The Brown Bunny (2003) User Reviews

A potentially good film in serious need of professional editing

[fontainemoore · 5/10 · 19 November 2006]

While I give the film kudos for a story that I didn't see coming, after the first few minutes of needless (and extremely boring) motorcycle racing, I could see that I was NOT in the hands of a professional editor. The story could have been told far more effectively in half the time--or less. Gallo definitely needed to step away and let a professional editor do his/her thing and mercilessly cut scenes that didn't move the story forward.

While I could see that the author wanted the audience to crawl inside the protagonist, Bud, during the road trip, it didn't take that darned long to do it. Plus, his point of view changed too frequently. If we are inside his skin, then why are we looking at him for minutes in an excruciatingly long and tedious long shot? We need to see what he sees--at least with more consistency. I couldn't get my bearings in terms of what I was supposed to be experiencing and from what viewpoint.

There were other technical problems such as an inconsistency in lighting and shot quality with no apparent reason. And that spotted windshield drove me nuts. If a sign of depression and the carelessness that results from it, I'd have appreciated technique that didn't interfere so much with the visuals. Speaking of visuals, extending driving sequences to cover a song also seemed visually uninspired.

Probably most important, Gallo ignored common expectations of audiences and wanted things his way. I can't believe there wasn't an acceptable compromise. I'm pretty patient when it comes to art and film as art, but don't appreciate my sensibilities and expectations to be pushed beyond the breaking point when there appears to be no artistic justification for it. Too many scenes suffered from too few cuts and ran far too long, engendering more audience frustration than heightened emotionalism. I think this may be a result of an inexperienced and slightly self-indulgent filmmaker.

These technical problems aside, I'm usually able to spot a twist a mile away--but not this time. I wondered why all the women he encountered had flower names but that was just a hint that didn't make much sense until the end. But his name? Bud, as in "flower bud" and "clay" as in a substance in which flowers grow (he couldn't have named the character "dirt" or "mulch," after all) might have been a bit over the top. Again, typical of an immature filmmaker.

Was the encountered women's immediate sexual response to a complete stranger, fantasy on the character's part or the filmmaker's? I'd like to know how many men run into so many compliant females. From what I hear, not many--even when the guy is young, good-looking, and clearly pitiable. In this day and age, we ladies are a bit more cautious than that. Sorry, Vincent. While this may have been believable for males, I don't expect it was for very many female viewers.

I watched the film largely because I wanted to see if and how graphic sex could be incorporated into a drama without lowering it to the level of "high brow pornography." I think the film did a good job on that score, although I'd have preferred the use of a realistic-looking prosthetic such as that used in Boogie Nights. Perhaps the budget didn't allow for it or...who knows? It was certainly an interesting artistic choice and one that leaves me scratching my head in terms of the motive for including it. Symbolically, I'm a bit confused about it.

As effective and surprising as the end twist was, there could have been more in terms of Bud's descent into depression. But then, I'm a psychologist so am aware that symptoms are more than seeking surrogates, crying, and looking forlorn and depressed. Gallo missed, IMO, a chance to show more about what guilt and loss look like and how they affect people. Perhaps, this again, is a result of his inexperience. Personally, I think Redford's "Ordinary People" did a better job of showing a wider breadth of feelings of grief and loss.

Bottom line, although I thought the story had merit and did an excellent job of building to a surprising twist, I think it suffered severely in the journey towards the denouement. I hope Gallo matures and grows as a storyteller and filmmaker as I think he's got something to say worth watching.

Looking for Daisy

[claudio_carvalho · 5/10 · 27 December 2014]

After racing in New Hampshire, the lonely motorcycle racer Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) drives his van in a five-day journey to California for the next race. Along his trip, he meets fan, lonely women, prostitutes, but he leaves them since he is actually looking for the woman he loves, Daisy (Chloë Sevigny). He goes to her house and leaves a note telling where he is lodged. Out of the blue, Daisy appears in his hotel room and soon he learns why he cannot find her.

"The Brown Bunny" is an independent very low budget movie by Vincent Gallo. The plot is developed in slow pace and is dull and boring in many moments. The revelation of Daisy's secret is totally unexpected. However the movie has become famous only because of the unnecessary fellatio of Chloë Sevigny, maybe to satisfy Vincent Gallo's ego, since does not add anything but a polemic scene to this movie in a poor hype. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): Not available on DVD or Blu-Ray

A confused ego-maniac

[mcshortfilm · 5/10 · 31 July 2005]

I can respect any filmmaker that steers away from typical Hollywood conventions. It's not hard for a minimalist film to look so enticing when the majority of films produced are laced with big budgets of eye candy and formulaic plots.

