Not since Bicycle Thieves has a film focused so determinedly on the theft of a bike as James , receiving its world premiere at the Oldenburg Film Festival. Which isn’t to suggest Max Train’s eccentric new comedy has much in common with Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neorealist classic, aside from similarly being shot in black and white. The sort of picture for which the term “quirky” could have been invented, it bears much more similarity to the early works of Jim Jarmusch, especially in its deadpan style. Probably best appreciated at a midnight screening after a few drinks, the Canadian indie is yet another example of the festival discovering a small-scale gem.
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The movie begins with the hard-drinking title character (Dylan Beatch, who co-wrote the screenplay with Train) being violently arrested and then recounting his tale to a detective who wants to know why he has committed so many crimes against a single individual. Cut to the story’s beginning, with the down-on-his-luck, nihilistic James being dumped by his girlfriend because of his anger issues. Living in a single room with a mattress on the floor in a church-run shelter, he can’t even go for a cheap meal in a noodle restaurant without nearly getting a finger cut off by the Japanese cooks he offends.
James’ life changes when he discovers part of a bicycle’s metal frame in the trash and, after scavenging other pieces, assembles a bike which he uses to get a job as a courier. Everything seems to go fine for him for a while until he delivers a package to a butcher shop. Its exotically named owner, Valentin DeWolfe (James Cowley), is an obsessive collector who immediately recognizes the frame of James’ bike as an extremely rare one created by an Italian designer in the 1940s. After his offer to purchase it for an outlandish price is rebuffed, he hires a pair of petty crooks to steal it. Thus begins James’ journey through the underbelly of Vancouver to retrieve his ride and prevent himself from falling back into a downward spiral.
It’s slight stuff, to be sure, and not all of the minimalist humor lands. Some of the jokes, such as the largely unintelligible dialogue of the heavily accented Irish bike thieves, go on long past their expiration date. The episodic storyline, which includes James’ encounters with a mysterious Japanese woman (Yumi Nagashima, excellent) who’s also in pursuit of the bike, meanders more than it should, making the film feel longer than its relatively brief running time.
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Despite its flaws, James — the movie, not necessarily the character — proves a low-key, eccentric charmer, at times resembling a vintage silent comedy in its visual humor and central figure who stumbles through life like a modern-day Buster Keaton. And even with its obviously minor budget, the impressionistic debut feature feels extremely polished, with a folk- and blues-infused score (Danny Eberhardt, Sally Jorgensen and Max Train are credited with the music) contributing greatly to its offbeat mood.
The wiry Beatch carries the film ably, finding the dark humor in his protagonist while resisting the urge to play on the audience’s sympathy, and Paulina Munoz delivers a sterling supporting turn as the collector’s sister who finds herself sympathetic to James’ plight.
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