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Graffiti Artist, The
Other // Unrated // May 3, 2005
List Price: $30.00 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
Award winning writer/director James Bolton dives into the wee hours of the night, with his latest work, The Graffiti Artist. Following a lone tagger named Nick, we watch him as a silent observer as he slinks through the night leaving his tag, "Rupture" on the city. Because the main character Nick, played by Ruben Bansie-Snellman, does his work solo and at night, the entire mood of the film works around his solitary desire to be a hidden artist.
While out during the day, Nick catches a glimpse of another writer while at a skate park, and follows him to learn his tag. Through a chance encounter almost a third of the way through the film, the first real lines of dialog are spoken and Nick and this other writer, Jesse (Pepper Fajans), become instant friends bonded by their dedication to the art of graffiti.
Jesse lives a different life, he has a stable bed, he can afford to buy food and his painting supplies, while Nick steals what he needs and sleeps when and where the need strikes. Jesse takes Nick under his wing, gives him a place to sleep, food and even buys a new skateboard for Nick. As their bond grows, they develop a relationship that builds to a point where they do what they are desiring, which ends up backfiring and the boys lose touch.
Some touching scenes are then played with Nick leaving tags around the city asking where Jesse is, and he flips endlessly through books of art that Jesse left behind. What starts out as a tale of a loner living his life, slowly becomes the tale of friendship that transforms to love, and then self-destructs.
The DVD:
How's it look:
The Graffiti Artist preserves it's theatrical run aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The quality is quite high on the print as a whole. Because the movie takes place at predominantly at night, it's quite dark a lot of the time, but no graininess was noticed. When colors were used, they were sharp and contrasted nicely with the overall dark look of the feature.
How's it Sound:
Two audio options are here, a 5.1 surround and a stereo option. Because it's such a silent movie for a very large portion, the ambient sounds are used to fill in the sound. You'll hear skateboards rolling over cobbled streets, the shake of a paint can and the low rumbling of trains in the train yard all very crisp and clear.
Extras:
Text biographies are here for Director James Bolton, Director of Photography Sarah Levy, editor Elizabeth Edwards, composer Kid Loco and the two leads. A gallery of stills from the production of the movie, and two short interviews, one with Bolton and the other with Bansie-Snellman are also here.
Closing:
I wasn't terribly impressed with the movie itself, I found it lacking a direction, and the plot advancement was slow. It was almost as if we were watching a tagger go through his day, but if that was the intent it could have been better achieved it was made pseudo-documentary style instead of as a 80 minute movie. I have to say that you can safely skip this movie without missing too much.
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