TALKING TO STRANGERS

Director: Rob Tregenza

USA, 1987, 90 mins

REVIEW BY PIERS HANDLING

THE 1988 TORONTO INT. FILM FESTIVAL

"Rob Tregenza's feature debut fearlessly throws down the gauntlet, daring everyone who sees it to raise to the challenge it poses. Composed of nine ten minute unedited shots, we are shown slivers from the life of a young wandering artist named Jessie, who is the only constant in each scene. Image the traffic accident scene from Godard's Weekend, or the supermarket scene from Tout va bien, and you will have some idea of what Tregenza has served up for his entire film. Audacious as playful, the film subverts the conventions of the medium and forces us to reexamine our notions of narrative construction. Tregenza has not forgotten the challenges posed by a medium that too often has ignores its own formal potential. John Powers of the LA WEEKLY referred to it as a film that wowed almost everybody that saw it, and Dave Kehr of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE described it as "an astounding formal tour de force and a film of often troubling emotional density." The opening and closing sequences are wordless, the intervening sections are anything but, and the entire film creates an evocative and rich tapestry of the life of a somewhat pretentious and self centered young man. As Jessie wanders from soup kitchen to confessional, from the arms of a one night stand to an encounter with young thugs, his distance from the world is accentuated by Tregenza's elaborate, precise camera.

PIERS HANDLING 1998

Piers Handling's review of THE ARC

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PRODUCTION DATA

Production Company: Baltimore Film Factory

Producers: Rob Tregenza and JK Eareckson

Screenplay: Rob Tregenza

Cinematography: Rob Tregenza

Principal cast: Ken Gruz, Dennis Jordan, Marvin Hunter

Caron Tate, Henry Strozier, Brian Constantini