What Is It?

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I saw "What Is It?" last night, and met the director, Mr. Crispin Glover. What a cool guy. Here's what the movie is about. Our protagonist is a fellow with Down Syndrome. He likes talking to snails. They are his friends. One day this snail whispers to him. The things it says freak our Down Syndrome main character out. He doesn't know how to take it. Eventually he reacts by smashing the snaily. Immediately he regrets his actions. In a tender, heart shattering scene, he dismally tries to piece together the dead snail's broken bits of shell, to no avail. This is when another snail shows up and hisses in a whisper "Where is our friend"?, and our protagonist won't answer, too ashamed of his murderous act, and too afraid of the other snail to admit it. He leaves the house just as the snail discovers the smashed, slain body of its friend. The piercing screams of the snail are mind numbingly sharp and harrowing, and our hero must slam the door in the face of that sound. He ends up locking himself outside. Since he can't get back into the house, he takes off on an adventure in search of his roommates, who have the key. Thus begins one of the most bizarre odysseys captured on celluloid. There is a surreal underlandscape wherein Crispin portrays a long haired cacodaemon sitting atop a stone throne, overseeing various down syndrome female attendants. He symbolizes an inner aspect of our upland Down Syndrome friend; the way he sees his inner self. There are freaky monkey masked women crawling around down there, in and out of craters, collecting watermelons which later prove to be symbolic extensions of aboveland person's heads. There is one extended scene of a monkey woman masturbating an ugly man while he rests naked in a clamshell. Yet he never gets an erection, a slight indication that this underworld might be an aspect of Hell. There is a minstrel in blackface who is there to serve the cacodaemon. This minstrel is constantly injecting snail enzymes into his cheek in an effort to wholly transform himself into an invertebrate. He muses on this dream of his of letting his human shape go, to become like the snails whom he admires so, with only 400 injections to go. In the meantime there is a doll of Shirley Temple who arrives amidst imagery of Nazi swastikas. An old war era poster shows Shirley Temple as a naked prepubescent girl holding a riding crop in her hand. A close up of the riding crop's handle reveals she has it semi inserted into her bald pubes. Meanwhile, above in the "real" world, our Down Syndrome protagonist is found in various stages of interaction with his Down Syndrome roommates. One is his girlfriend, and we are treated to a dramatic scene where they engage in a romantic kissing session in the park. The music swells terribly in a Wagnerian crescendo overdramatizing this simple exchange of tenderness. This whole time the surviving snail remains screaming horrifically over the shattered corpse of its friend. One day our hero learns to put salt on the snails. He watches as the salt's acids corrode away the snail's lives as they foam up from under their shells, dissolving in what must be an explicitly painful demise. It seems he is asserting his superiority over the helpless snailys. The film seems to manage the impossible, which is simply putting everything into perspective for the audience member. By the end of the movie, viewers will be rubbing out their eyes from what they've just witnessed.

During the Q&A session afterwards, Crispin took much time to painstakingly defend his curious and surreal film. He went to great lengths to explain that in today's corporate sponsored age, there are certain elements or things that filmmakers simply are not allowed to show. "What Is It?" is a direct retaliation against this stifling of artistic freedom. As such, it is a pure and refined film of utter defiance. Afterwards, I was the first in line to meet Crispin and I told him as much. I said "I think your film is pure & true; keep on fighting the good fight man!" And I explained to him that I'd been a fan of his for going on twenty years now, and that if he signed my copy of his album, I'd be honored seeing as how I've owned it for at least sixteen years. He was eager to do so, and I walked out not only pleasantly surprised and satisfied, but with a significant amount to think about in wake of his disturbing, revelatory film.

Absolutely not for everyone, "What Is It?" still happens to serve an important role in the development of our counter culture. It expressly sets out to exercise those creative muscles the State would have atrophy for fear of exposing taboos generally thought to be better off never talked about. From this perspective I believe "What Is It?" to be a beautiful film, unlike any ever made before. And listening to Crispin defend his art helped me to answer the question posited by the work's title: the answer being simply, REALITY. Because it is the core of reality's often disturbing truths that are most often condemned by the state, and that is explicitly what this movie is all about, facing reality before our collective corporate-sponsored rules & regulations gradually force us to evolve into purely fantasy-based creatures.

We all owe a debt to Crispin Glover for making this film, especially those of us who aspire to express ourselves artistically in a commercial medium.

Thanks, Mr. Farr.