The Brown Bunny should be admired for its risky non-narrative style. It caused furious reactions at the Cannes film festival which obviously helped generate lots of press and attention. Fans of the avante-garde will have to think "Oh! Its one of those films! The critics didn't get it. It must be ahead of its time!" That may be true but what's unsettling about the reviews is that they influenced director Vincent Gallo to cut the film in half leaving it more concise and marketable for mass audiences. Well I don't like to form opinions based on unnecessary gossip but I can't help but be bothered by it. If Gallo were a visionary filmmaker why would he drastically re-edit a film just after its premiere? I know this has happened many times with other directors but there is a part of me that has a hard time taking Gallo seriously. It's not his acting. I can see he has a quality that is rare and unique to most other contemporaries. His beautiful acting range is evident in his previous film "Buffalo 66". I just sense from his egocentric attitude of being the star, writer, director, producer and the fact that he's in 95% of every shot in the film, that he is just being creatively oblivious.

Most artists will tell you that self-portraits are the most difficult subjects to tackle because they involve erasing your preconceived notions about who you think you are to showing how everyone knows who you are.

Nobody said that "The Brown Bunny" is autobiographical but it certainly feels personal. This film reminded me of Dennis Hopper's "The Last Movie", an unfinished existential sequel to the 1969 film "Easy Rider". Hopper and Gallo seem similar in their egos and their American cowboy persona's but there seems to be a void here. I'm not sure a longer movie would be the answer. All I know is that Vincent Gallo's character Blake should look more pathetic and less cool to his audience. I may see this again and see something different. For now, I am tired of seeing another road movie that really looks rehashed and broken down for its artistic value. This just doesn't feel self conscious. It feels clueless and arrogant.

It blows. Or sucks. Either one will do.

[BA_Harrison · 1/10 · 13 September 2019]

Watching The Brown Bunny is like taking the most boring road trip ever accompanied by the most unlikable bloke imaginable, after which he gets a blow job and you don't.

Directed by and starring Vincent Gallo, this self-indulgent art-house snooze-fest follows motorcycle racer Bud Clay as he drives from New Hampshire to California, with brief encounters with several women along the way. When he gets to Los Angeles, he meets up with old flame Daisy Lemon (Chloë Sevigny), who gets a shot of protein to the back of the throat in the film's infamous un-simulated oral sex scene, after which we learn the tragic truth about how their relationship ended.

99% tedious shots of Gallo driving down highways, filmed through the windscreen, badly framed and frequently out of focus, and 1% Sevigny slurping sausage, this is precisely the type of unmitigated garbage that gives arthouse cinema a bad rep. It's ultimately a study of a man struggling with guilt and grief, which is all well and good except for the fact that it is also utterly boring and ugly to look at for most of the time. If it hadn't been for the fact that an established actress performs fellatio for reals, I suspect that The Brown Bunny would never have seen the light of day.

Definitely an acquired taste

[btb-ii · 3/10 · 5 December 2006]

If you can endure a 90 minute portrait of brooding self loathing with virtually no dialog and uninspired cinematography, this film is for you. The notorious scene with Daisy is incongruous. Perhaps, I am dense, but in my view, the emperor has no clothes. To be successful, this film should have elicited a strong interest in the lead character. But in the end, you have learned little about someone who is shallow and unappealing. This film portrays the journey of a motorcyclist tormented by demons vaguely hinted at in mysterious stops he makes in route. You see that he is attracted and repulsed by women. (Cheryl Tiegs, for those of you old enough to remember her from the 1970s is perfect in what amounts to a cameo.) But his encounters with women are so fleeting and glancing that you learn little until the end of the journey. Then, what you learn is too trite to support your having endured the trip with him. I believe Vincent Gallo had a serious idea, but the idea is unrealized.

The Brown Bunny

[random_avenger · 7/10 · 16 August 2010]

Having heard so much about the infamous The Brown Bunny over the years, it was difficult to watch it with a blank mind devoid of expectations when I finally got to see it in the small hours of last night. Ultimately it's a fairly interesting effort, expectations or not. The plot is very simple: a motorcycle racer named Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) begins a long cross-country journey in his van to the next racing location in California, all the while being haunted by memories of his former girlfriend Daisy (Chloë Sevigny) who he wishes to meet when arriving in his destination. On his way to her, he also picks up other women only to drop them off soon.

I wasn't bothered by the long scenes of Gallo silently driving by himself, even though the cramped mise en scène and grainy cinematography make them less easy to enjoy than such scenes in some other movies "where nothing ever happens". The trembling camera inside the van creates a feel of a documentary, while the more spaciously framed outdoor shots balance the mood with their artistic calmness. The scene of Bud taking his motorcycle out and riding it on a salt desert is especially good-looking and captures a sense of loneliness powerfully.

The very soft dialogue and Bud's habit of picking up and dropping off women provide hints to the nature of his relationship with Daisy. He also frequently cries by himself – what has happened between him and Daisy? The mystery gets its explanation at the end and the emotional payoff is pretty effective (and I'm not only talking about that one controversial scene but the whole revelation). The famous sex scene fits in the mood and its uncensored nature only adds to the rawness and prevents it from feeling phony.

