Fall and Spring

By DENNIS HARVEY

An Anytown, Anywhere Prods. presentation. Produced by Scott Sampila. Directed, written by Steven Sobel.
 

Amerindie Gen X drama "Fall and Spring" impresses most in its resourceful, if not ultimately successful, efforts to technically rise above low budget. What it lacks, however, is the one thing that needn't cost a cent: a story that's worth telling. Pic will serve best as calling card for young helmer Steven Sobel.

Script was improvised during shoot, a risky move whose pitfalls are fully displayed onscreen. Present-day action reunites 20-ish Dillard Cadix (Jason Cottle) and Chet Blume (Michael Healey) in their smallish, generic hometown "anytown." (Exteriors were shot in Oregon, other scenes in Sobel's UC Santa Barbara base, using student talent.)

Dillard's rock band is on the verge of breaking. But he's combative, irrational and self-destructive in dealings with the L.A. recording industry scout (Mark Theodorff) who wants to assure their success. Collegian Chet is morose in wake of his parents' recent death in an "accident," though this last element is scarcely explained or developed.

Neither are subsidiary characters, which include Dillard's pregnant ex-g.f. Tanya (Nicole Von Reisen). Much time is eaten up by flashbacks to the protags' childhood friendship: Reckless Dillard was raised by an alcoholic dad and abusive stepmom. After former died, Chet's folks took Dillard in, but threw him out when the youth seemed unmanageable.

This crucial info comes very late, in superficial form. Meanwhile, there's lots of hanging-out footage, notably in local clubs where D.'s band plays. Sound recording isn't good enough to convey desired electricity of their live alternative-rock performances. In the end, Dillard screws up his chance for the Big Time, while Chet has settled into relationship with expectant Tanya.

Character depths are nonexistent, story progress often stultifying. Humor rarely surfaces, save one funny sequence in which an incredulous junior high-schooler selling magazines door-to-door stumbles upon the bong-toking musicians. Sum effect soon grows ponderous, limning a partying scene no more elevated than the one definitively satirized in "Dazed and Confused" sans that pic's ironic distance.

Thirty-plus hours of footage shot evidently couldn't be edited into a sustainable narrative, with little aud interest to be won from either obnoxious Dillard or dullish Chet. Still, Sobel gets an A for filmic effort. Use of slo-mo , quick-cutting, dissolves, layered images, pans, etc., suggest pro aspirations, even if the grainy 16 mm lensing undercuts his nods toward both '60s-style experimentalism and studio-aping gloss.

Dialogue recording is variable, perfs ditto.

Camera (color/B&W, 16 mm), Brent Meeske; editor, Eric Archer; music, Brandon Beckner; production design, Michael Reinis; sound, Sobel, Beckner. Reviewed at Sequoia 1, Mill Valley, Oct. 13, 1996. (In Mill Valley Film Festival.) Running time: 96 MIN.
 

With: Jason Cottle, Michael Healey, Beth Kitchen, Nicole Von Reisen, Mark Theodorff, Andrew Pawlek, Roxy Morganstern, Dennis Manz.