My Name Is A By Anonymous

MY NAME IS A BY ANONYMOUS:
Writer/Director:Shane Ryan
Starring: Katie Marsh, Demi Baumann, Teona Dolnikova, Alex Damiano
Availability: Still Awaiting Distribution
Rating:

    There's a fine line between art and exploitation.  Many directors just don't have the courage to straddle that line.  Films like A Serbian Film and Salo are examples of films that people still debate over the artistic merits of the ideas and the ways in which they are presented.  When your film rips a page from the headlines, one that allows you the opportunity to make a scathing indictment of modern teen culture, that line can almost become dangerous to cross.

    Shane Ryan's My Name Is A By Anonymous is not an easy film to watch, an easy film to explain, and it's certainly not an easy film to review.  Loosely based on the true life case of fifteen year old Alyssa Bustamante, a girl who allegedly murdered her nine year old neighbor just because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone.  The movie Ryan gives us wants to explore what it is that would bring someone to such a level of darkness and despair.  In a way, and I'm by no means the first person to make this connection, it reminded me a lot of Gus Van Sant's Elephant.

    Told in a very fractured, disjointed style, the movie follows four different teenage girls and the paths their lives had taken before the death of the little girl.  Aside from Alyssa, the characters are given names like The Sidekick, The Performer, and the Angst.  In a lot of ways, it feels like these are meant to represent different manifestations of the same character.  Nothing about this movie is easy.  It's a work of art similar in a lot of ways to The Bunny Game from a couple years back.  It's raw, brutal, uncompromising, brilliant.

    The thing that gives the film a true sense of realism is the improvisation.  These girls look, sound, and act like real teenagers.  The most heartbreaking performances are by Teona Dolnikova as The Performer and Alex Damiano as The Angst.  These were raw, soul-crushing performances.  There's a sexual abuse sequence towards the final act of the film that was incredibly brutal, and like any great art should, it left me feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

    I also have to say I really dug the soundtrack in this film as well.  It was almost mesmerizing in a way.  I also love the decision to mix found footage-style shots with the traditional narrative style.  It gave you the feeling of intimacy, while at the same time making you realize just how much of an outsider's view all of us truly have.  There's also a very strange music video towards the middle of the film, that almost acts as a calm before the storm in a way.  Many of us, thankfully, will never know what it is that brings a person to do such a heinous act like murder.  There are no easy answers, and Ryan's film doesn't want to give them to you.  He wants you to go away from this film thinking.  If you can watch this film, and not be impacted, well then you're a much
more jaded man than me.

    I would highly recommend this film.  I won't deny that some of you will hate it.  It's not a perfect film, but I'm seeing fit to give it a perfect score, simply because this is that rare movie that never crosses the line into exploitation.  This movie sneaks up on you, and just when you want to give it a big warm hug, it breaks your fucking heart.  This is beautiful, profound stuff.

    Until next time, my fellow freaks and weirdos...