Ultimately the film is a curious exploration of feelings of guilt, regret, longing and loneliness, and while it's not as visually stunning and haunting as, say, Gus Van Sant's Last Days, it certainly doesn't deserve all the hate it gets. Gallo and Sevigny are both good in their roles and the quiet atmosphere will have its admirers, but I think that some of the driving scenes still feel excessive even after Gallo's re-cutting of the film after the Cannes Film Festival incident. Perhaps some further trimming of the running time could have enhanced it, but I think The Brown Bunny is a worthwhile piece of cinema as it is now. For audiences who know what to expect, it should provide an enjoyable meditation on the emotional traumas people may encounter in life.

An experiment that fails

[wisewebwoman · 2/10 · 18 March 2007]

Yeah, I got it. It took a torturous 1-1/2 hours to get there but I was spared the 26 minutes more that others had to suffer through in the original cut.

Strange camera angles of pumping gas, lying in hotel rooms,urinating, eating, driving, driving, driving. Crying, hugging women wordlessly. Driving Driving Driving.

Yeah, the fellow is grieving a lost love with a flower's name, yeah, he's attracted to other women with flowers' names. Yeah he was sorta responsible for the loss of his love. B-b-b-b-ut we never know what that love was all about, was it as shallow as depicted here? You can't care about the main character, how can you. You know nothing of him.

This is one of the most self-indulgent movies I've ever seen. With a money shot at the end.

Avoid. 2 out of 10 for the Gordon Lightfoot song on the soundtrack.

Worked for me.

[Rogue-32 · 10/10 · 30 August 2004]

I saw Buffalo 66 long before I started posting reviews at imdb, so I haven't written about that film but I loved it, I give it a 10, and after seeing The Brown Bunny at the Nuart on Saturday evening, I am here to report that I give Gallo's second feature film the same rating.

A lot of people seem to be misunderstanding this movie, or just not appreciating it, or perhaps both. There are many reasons for this, none of them valid in my estimation. The biggest protests, from what I've been reading, seem to be in the 'lack of plot' and 'vanity project' areas.

I can understand how the film would be a little slow for a lot of people, since it's basically an internal study, with none of the 'usual' mainstream (or even indy film) tactics. And in fact that's what I loved the most about the movie - how Gallo has the artistic wherewithal to be true to HIS vision of what a film can be, to how a plot of a film (and there IS a plot) can be played out in a different, less recognizable way, which leads to one of the reasons I think people are calling this a vanity project (aside from the infamous scene toward the end -- which I have to say is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to the film, once you find out what's really going on with our sick puppy Bud Clay) : because the movie doesn't follow a 'typical' set-up, requiring a bit more patience on the part of the viewer, a lot of people feel more comfortable dismissing this unbelievably profound piece of work as a 'vanity project'. In reality, I believe the opposite is true: Gallo is giving his audience more credit than they perhaps deserve, in presenting such a stark, uncompromising character study. The fact that a lot of this audience chooses not to accept him on his terms does not diminish his power and the power of this movie. Can't wait for the next one, Vincent.

Nested Garden Fantasies

[tedg · 22 February 2005]

I wish I had seen the original, longer version. Even as it is, I was surprised at how ambitious a project this is.

Gallo is an actor that believes it possible for the nature of a character to animate a story even when the story isn't revealed conventionally. So what he does is give us a couple hours of just looking at him so we can infer the story, or at least the effect of the story. Only at the end are we told what this was all about.

The story — at least the presented version — is that our boy gave his pregnant girlfriend a chocolate bunny on which they gorged. She then got high (and incidentally gangraped) and choked on the brown bunny and died. Our man imagines/dreams her visiting his motel room, where he gives her a metaphorical brown bunny.

That's when we learn that nothing we have seen is to be trusted. Likely, even the fact that he is a motorcycle racer is in question; only the aimlessness of his path is likely. Women-centric events are shown, all based on a Beatrix Potter - Peter Rabbit notion of him visiting Alice's flower garden: Lilly, Rose, Violet and Daisy.

In the first: he visits Daisy's mother, who he lived next door to. She both doesn't recall him and owns a brown bunny. The second is the sequence that made this for me. He encounters a woman sitting outside and has a near wordless mini-encounter with her that packed years of a relationship into a couple minutes. (The similar fantasy sequence in "Buffalo 66" is when Christina Ricci does a "Big Lebowski" inspired dance in a bowling alley.)

