Wednesday, May 13

Glen and Randa (1971)


Directed by Jim McBride
94 Minutes / United Home Video / Unmatted Full Frame

A group of a people carve out an existence in barren terrain after an apocalyptic nuclear catastrophe long prior. Among them a young couple, Glen and Randa, who sent off to find the city spurred by Glen's fascination with Metropolis from an old Wonder Woman comic. After weeks of aimlessly wandering through discovery, the two come upon an old fishermen who hasn't seen anyone in over twenty years. Together they survive, ponder about the city, and aid in Randa's expected childbirth.

Certainly a strange trip, like a Quest for Fire for the love generation. The film's sequences are segmented by fade transitions. This gives the impression of small vignettes working as satire for topics such as innocence, pregnancy, abortion, savagery, consumerism, and pollution. The nuclear backstory is never given and doesn't seem important to any of the characters. The time of the disaster is also a mystery with the older characters baffled by simple things like seaweed and harmonicas. From this you get the eerie impression that once the purpose of a common thing is forgotten by the last person to know it's forever lost. The few featured actors convey all of this with much soul-barring and are absolutely fearless in the intimacy their roles demand. Curiously, the character of Magician, a traveling pitchman of "future" wears such as blenders, is like a left-field precursor to Christopher Lloyd's eccentric Doc Brown from the Back to the Future series.

At the same time, the pace is rather slow and it's best to enter in cautiously. No one should grant this an automatic purchase, but if you're interested in a surrealist and "quiet" take on the post apocalyptic subgenre, it's worth a look sometime down the road.

Film: 4.5/10
VHS Picture: 5/10
VHS Sound: 5/10

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