks. Here, Andrews takes typical plot points like adultery, familial dysfunction, sexual satisfaction, drug abuse, serial murder, and other personal power struggles and filters them through a mindset that manufactures as many complications as conclusions. We aren’t supposed to get lost in these people’s piddling problems. Instead, when Baby Swiss explains her love of a fictional sci-fi effort, we are required to see our own idiosyncratic needs, and realize that our unusual fetishes are probably just as freaky.

Perhaps the most compelling sequences however come when two spellbinding street people discuss how happy they are to be homeless. Faces haggard and yet very human, voices straining from years living within the cosmopolitan cancer of urban smog and soot, they literally laugh at individuals who take existence as a mixture of frustration and futility. Here they are, without a care (or collection of coins) in the world, and yet their sunny optimism – combined with a little carnal trickery – mocks everything the other characters kvetch over. Every over the top narrative needs a good counterbalance and Airplane Pillows’ hobo harbingers are a perfect artistic offset.

Unlike past films, where gross out gags about bodily functions and fornication seemed to make up most of the wit, Andrews once again switches gears. Sure, we still get some scatology, but most of the humor is character driven, drawn out from interactions and ideas. Dialogue, always an important element in his films, is fleshed out in a way that challenges convention while embracing its universal needs. There are small snippets of backstory, moments when we learn about Baby Swiss’s son, a hooker’s medical scare, and other random bits of individual dimension. Yet because Andrews always has bigger picture fish to fry, the sum standing as something much greater than the often as intriguing parts.

In fact, even at 30 minutes, Airplane Pillows feels dense and compelling complex. It makes us think while playing fully on our emotional impulses. It instantly draws us in while simultaneously pushing us back, never being too obvious or too obtuse. Like the amazing artist he is, Andrews continues to show how adept he can be within the artform. Even a minor motion picture riff like this stands right alongside his more epic examinations. At one time, Giuseppe Andrews was the Godard of the Trailer Park, a celluloid revisionist working in camcorders and crazies. Today, he’s the leading light in the outsider digital revolution. Airplane Pillows proves this over and over again.

RATING 8 / 10
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