Kind Hearts, how many of you have seen this film? If you have, please tell me what you think. If you haven't seen it, please go and see it and tell me what you think. It was filmed in Winston-Salem, out on the back side of the city and the backdrop is often seedy motels, service stations and garages. The actors are "new faces" - at least to me. If you are interested in a bit of trivia, William, the embittered chain-smoking white guy with the memorable, sad face is Red West, who used to be Elvis Pressley's bodyguard. I'm not going to give much away here, but once the comments begin, it is probably best that you see the film before you read them. Okay, let me hear from you!
Saturday, September 12, 2009
GOODBYE, SOLO: A NORTH CAROLINA FILM
Kind Hearts, how many of you have seen this film? If you have, please tell me what you think. If you haven't seen it, please go and see it and tell me what you think. It was filmed in Winston-Salem, out on the back side of the city and the backdrop is often seedy motels, service stations and garages. The actors are "new faces" - at least to me. If you are interested in a bit of trivia, William, the embittered chain-smoking white guy with the memorable, sad face is Red West, who used to be Elvis Pressley's bodyguard. I'm not going to give much away here, but once the comments begin, it is probably best that you see the film before you read them. Okay, let me hear from you!
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Right! Gary, thanks for the reminder, was impressed when I read a review earlier but didn't realize it was already out on DVD. I just put it at the top of my Queue at NetFlix and will get back to you.
ReplyDeleteNewt and I really liked this film. Somber in tone and dark in the filming, the story is a joyful one of sorts--how hard it is to accept another wholly and what a gift it is when one is accepted as one is. Highly recommended. It played at the Fine Arts in June, and we saw it there. June Smith
ReplyDeleteThank you, June. I noted that some of the critics made it into a kind of allegory of two cultures.
ReplyDeleteWilliam (Red West) is the old, failing, southern culture and Solo is the new culture struggling to
establish itself. I guess that is okay, but I thought it worked for me as two guys that just couldn't communicate.
This is an excellent "little" movie, curious though in its setting, one doesn't think of Winson-Salem as a place of recent immigrants but there they are and Solo from Senegal is the perfect new American with an optimism for life and a compassion for others that is impressive and endearing as we watch him try to break through to William. I think June, above, is on target about the difficulty in the total acceptance of others. Or stated another way, knowing when to let go. I think that's the point of this successfully believable film. We need to keep our eyes on these actors and the director.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Maxwell. I agree. I loved the movie's atmosphere. I spent 7 miserable weeks there once (the fact that I was miserable was not Winston-Salem's fault) and I could almost smell the tobacco down on R. J. Reynolds street. I was especially moved by Solo's family, and I loved the fact that he took his daughter with him on the trip to Blowing Rock so he wouldn't have to come home alone.
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