Ebert Inside/Out

INSIDE/OUT

** 1/2 (Not rated)

January 15, 1999

BY ROGER EBERT

It happens that within two days I've seen a 52-minute film that seemed bursting with content, and

now a 115-minute film that inspires admiration, but also restlessness. The shorter film (``See the

Sea''), played just long enough to deliver its horrifying punch line. The longer one (``Inside/Out'') has

no punch line, and indeed not much of a plot; it's about the arid passage of time in a mental

hospital. A director approaching such a subject can either suggest the emptiness and ennui, or attempt

to reproduce it. Rob Tregenza, who wrote, directed, photographed and edited ``Inside/Out,'' chooses

the second approach.

His film takes place in the late 1950s, in a cold and lifeless autumn or early spring, in a mental

hospital of whitewashed walls and barren interiors. The institution isn't on the cutting edge of

treatment; it's more like a holding cell for patients, a waiting room before death. The patients wander

the grounds, sometimes try to run away, line up for their pills, are angry or morose, mill about

aimlessly at a dance, attend religious services and stand stock still as if lost in thought.

Their actions are watched by Tregenza on the Cinemascope screen, the widest gauge available. The

film covers an enormous expense of screen, and is often photographed in long shots, so that the

characters seem isolated within vast empty spaces. In one sequence two men shoot some baskets

(one is complete uninvolved), and in the background there is a man dressed in black who simply

stands, swaying slightly, the whole time.

One point of the wide screen may be to emphasize how little contact these people have with one

another. They're looked over by nuns (Episcopalian, I gather), who give them their pills, issue

instructions (``No sitting on the tables!'') and enforce standards (a female character undresses and

tries to snuggle up to another inmate, only to be yanked away by a nun hissing, ``You little

whore!''). The lives of the people on the screen--patients and caretakers--seem bereft of happiness.

Dialogue is heard only in snatches. There are no word-driven relationships. Visuals make the point.

The institution's priest works in a plain little chapel that reminded me of the church in Bergman's

``Winter Light,'' in the feeling that it was a place little frequented by God.

Some of the scenes have the same kind of deadpan visual punning we find, in another tone, in the

films of Jacques Tati. Two men struggle on a train track, and we hear the whistle and roar of the

approaching train--which arrives, passes and disappears, invisibly. In an opening shot, two patients

run across the crest of a hill, we hear dogs barking, and they reappear chased by the dogs--and by

figures on horseback. It is a hunt.

Tregenza's handling of a ``party'' scene makes full use of his wide-screen camera. In a barren,

low-ceilinged room, too big for the people in it, volunteers arrange clusters of balloons. Crepe paper

hangs thinly from beams. An inept rock band sets up. Patients mill about endlessly (one darts across

screen and up some stairs). The band starts playing, accompanied by a patient who rhythmically

bangs a folding chair open and closed. Finally, incongruously, a harpist begins to play, and the

camera circles the room, which is stilled by the quiet music.

I admired ``Inside/Out'' in its moments, in individual scenes. I would recommend the party scene to

film students, who could learn from it. But I was kept outside the film by the distanced, closed-off

characters. That's the idea, I know--but Tregenza succeeds all too well with it. Seeing the movie is

like paying dues to his vision. We are witnesses that he accomplished what he set out to do. He does

it in his own time and space. He's as little interested in us as his characters would be. We're like

guests on visiting day, sitting restlessly on chairs along the side of the room. If anyone asked us,

we'd say we were having a good time. But we're thinking restlessly of how long we have to stay,

and where we can go next.

Monica: Berangere Allaux

Priest: Tom Gilroy

Organist: Stefania Rocca

Jean: Frederic Pierrot

Roger: Steven Watkin

Written and directed by Rob Tregenza. Running time:

115 minutes. No MPAA rating (adult themes,

some nudity and sexuality).