DVD Review: Storytelling (B)

Storytelling (2001)
Director: Todd Solondz
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Selma Blair, Mark Webber, Robert Wisdom, Leo Fitzpatrick, John Goodman, Julie Haggerty
MPAA: NR
Grade: B

Review by Ellyn Elm

Storytelling is a laconic film that explores ideas of exploitation in two separate installments. The first entitled, "Fiction", looks at race, privilege and power in a college writing class. The second installement is, "Nonfiction", and it examines the relationship between a filmmaker and his subject.

Like his previous films, Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, director Todd Solondz shows no mercy for his characters. This sort of raw treatment garners the director either rave reviews or scathing critiques. Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Solondz's view of life as inherently flawed. Everyone, even those of us with the best intentions, are imperfect. How we deal with these imperfections in ourselves and in others is the real test of character.

"Fiction" features Selma Blair as "Vi" a socially conscious student who gets involved with her African American professor. After throwing herself at the feet of her teacher, Vi, guilt ridden and angry, submits to the class a story of her encounter with the professor, in which their recent sexual tryst is treated as rape.

"Nonfiction"has Paul Giamatti playing Toby, a shoe salesman-cum-filmmaker who finds success making a documentary on the life of high school teenagers. A thinly veiled critique of American Movie, Solondz's Toby garners cinematic accolades at the expense of his subjects. Solondz, too, has been criticized for making fun of his characters and thereby revealing his own smug superiority. In the end, Solondz illustrates that there are no victims, we are all willing participants in our own demise.

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