Dir. Marc Lafia
2001 | USA | 35mm | 84:00 | Color | English

Principal Cast: Bruce Ramsay, Juliana Hatfield, and Tanya Von Beauvier

Seeking refuge in the seedy Marathon Hotel, Hilbert (Bruce Ramsay), isolates himself with only a suitcase full of books and home movies. Lying in the darkness of the room, he watches and listens to the rhythm of a small 8 mm projector. Images from his childhood flicker on a bed sheet, tacked onto the lured green walls -- his tenth birthday party where he was the only child – the time his mother slapped him and his father refused to come to his aid. Left alone to confront the dark memories of his youth Hilbert struggles to reconcile his troubled relationship with his parents. As he retreats further and further into self-reflection, his confusion and desires begin to take on distorted proportions. Hilbert’s sense of self begins to unravel. Forced to reevaluate himself on the heels of his father’s heart attack, he becomes torn between the possibilities of the future and the ties of his past. His life quickly loses coherence as he rejects his successful advertising career, his friends, and Susan, his loving girlfriend. As his tenuous grasp on reality begins to slip he discovers something within. Something previously unexplored. There begins Hilbert’s journey into the stained underworlds of drugs, booze, bathroom sex, and San Francisco’s avant-garde art scene. In his directorial debut, Marc Lafia weaves a rich visual fabric to create an emotional texture that is sensual and sophisticated. Provocative cinematography, romantic ethos, and a poetic juxtaposition of flashback sequences with voice create an unsparing portrait of a young man breaking free from his programmed self. Slowly descending through society’s rigid expectation into various textured underworlds, it is a story of transgression, exposing the complex relationships between memory, fear, and desire.

“In my solitude I become close to being all love. All devotion.”

In Competition: New Directors Showcase