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By Erich Kuersten
From the box art you may be tempted to pass this one off as one of the endless Zalman King-style infidelity and revenge sex
flicks that are the new version of the old drive inn filler. But this is good stuff, actually, something fans of Jane Campion’s
The Piano will like better than either her Holy Smoke or In the Cut. Newcomer director Zev Berman and
newcomer screenwriter Deborah Pryor have conjured up a mystical swamp environment that augments what amounts to nothing less
than a genuine psychosexual feminist fairy tale, the type where the frog suitor of the imprisoned princess shows no signs
of ever being a prince, but if she looks at her chains the right way they sparkle like jewels and a beautiful castle lies
hidden in the dirt and squalor of her prison. Dominique Swain stars as Inez MacBeth (yeah, there’s Shakespeare connotations),
the desirable young bride of local loser Edgar (Henry Thomas, aka little Elliot from E.T.) whose friend the creepy
Flowers (Arie Verveen) is infatuated with her, even stealing her flip flops for god knows what kinky purpose. Karen Allen
is great as the “witch” who lives in a big house down the way, who predicts Inez’s true love will soon ride
to her rescue. Inez assumes she means her pale, rich boy in town (James Urbaniak) who looks vaguely like a marionette just
waiting for someone with the raw humanity of Inez to turn him into a human. What follows involves murder, desire, suspicion
and double-crossing, but what makes it succeed is all that groovy archetypal mythic resonance, ala the female’s journey
to adulthood, which one hardly finds in films these days, not since The Piano anyway. There’s lots of that good
old southern fried gothic po’ poetical dialogue, and symbolic metaphors like blindness, chains, and headless chickens.
Thankfully, visionary directors and writers like Berman and Pryor are finally starting to realize these low budget sex pot
indies can be used as more than just wastes of drunken late night cable viewers’ time. They take a typical swamp and
cut off shorts exploitation set up ala Gator Bait, Poor White Trash, or Mudhoney, and then go off the
deep end with it, into Kentucky-Freud Gothic grandeur. There’s a great, scraping viola and cello score by Nathan Barr,
and dark, steamy cinematography by Scott Keven, both of whom worked, along with Verveen, on that last great entry in the redneck
genre, Cabin Fever (2002). Keven doesn’t waste any chance to capture muted swampy sunlight trying to break through
the filthy windows of these muddy shacks. The performances are all wonderful, especially Verveen’s, who manages to be
believable while being simultaneously dirty, poetic, sneaky, charming, and oh so creepy as he woos Inez with lines like: “I
wanna see what you look like when you grow old. Is you gonna grow gray or what?” Swain’s untamed Lolita-like
energy makes her a believable force of girl nature, running around in her cut off shorts (nowhere near as short as Daisy Duke’s,
alas) and cut up, dirty legs, or a filthy summer frock. The big bow should probably go to Thomas though, as Edgar he manages
to give one of the best abusive husband performances ever. His rage is shocking to himself, and deluded attempts to try and
forgive or justify his own actions come off as false even to him, driving him further into a spiral of rage and self-hatred
projected in all directions. Sexy, brutal, funny, well-paced, well written, and turned into something truly mythic and magical
thanks to a great writing, moody score and cinematography, Plain Dirty is one of the reasons why taking risks on the straight
to video shelves sometimes pays off. It did make the film festival rounds (premiering at Slamdance) with the artsier title
of Briar Patch, but its distributor, Screen Media Ventures, obviously didn’t have much faith in it for widescreen
release. Oh well, you should, and Jane Campion should take a lesson. The DVD includes an audio commentary track and the 26
minute short film made by the director and screenwriter prior to this, with a similar mood, locale, and grim fairy tale resonance
(it’s also pretty great) called Angelmaker (1998). Let’s hope word gets around about this easy-to-dismiss-based-on-the-box-art
gem, and that Berman and Pryor are able to continue their association for a long and richly textured while.
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