The woman he works with in this sequence is Cheryl Tiegs who gives the performance of the year. I wish I knew what Gallo said to her.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Journey across America with Grief on the passenger sit

[Galina_movie_fan · 7/10 · 18 May 2008]

I have not seen the original Director's cut of the film that had created so much bad press after the screening at the Cannes Film Festival and prompted Roger Ebert make the statement that "The Brown Bunny" was the worst film in the history of the festival but the 92 minutes long version that Gallo himself re-edited is certainly not the bad movie. I'd say it is much better than hundreds of one star reviews on the Netflix movie's site lead you to believe. I personally agree with Vienalle Film Festival that awarded to "The Brown Bunny" FIPRESCI Prize "For its bold exploration of yearning and grief and for its radical departure from dominant tendencies in current American film-making". In exploring loss, regrets, yearning, grief, loneliness, inner numbness as the way to cope with pain caused by guilt, longing for the contact and inability to communicate, Vincent Gallo, writer/director/star/cinematographer/editor for "The Brown Bunny", definitely drove his point across (no pun intended). I think that Gallo found the right way to create a mood of quiet and unbearable desperation. The movie brought to my mind the line from one of the poems by Paul Verlen, French poet of the 18th century, "I walked, accompanying my own grief". Grief was the passenger in Bud's van and kept him company on the long journey across America, from New Hampshire to California. They had a lot to talk about but their conversations were speechless - that's why there is so much silence in the movie and only shots of Bud's face and his eyes.

Many viewers (and reviewers) mention in their comments the notorious explicit scene of oral sex between Bud Clay (Gallo) and Daisy (Chloe Sevigny), the one true love of his life. Those who dismissed the movie as totally worthless say that without the scene, nobody would every bother watching "The Brown Bunny". I would not speak for everyone but I would've liked the film even without two minutes of graphic sex that in the context of the film is appropriately more disturbing and sad than anything else. With all due respect to the opinions of the viewers who dislike and even hate Vincent Gallo's movie, I found it interesting, compelling and satisfying.

The Ego Has Landed.

[rmax304823 · 2/10 · 20 February 2006]

Why bother? Vincent Gallo, a motorcycle racer, is so magnetic that waitresses throw off their jobs and leave farewell notes at a hint. (He produced the movie.) He's not particularly good looking but he's sympathetic because he acts depressed all the time and women want to cuddle him. Montgomery Clift could pull this off very well. He could make us believe it. Gallo can't.

The movie amounts to a porno film with only a few seconds of celebrity paparazzi shots of Chloe Sevigny. (What is she doing in this piece of garbage?) If you want to see a male narcissist suffer for no particular reason while women fall all over him this is your kind of movie. As for me, I think the motives may be no more than those behind Sylvester Stallone's skin flick, an opportunity to seal on film how sturdy your erections are.

Brilliant, haunting, what's not to like?

[polysicsarebest · 10/10 · 30 March 2010]

This film has received a lot of hatred, and I've racked my brain trying to figure out why. Then, it occurred to me: This film was not "meant" to be seen by most of the people who have seen it. See, there are art house flicks -- designed for art house audiences. Then, there are more, sort-of mainstream flicks -- designed for mainstream audiences. This all seems obvious, and it is, but it'll probably help to understand if you've heard something bad about this amazing film. Because of the controversy surrounding one short scene in this, some people who usually don't watch "art house" films have jumped on this film, and have walked away confused. Confusion leads to hatred, usually, since we fear what we don't understand, and often hate it too. On the other hand, while a lot of lovers of underground/experimental/artsy stuff are extremely open-minded, you'll find quite a bit of them who, pretentiously, will dismiss any new Hollywood vehicle for whatever reason -- just the fact that this film has Vincent Gallo and Chloe Sevigny in it is enough for some people to hate it.

So, you've got "underground" people giving it crap, you've got "mainstream" people giving it crap, you've got people misusing the word "pretentious" endlessly. So, in all this fire, the film itself is lost. Me, I don't really swing either way; I love Mean Girls as much as Dog Star Man, Home Alone as much as Water & Power, Freddy Got Fingered as much as Oh, Woe Is Me. So, I can appreciate this film on every level, because let's face it; if any film is worth appreciating, it's this one.

Yes, this film provokes -- as any great art should, and does. It is thought-provoking, but it also tests the audience. It tests the patience, and the thinking power, and forces us to see things in a new way, to try to figure out what the characters were dealing with. It's beautiful. Simply brilliant. Also, it's genuinely moving, which is rare amongst films of this ilk. It's almost effortlessly moving, in fact; so good that it feels like Mr. Gallo wasn't even trying. He's just that talented.

I don't even like the guy. He seems like a cocky snob. But he made a great film. Lonely, haunting... one of the most depressing films I've ever seen, actually. I loved it! If you enjoy stuff like Cassavettes, Fassbinder, Kaurismaki, Jon Jost... stuff that isn't simple and easy, and doesn't wrap up everything nicely, you'll probably dig this. Also, loved loved loved the endless driving shots. It felt like I was on a trip somewhere with the character. Driving shots never get old.

Will be looked back as a classic in many years from now.

