So, how does one go about making a short crime film that pops, seems original, non-derivative—actually seems like a piece of cinema to be genuinely experienced, not just a jaunt through tropes and empty stylization?  Don’t get me wrong—even the trope-iest crime short (or feature) can be fine and dandy while, by that same token, films that strain to “subvert convention” (often by such overt-stylization they almost efface themselves by their ends) can be dreadful. So how does one, in a short, remove themselves from mere exercise, mere “this is my version of what everyone does”—at best homage, at worst sub-par regurgitation?

Well—writer/director Salvatore Castellana seems to have a keen grasp of how with FISH HEADS, a short I had the pleasure of encountering while in competition at the Viewster Online Film Fest 3. Indeed, the film is a mini-Master Class in not just how to do pulp crime well and uniquely, but how to do indie-cinema without being beholden to the status-quo (or worse, the lowest-common-denominator, as so much indie film skirts, even with the best of intentions to do otherwise).

To begin: the script is genuine—harkening to the true spirt of French-New Wave more than the bastardized, repackaged contemporary hodge-podge that shares the root (or pays lip-service to it, at any rate).  The script has an artfulness that at once takes itself quite seriously (it, you know, wants to be a good piece of cinema, first and foremost, an “audience pleaser” second) and yet with a freeform giddiness that does not (as with its seriousness) become “in service” to the notion of soliciting the general popularity. That is: it is a film that respects the audience by being precisely what it is, not what it figures will be liked: its rhythms, its humor, its shocks, its structure, better or worse. The writing has a palpable energy from this earnestness that pulls the audience right along, giddy in the same measure (or, pulled me along in that fashion, anyway).

It doesn’t hurt either that the film’s visual style is far from being either a subdued “Tarantino riff” or a frenetic “Ritchie imitation” (the modern “go-tos” for edgy/indie crime, even as these sources become quite dated) but has more in common with Man Bites Dog or the original short film of Bottle Rocket, has a Goddard-ian slick that is a rough-hewn as it is precise.

Add in a leading man (the entire cast is pitch perfect, let me say, and beautifully “non-actor” seeming, making the gravity and presence of each role hit in a genuine, non “character-type on display” sort of way, this in turn allowing the glissando of the film to work all the smoother, the leads performance aided and magnified due to the ensemble) who is equal parts Tom Jane (circa Last Time I Committed Suicide) James van der Beek (from Rules of Attraction, is what I mean there, so I am clear) with a dose of Ed Norton’s Everyman and Justin Timberlake’s charisma and the film can do little wrong. Indeed, Alex Cendron’s performance, moving without missing a beat from assured mile-a-minute dialogue delivered with staccato musicality to subdued, wordless menace (mingled with quiet charm) is so good the film could be shit otherwise and still be fantastic.

Then there is the overall styling of the cinema: the crime is secondary to the “feeling of crime” the specifics are an aside to the “sensation of pulp”.  Yes, we get enough to understand all we need to understand and avoid that awful, forced “gravitas” so many noir/crime pieces (both ones of humor and ones of earnestness) just cannot get away from. Now ,let me stress, the script does not drift so far off it becomes cotton candy pulp, a la Soderberg’s Ocean’s films (in fact, it is kind of “if Soderberg had done an Ocean’s piece but mixed in more of the grittiness of The Underneath, as long as I’m playing comparisons) it’s not funny where it is funny because it plays for cute—its funny because crime is funny, ugly is funny, the gallows are funny. The script makes each beat work, the execution of the by way of the mingling of excellent cinematography, performance, and musical score leaves one (or me, anyway) feeling indicted just enough to have deeply enjoyed the grimy kick of the ride along without any sort of moralizing or (as is so in vogue these days) ennui laden nihilistic bullshit.

Crime is fun—everyone knows it—and the fun is in the unexpected, the upending of a world. The tinier the rock one turns over to find bugs under, the more fascinating—Fish Heads picking up just the prettiest but most commonplace stone and finding a real squirmy little bugger under there to both recoil from and squint down at, big grin on ones face.  Highly, highly recommended–and the film can be found in full at its site, here: FISH HEADS.

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