Bunnay Hop
DVD review, August08 August 21st, 2008DVD Review By Shamrock McShane, August 2008
When Frog, the avant-garde filmmaker, takes his camera into the Gainesville night our staid little college town takes on a subterranean aspect unseen by normal folk.
With the performance artist Tom Miller immersing himself in the persona of Bunnay, the provocative rock diva, we are in for a strange trip indeed. Never mind that, we don’t actually get anywhere, what happens in the car is worth the ride.
There is a touch of the Cubanito about the sultry Bunnay, pouty -lipped and raven-locked behind deco sunglasses, as she decks herself for a culture clash downtown, a pentagram disturbingly tattooed on her bare chest. What happens outside The Backstage Lounge, inside the car mostly, borrows eclectically from Andy Warhol, John Waters, Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski. It is the Group Theater of Cruelty cast party, including not only the willfully petulant Bunnay, but also the fetching Pussycatt, and a giant rabbit, perplexingly called Dog.
The farthest borders of taste are trampled and left to die as Bunnay assaults the powers that be behind the omission of Bunnay’s name from the marquee at the venue where she would perform. The images are grainy, hand-held, one-take, documentary interaction between the ensemble and real Gainesville nightlife.
“Somebody represent me,” Bunnay orders her entourage, “I don’t talk to anybody.” Haughtily refusing to perform, Bunnay sips at her shaved ice, gin, and Skittles, chastising the scene-stealing Pussycatt, “Now you’re talking too much.”
Nothing but confrontation will satisfy Frog, the filmmaker who has been rubbing the town’s face in the dirt for a decade with performance art that challenges description, warping a classical musical background into a post-modern mess. Here the citizenry itself rises up, rocks the Bunnay limo, and threatens to riot.
It matters not. “I am Bunnay!” the venomous vixen returns. “No one can know Bunnay because Bunnay is too good to know – like a deity!”
Bunnay - The Movie, a VideoFilm by Frog. Cinematographer: Marc Borkan
Bunnay – The Movie premieres at Common Grounds on Aug. 12 at 9 pm with an introduction by Frog. Free cover and popcorn.
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Bunnay Hop
DVD review, August08 August 21st, 2008DVD Review By Shamrock McShane, August 2008
When Frog, the avant-garde filmmaker, takes his camera into the Gainesville night our staid little college town takes on a subterranean aspect unseen by normal folk.
With the performance artist Tom Miller immersing himself in the persona of Bunnay, the provocative rock diva, we are in for a strange trip indeed. Never mind that, we don’t actually get anywhere, what happens in the car is worth the ride.
There is a touch of the Cubanito about the sultry Bunnay, pouty -lipped and raven-locked behind deco sunglasses, as she decks herself for a culture clash downtown, a pentagram disturbingly tattooed on her bare chest. What happens outside The Backstage Lounge, inside the car mostly, borrows eclectically from Andy Warhol, John Waters, Antonin Artaud and Jerzy Grotowski. It is the Group Theater of Cruelty cast party, including not only the willfully petulant Bunnay, but also the fetching Pussycatt, and a giant rabbit, perplexingly called Dog.
The farthest borders of taste are trampled and left to die as Bunnay assaults the powers that be behind the omission of Bunnay’s name from the marquee at the venue where she would perform. The images are grainy, hand-held, one-take, documentary interaction between the ensemble and real Gainesville nightlife.
“Somebody represent me,” Bunnay orders her entourage, “I don’t talk to anybody.” Haughtily refusing to perform, Bunnay sips at her shaved ice, gin, and Skittles, chastising the scene-stealing Pussycatt, “Now you’re talking too much.”
Nothing but confrontation will satisfy Frog, the filmmaker who has been rubbing the town’s face in the dirt for a decade with performance art that challenges description, warping a classical musical background into a post-modern mess. Here the citizenry itself rises up, rocks the Bunnay limo, and threatens to riot.
It matters not. “I am Bunnay!” the venomous vixen returns. “No one can know Bunnay because Bunnay is too good to know – like a deity!”
Bunnay - The Movie, a VideoFilm by Frog. Cinematographer: Marc Borkan
Bunnay – The Movie premieres at Common Grounds on Aug. 12 at 9 pm with an introduction by Frog. Free cover and popcorn.