Some Kind of Odd Genius

[hokeybutt · 7/10 · 5 September 2005]

THE BROWN BUNNY (3+ outta 5 stars) Vincent Gallo is one of the best indie filmmakers out there. He finances his own odd films by doing odd work in other people's odd films. I don't think there has been a movie he's been in that wasn't worth seeing, if only for his intensely offbeat performance. "The Brown Bunny" is about as close to a one-man show as you can get in the collaborative medium of film. Gallo, wrote it, directed it, filmed it, did music for it and acts in it. Yes, it may seem egocentric to have his name flash on the screen twenty times during the credits... but what's he supposed to do... lie and make up phony pseudonyms? This is a short movie (apparently it was a lot longer when it was shown in Cannes and got booed) but it still seems long because of its ultra-slow pacing. Scene after scene of Gallo riding his motorcycle into the distance, standing in doorways, listening to music, coming on to strange women and driving around a city block... all in slow, deliberate detail. None of it really makes much sense until the devastating finale (and by "finale" I mean what is revealed *after* the notorious fellatio scene). I'd love to see what kind of movie Gallo could make if he had a huge budget...

Narcissistic and pedant to the max...

[rainking_es · 2/10 · 19 July 2006]

In the late 90's Vincent Gallo made his debut behind the camera with "Buffalo 66" (he also wrote it and produced it). It was a bittersweet story about two losers that fall in love with each other. It was a kind and so tender. So, I was really looking forward to see Gallo's next project... and let me tell you: WHAT A DISAPPOINTING!! He's suffered sort of an involution: once he was totally honest and now he's totally narcissistic and pedantic. In his second film he shows us Vincent Gallo riding his motorbike, Vincent Gallo getting' a couple of Cokes from a drinks machine, Vincent Gallo crying because the world is too beautiful, Vinczzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

There's no story, there's no script, there's nothing... Nothing to remark except what you all were expecting: that scene in which Chloe Sevigny gives a BJ to Vincent Gallo (of course). Well, Sevigny's skills for porno are improvable. Anyway, if you sit through "The brown bunny" just to watch that scene.. Well, you really need some love in your life!!

*My rate: 2/10

The man loves a mirror...

[xande88 · 1/10 · 21 September 2007]

I see a lot of movies, and I've seen a lot o really bad ones. The worst of them is Oscar material if compared to this film. Never has a filmmaker been so self-indulgent, cool wanna-be, disgustingly megalomaniac, and completely oblivious to an audience -- an audience left to watch a total absence of creativity -- as in this ridiculous attempt at artistic depth and deeper meanings, supposedly hidden behind empty images and badly written lines. Terrible, unforgivable waste of precious celluloid.

Watching a road through a dirty windshield for hours might seem a clever metaphorical statement if you're on crack, or are as delusional as the director, who probably thinks of himself as the greatest film-making entity that ever lived.

Me? Well, those were 90 minutes of my life that I'll never have back and do something useful with -- although I wish I could.

But the truth is that it doesn't matter if a thousand people told you how despicable this movie is -- this is a movie that MUST be seen, otherwise you won't believe someone actually had the bad taste and lack of everything else (including talent and judgment) to make it.

Bunnies Would Even Hop Away from this Mess

[thesar-2 · 1/10 · 2 December 2012]

The Satellite of Love crew would've had a field day. Manos: The Hands of Fate's opening scene stretched amongst about 60 min of film. Wait, there's more! Within the first 2/3s of the film we have the hero do amazing things! He buys gasoline & Chinese food! He drinks coffee! He buys a Coke! He takes a shower! He kisses a complete stranger in a park! But wait! There's more! Most importantly, he drives! And drives and drives. And then…drives some more. Watching someone drive such a distance is like watching someone read for an hour. I have read reviews where people complain nothing happens. I laugh at the movies they pick for these comments? They need to go back to edit their reviews on those movies. This could've been rated G until the finale, a completely unnecessary sexual scene (or two). We get the point; we get to the surprise twist. I watched to the end, every minute of his journey from the East to the West; his loneliness. Yes, I liked the ending, the reason for all the madness but for shock value alone was the graphic closing scenes. I gave it 1.5/5, an additional .5 for the meaning at the end. I'll be kind & save you some time? He is lonely and depressed, he drives and if you can skip to the final 2-3 scenes, you'll understand why & save yourself 1.25 hours of watching one drive to get to the point. I have two side notes: #1 I am a true believer in extras on a DVD, the delete scenes, the making-of, etc, and thank GOD, this had no delete scenes? Boy, anyone could do without extra **exciting** hours of driving from Albuquerque 2 Vegas. And #2, though I love Las Vegas scenes in movies – I'm a gambler, sue me- he would've taken a long detour to go from where he was headed to Sin City. Don't screenplay writers ever research their material, their physical journeys before putting pen to paper? This is a story of one man, his journey and a director's vision of hard porn for about 3 min. Buckle up, it's gonna take you 90 min to get what you rented the film for.

