LOS ANGELES TIMES, Oct., 30, 1998

 

Inside/Out' Is Compelling Look at Reaching Out

 

By KEVIN THOMAS

 
Writer-director-cinematographer-editor Rob Tregenza trusts in the purely visual
power of the camera and is equally unafraid to place the utmost demands on his
viewers. And he rewards the patient with his compelling "Inside/Out," which takes
us into a derelict, only partly inhabited mental institution in some rural, wintry
setting, somewhere in the eastern U.S.--judging by the cars, the time looks to be the late
'50s or early '60s.
     Right from the start Tregenza makes it clear that he's interested in images rather than
words. His camera picks up a man and a woman running across a field only to be turned
back by the chance appearance of a group of hunters on horseback surrounded by a pack of
hunting dogs.
     Swiftly, the young woman, Monica (Berangere Allaux), is grabbed by two men and
placed in a pickup truck, which we follow to that mental institution, a sizable compound of
red brick buildings that has the look of a typical small college campus.
     What ensues is a kind of slow, erratic dance of life in which people reach out to one
another fleetingly, sometimes in kindness, occasionally in confusion and anger, only to
withdraw. The inmates, who are not generally mistreated by nurses and guards, do little but
wander around aimlessly, occasionally experiencing moments of pleasure, rage and fear.
     Gradually, we come to identify various individuals: an Episcopal priest (Tom Gilroy)
who presides over the institution's chapel; his elegant organist (Stefania Rocca) who rejects
the priest's advances but is ultimately drawn to Monica, who in turn is drawn to
good-looking French painter Jean (Frederic Pierrot), who in turn is followed around by a
mute man, Roger (Steven Watkins), a jazz trumpeter.
     Brief skirmishes, the occasional fragment of a conversation or interview, everyday
incidents, more than a few cryptic events, even a stab at a party for the inmates, soothed for
the moment by the gentle music of a harpist, interrupt but never really break the film's
constant sense of flow, of people connecting and disconnecting, from one another and
maybe themselves as well.
     Conventional insane asylum movies love to pose the question of who's really mad,
the keeper or the kept, but thankfully Tregenza has something else in mind, which is to
quietly invite us to see ourselves in these people in all their longings, their endless reaching
out and retreating. By the time "Inside/Out" is over its metaphorical impact resounds but
with the power of silence, not noise.
     * Unrated. Times guidelines: The film's style and themes are decidedly adult. Some
brief violence.
 
     'Inside/Out'
     Berangere Allaux: Monica
     Frederic Perriot: Jean
     Stefania Rocca: Grace, the Organist
     Tom Gilroy: The Priest
     A Cinema Parallel presentation of a Parallel Pictures and Baltimore Film Factory
production. Writer-director-cinematographer Rob Tregenza. Producers J.K. Eareckson and
Tom Garvin. Lighting director Arthur Eng. Harp music arranged and performed by
Eareckson Mary Tregenza. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.
     * Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex, 345 S. Figueroa St., downtown Los Angeles,
(213) 617-0268.