Dark Horse is a winner

****

Todd Solondz is an innovative and provocative filmmaker who has consistently pushed the envelope on what is acceptable on American screens. His work has blended a keen satiric wit with a deep social conscience, resulting in a string of challenging family dramas. But his unflinching portrayal of such subjects as school bullying (Welcome to the Dollhouse) sexual politics (Storytelling) and child molestation (Happiness) have failed to gain him much recognition beyond the arthouse circuit.

His new film, Dark Horse, revisits the middle class environs of his earlier films, once again challenging the audience to find sympathy for an outcast. But instead of continuing his dissection of societal woes, Solondz takes a radical turn from the flight path of his career.

Dark Horse resituates his story and refocuses his style from the realm of reality into the sort of surrealist plane which Stanley Kubrick explored in A Clockwork Orange,The Shining and Eyes Wide Shut. For in Dark Horse Solondz demolishes the boundaries of time and space to create a story which is practically a moebius strip of life.

On the surface, the film is a fairly straightforward examination of a born loser who Solondz invites us to embrace as we hope for his redemption. This, in itself, is no easy task. For Abe (Jordan Gelber) is a self-hating, self-pitying do-nothing with little or no ability to evoke sympathy from the audience.

The conceit in Solondz’s film is that Abe’s world is created within a collapsing house of cards, so that what the audience is certain of one moment is reversed and twisted inside-out the next. This is challenging stuff, even for those who have experienced Solondz's previous efforts.

Is the second half of the film a dream, a fantasy, an alternate reality or the ravings of a man who has gone so far over the edge that he (and we) can no longer tell what’s real and what isn’t?

I can’t say that one viewing of this experiment in multi-dimensional story telling is sufficient to answer its questions. But with a fine cast, including Gelber, Selma Blair, Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow, strong camerawork, art direction and editing, Dark Horse’s challenges will provide those willing to brave its complex narrative structure with long conversations about its meaning for many moons. Solondz continues to expand the boundaries of film. 

MPAA Rating – this film is not yet rated