Saw Brown Bunny and heard Vincent Gallo speak in the East Village

[erxnmedia · 13 September 2004]

I was impressed with the movie as an art piece.

I thought he might be pretentious but when he spoke he came off as being a very funny and down-to-earth guy, who happened to be an artist with a film he cared about. He said "Everybody calls me a lazy pretender but I spent all my money and worked 20-hour days for 3 years in a row to make this film.

How lazy is that?"

After the movie he showed Ebert's initial bashing of the film. He and Ebert have since met and he took half an hour off the Cannes version, including a suicide ending, and people (including Ebert) like the film better now -- as an art piece. Gallo said that he is not trying to be an artist as a filmmaker, rather, he understands that the core of cinema is to be entertaining -- hence the cuts. As an entertainer he is trying to tell a story, if he gets it just right, at least one person will be entertained by the story, and then he is done.

He really seemed like an accessible, funny, down-to-earth guy. His screen persona is a projection of his inner demons, but I think he is very much in control of that projection, and doesn't let it infect is day-to-day interactions with people. (At least publicly with people he doesn't know; I don't know what it was like for Chloe Sevigny to be his girlfriend.)

The BJ scene was integral to the film. Sevigny used to be his girlfriend, so it wasn't like he hadn't been there before and was using his director's position to get some action. I've seen worse on the Internet, and nobody makes a big deal about that.

not so bad but not so good

[apavel-1 · 6/10 · 24 March 2004]

Yeah... I was there... Cannes 2003. Gallo and Sevigny showing up in a flood of popping flashbulbs. And yeah, this film is one slow ride. But the vitriol that flowed after was unjust and I couldn't help feeling that if some great European master had made exactly the same movie we'd all be finding elegiac metaphors and existential analogies hidden within the subtext (if there was any text that is!) THAT scene with Sevigny is not exactly worth waiting for and you do leave the theatre with the empty feeling of having just watched a two hour documentary of the wheel revolutions on a racing bike. But there is something that stays with you (not boredom), something contemplative and dare I say, profound. If only it was made by Tarkovsky we'd know what that was.

He's so EDGY man, you should check him out, he makes CINEMA...

[victorboston · 1/10 · 15 March 2011]

Vincent Gallo has a reputation. He makes movies that are for a lack of a better word, different, and as such, they find their way into the thought-o-sphere, where everyone forgets what makes Gallo's movies different, and the uninitiated walk away with the sense that Gallo makes real art that really is worth seeing, It's not. I promise you.

As I have seen Buffalo 66, I was prepared for the badly written dialogue and for the inordinately lengthy shots, suggesting, perhaps, that one can reach nirvana by losing one's self in the contemplation of Vincent Gallo's brooding forehead. What I was not prepared for was the sheer intensity of Mr. Gallo's narcissism. Whatever fundamental truth he may think he is conveying drowns with little more than a pathetic whimper, leaving in it's wake only the understanding that Gallo loves seeing himself on film, and that we should all love seeing him there too.

I get the sense that Gallo thinks he is like Antonioni - a master of capturing mood and the complex emotions of his subjects through minimal dialogue and vivid visual composition. He is not. The effect is that he doesn't know how to write and can't think of where to point his camera.

Oh yeah, and the controversy, the other hook to get college students looking for a cinematic rush to rent this crap from Netflix - if a movie is controversial it must be worth seeing right? Despite the desperate attempts to make the audience connect with his character, and to make sex a potent symbol,the climactic scene has the emotional depth of a cheap porno.

This is a bad movie. In every sense of the word. It is poorly written, ineptly acted, and badly directed. Gallo's only accomplishment is convincing the distributor (and enough of the audience) that it is difficult to watch not because it is bad, but because it is ART.

The Brown Bunny is a radical American masterpiece

[cinefilia · 10/10 · 27 June 2004]

I had heard about the controversy surrounding The Brown Bunny (who hadn't?)--the feud with Roger Ebert, the graphic sex scene--so when I received an invitation to a press screening, I jumped at the chance to see what the trailer calls "the most controversial American film ever made". What the trailer and all the hype didn't prepare me for was the fact that The Brown Bunny could also be considered one of the most original American films ever made. In a time of overblown budgets and enormous productions with endless crew lists, Vincent Gallo has almost single-handedly made a concise, well-thought out, conceptual film--a poignant, touching love story. It's not often that a director's second film is more daring than his first--money, greed and Hollywood power seem too tempting to most and sophomore efforts usually represent the big sell out. Not so The Brown Bunny, not so Gallo the iconoclast. He manages to make a second film more interesting, more intimate, more revealing and more memorable than his first. And he manages to do it outside the system.

