Director: Pablo D’Stair
MPAA Rating: NR
Writer-director Pablo D’Stair is back with his third film, Hully Gully, and if you’ve seen either of his other two features, A Public Ransom or Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief, you’ll find yourself in familiar waters here. Like those two, Hully Gully is comprised mainly of two actors, Helen Bonaparte and Carlyle Edwards, who are a couple having a series of seemingly meaningless conversations about life and love while chain-smoking their lives away.
Director D’Stair has a knack for making small films that challenge his audience by giving them as little to work with as possible, breaking down the film into nothing more than static black-and-white shots of two people having a dull, sometimes inaudible conversations. The interesting thing is, he does so with a very specific style and framing method that I’ve grown to appreciate over his last three features. Most people, however, will have a tough time making it through this one, even at a brisk 54 minutes, due to the difficult dialogue and lack of a cohesive narrative or any camera movement.
This time around, D’Stair sets the conversations to music, which helps bring the energy up a smidge from his prior work, and the selections are surprisingly relevant to what’s happening in the film. However, the lack of sound mixing becomes problematic when sometimes the music overpowers the dialogue, which is already difficult to decipher.
Helen Bonaparte and Carlyle Edwards are still acting as if they’re performing in a local dinner theater, and Edwards is putting on some kind of Cockney accent for some reason, which is absolutely painful at times and completely unnecessary.
With this film, D’Stair seemingly wants to convey the conversations real-life couples have and to explore the more mundane aspects of being in a relationship, but I suspect there’s a reason why this isn’t reflected more in modern cinema – it’s uninteresting. The hazy, static, smoke-filled, black-and-white cinematography combined with two uninteresting characters having a series of disjointed and dull conversations about nothing is just not compelling cinema.
Hully Gully is not an easy film to get through unless you are already a fan of this director’s previous efforts. It seems as though D’Stair has an insatiable hunger when it comes to filmmaking, always working on the next thing and honing his craft. It’s a good trait to have and I admire his drive, but unfortunately, this one missed the mark.
Take a look below for the full version of the film via Vimeo.
HULLY GULLY a new American romance from Pablo D'Stair on Vimeo.
