Max Prepare Directs Quirky Bicycle Thief Comedy

Not since Bicycle Thieves has a movie centered so determinedly on the theft of a motorbike as James, receiving its world premiere on the Oldenburg Movie Pageant. Which isn’t to recommend Max Prepare’s eccentric new comedy has a lot in frequent with Vittorio De Sica’s 1948 neorealist traditional, except for equally being shot in black and white. The type of image for which the time period “quirky” may have been invented, it bears rather more similarity to the early works of Jim Jarmusch, particularly in its deadpan model. Most likely greatest appreciated at a midnight screening after a couple of drinks, the Canadian indie is one more instance of the competition discovering a small-scale gem.

The film begins with the hard-drinking title character (Dylan Beatch, who co-wrote the screenplay with Prepare) being violently arrested after which recounting his story to a detective who desires to know why he has dedicated so many crimes in opposition to a single particular person. Lower to the story’s starting, with the down-on-his-luck, nihilistic James being dumped by his girlfriend due to his anger points. Dwelling in a single room with a mattress on the ground in a church-run shelter, he can’t even go for an inexpensive meal in a noodle restaurant with out almost getting a finger reduce off by the Japanese cooks he offends.

James’ life modifications when he discovers a part of a bicycle’s steel body within the trash and, after scavenging different items, assembles a motorbike which he makes use of to get a job as a courier. Every little thing appears to go high quality for him for some time till he delivers a bundle to a butcher store. Its exotically named proprietor, Valentin DeWolfe (James Cowley), is an obsessive collector who instantly acknowledges the body of James’ bike as an especially uncommon one created by an Italian designer within the Nineteen Forties. After his supply to buy it for an outlandish value is rebuffed, he hires a pair of petty crooks to steal it. Thus begins James’ journey by way of the underbelly of Vancouver to retrieve his trip and stop himself from falling again right into a downward spiral.

It’s slight stuff, to make sure, and never the entire minimalist humor lands. A few of the jokes, such because the largely unintelligible dialogue of the closely accented Irish bike thieves, go on gone their expiration date. The episodic storyline, which incorporates James’ encounters with a mysterious Japanese girl (Yumi Nagashima, wonderful) who’s additionally in pursuit of the bike, meanders greater than it ought to, making the movie really feel longer than its comparatively transient operating time.

Regardless of its flaws, James — the film, not essentially the character — proves a low-key, eccentric charmer, at occasions resembling a classic silent comedy in its visible humor and central determine who stumbles by way of life like a modern-day Buster Keaton. And even with its clearly minor finances, the impressionistic debut characteristic feels extraordinarily polished, with a folk- and blues-infused rating (Danny Eberhardt, Sally Jorgensen and Max Prepare are credited with the music) contributing significantly to its offbeat temper.

The wiry Beatch carries the movie ably, discovering the darkish humor in his protagonist whereas resisting the urge to play on the viewers’s sympathy, and Paulina Munoz delivers a sterling supporting flip because the collector’s sister who finds herself sympathetic to James’ plight.