Gallo's instincts as a director are spot-on. Not only does he pull from Chloe Sevigny the performance of her career, he also solicits from a cast of complete unknowns and non-actors (including Cheryl Tiegs) painfully believable performances. I have always thought his talents as an actor were underrated, but surely The Brown Bunny will provide him his due as Bud Clay, a motorcycle racer undergoing a breakdown while driving across the country. Simply put, Gallo as Bud is devastating. At one point during the film, I was so tense watching him fall apart that I realized that I had been holding my breath through the entire scene. When you stop to think that he is also directing himself and directing the photography, it's that much more impressive.

I don't know how someone circumvents the Hollywood system to make a movie in this day and age, but it seems that Gallo has not only done that, but done it in a way that is memorable, haunting and visually stunning. This is a truly radical film made by a very courageous filmmaker, someone willing to tell a story, tell it honestly and suffer the consequences of his convictions. Pasolini would be proud.

Pretty good

[behemuthm · 7/10 · 5 September 2004]

I got a chance to see this at the Nuart theater in Santa Monica tonight, and Vincent Gallo was there. I got to briefly talk to him before I went in and watched it, and he was very humble and pleasant. The film itself was pretty good, while I didn't mind long takes, the theater made the experience a bit uncomfortable to sit in silence for long periods of time, perhaps it would be better to watch on DVD. I don't see what all the fuss is about; it's a decent film and I certainly didn't think much of the "infamous" scene--it was part of the story, and it belonged in the film, end of story. After the movie Gallo did a quick Q&A and then showed a clip from Ebert&Roeper where they were trashing the film--good for a quick laugh. Glad he's got a sense of humor. Dunno if you MUST see it in the theater, but I'll get it when it comes out on DVD.

This is probably one of the worse film I have seen in the past 50 years

[vetapublishing · 1/10 · 3 December 2006]

Vincent Gallo According to the credits is a man with many ( probably too many ) talents. While I haven't seen any of his other films, this one lacks a, direction. b, editing c, cinematography d, intelligent script. Vincent Gallo as an actor acts well as a depressed person, but that is all. When he brakes down with his former wife or girlfriend he utters a sound which could be credited to a whingeing cat, but hardly to a man which I suppose he represents. The repetitiousness of the scenes,his portraits in the mirrors show that as a director he admires himself as an actor, but I do not consider this as a positive.

When I watched the first scene for about 15 minutes which is a motor circle race, I thought I put in the wrong DVD about motor cycle racing. I wished that I switched it off at that point. The rest of the film I watched for curiosity only. The sex scene sticks out from the film, like his prick from his trousers. It would fit into a porno film, but not what is considered an art-house film.

Just because there is hardly an intelligent sentence in the script, and luckily there are only a few sentences in the film, it does not make it a work of art. This is probably one of the worse films I have seen in the past 50 years

Andrew Barry

A meditation on Love and Loss...

[hugodanner2002 · 10/10 · 23 September 2005]

'The Brown Bunny' is the kind of independent art film that was always destined to polarise the opinions of critics and audiences alike. Gallo's controversial decision to incorporate a graphic hard-core oral sex scene between him and co-star Chloe Sevigny was interpreted by many as gratuitous and the film's modest pacing and minimalist plot inevitably alienated a large section of mainstream film-goers.

'The Brown Bunny', which was written, directed, edited, produced and photographed by Vincent Gallo, is essentially an existential road movie that departs from traditional modes of narrative filmic communication. The film treads a similar thematic terrain to his directorial debut 'Buffalo 66' in that in both films the central protagonist is struggling to come to terms with certain events that have taken place in his past. However, in this film Gallo dispenses with his uniquely black sense of humour and with any real linear narrative in favour of providing a character study of a man deep in grief; carefully detailing every subtle nuance and trait of his increasingly pathological behaviour.

The journey that Gallo takes us on is an entirely subjective one. Throughout the film, Gallo forces the spectator to scrutinise Bud and his facial expressions in extreme close-ups. We look on as Bud spontaneously breaks down and weeps within the confines of his van. The spectator is made to feel like a voyeur because what we are witnessing seems so personal and private. These extreme close-ups make two things clear: Firstly, Gallo is committed with the Brown Bunny to present Bud's state of mind visually and not by resorting to the traditional Classical Hollywood method of using dialogue or voice-overs. Secondly, they emphasise the impossibility of this task. Ultimately, we cannot tell how Bud is feeling simply by looking into his eyes or observing his facial expressions at close proximity. In this sense, Gallo also seems to be exploring the limits of the filmic image in representing a character's subjective mental state.

Gallo's cinematography is characterised by an abundance of static shots, precise compositions and long takes that are all employed in a methodical manner, creating a slow and rhythmic pace that accurately evokes a pensive atmosphere of romantic grieving. His decision to shoot on Super 16mm film with a non-linear digital blowup to 35mm gives 'the Brown Bunny' the grainy visuals of Independent American cinema of the early seventies.

It is difficult to fault Gallo's eye for aesthetic detail. Beautifully photographed shots of the open road and the picturesque American landscape are accompanied by the wistful and haunting melodies of folk artists like Gordon Lightfoot and Jackson C Frank. These incredibly evocative musical interludes serve to heighten the cathartic experience between the spectator and Bud, encouraging us not only to ponder the provenance of Bud's turmoil but also providing us with an opportunity to reflect on our own lives and loves.

The film's major shortcoming is Gallo's blatant and overstated use of metaphor. We are left in doubt that Bud Clay is the proverbial bunny of the film's title. Gallo's symbolism is at its most contrived in a peculiar scene in which Bud randomly visits a pet store to inquire about the life expectancy of the rabbits. This notion of Bud as the symbolic bunny who only has a short time to live if he cannot re-establish his emotional equilibrium is again overtly reinforced visually through Bud's entire brown apparel in the film's final reel.

The spectator's sense of voyeurism is sustained throughout the film and culminates in the penultimate fellatio fantasy sequence between Bud and Daisy which is beautifully bathed in speckles of blue light. Gallo ingeniously integrates icons of pornography into the narrative, which he then juxtaposes against his protagonist's feelings of insecurity, jealousy and guilt to formulate a scene that is both genuinely disturbing yet emotionally insightful. Far from being erotic or exploitation's, this scene marks Gallo's most significant achievement with 'the Brown Bunny'; a personal study of masculinity, masochism and the male ego. It is Bud's ego that initially leads him to view himself as the victim of the events surrounding Daisy's death by interpreting his pregnant girlfriend's brutal rape as an act of infidelity. His masturbatory fantasy explores the gulf between sex and intimacy in the context of a couple who have had their emotional ties severed. Bud makes a vein attempt to try and recapture the intimacy that he once shared with Daisy through an act of physical gratification. When he cannot find solace in this ritual and realises that it does not satisfy his emotional needs, he is forced to confront his own masculinity and that ultimately places him on another spiritual road to either redemption or suicide. Gallo deliberately leaves the ending wide open through his use of a final memorable freeze-frame.

I admire any man who takes three years out of his life to single-handedly create a movie that he wholeheartedly believes in, no matter what the end result. As anyone in the industry will tell you, it's hard enough to get a terrible film made let alone a truly great one. 'The Brown Bunny' stands up as an undoubtedly brave and ambitious meditation on love and loss that, despite its flaws, retains a remarkably powerful cumulative effect..

contains spoilers: a couple questions about brown bunny

[ths907 · 7/10 · 24 August 2005]

I presume all reading this have seen the movie, which seemed to me to be very "end-loaded," meaning that what happens in the last few minutes completely transforms your perception and understanding of everything that has gone before. I want to ask others if they understood the same thing as me. The oral sex scene takes place entirely in the main character's imagination, right? This is the main character's catharsis in which he confronts his grief over the death of the woman he loved. But was his relationship with the girl entirely imaginary? In the early scene he visits the dead girl's parents, but they have no memory of him, and he speaks fondly of playing together with the girl as children. There is the mysterious element of the brown bunny, which seems to have lived forever. In the flashback fragments after the oral sex scene, while the girlfriend is explaining that she is dead, it seems at first as though the point of contention in the couple is over the fact that she smoked crack when she was pregnant, and so lost the baby. A couple of lines later, however, we discover that the girl herself is dead. During the flashback sequences that accompany and illustrate this discovery, we see the party scene where the rape takes place. We see the main character sort of cluelessly stick his head in the bedroom door to discover that the girl he loves is being raped. At the end of the movie, I am asking myself whether the main character is suffering grief for the death of a woman with whom he actually had a relationship, or whether perhaps he never actually had an adult relationship with this woman, but was living in a fantasy developed out of his boyhood love for the girl next door? Another question: the first brief bit of soundtrack music in the movie (not the motorcycle race sound) comes, I could swear, from a Pasolini movie, but I cannot remember which one. Can anyone else?

Written, directed and produced by an unworthy ponce.

[joker_greenhouse · 1/10 · 12 December 2008]

This movie is an insult to anyone passionate about the art of a good film (basically because it's trying to be art house). If I could compare this to other trash house art, it would be the equivalent of Tracey Emin's 'unmade bed' (or the tent she erected in the Tate, plastered the names of ex-lovers inside, then conned the mindless audience that it's art) on show in the Tate gallery for X amount of pounds.

I have had no training in making a movie, but I would lay my life down (!) on saying that I could definitely knock up a better story, script it out.. and shoot the thing with more talent, than I see on display here. I honestly don't know how someone can have the balls to screen this, and proudly lay claim to it's entire development? The infamous scene with Chloe Sevigny, only left me feeling sorry for the girl, and that wasn't how I thought I would feel.. being a typical male (knowing what was coming). This wasn't due to a clever script.. like I was sorry for her character or something. No, I feel sorry for her as someone who's obviously had this conned into her ear that it's art. It's just badly fed ego crap. Don't bother.