ASS-UGLY
ELEGANCE
A
Voyage Through Paranoia, Video Style
A
Review by Justin Sanders
for the PORTLAND MERCURY, October 17th, 2002
Of
all artistic mediums, only video is automatically
associated with both kinky sex and poignant family
time. It is thus mystifying that writer/director,
Antero Alli, consciously chooses to make all
his feature-length movies on video. It probably has
something to do with fighting the man, with refusing
to stoop to the level of mainstream filmmakers by
using such a base, frill-laden material as film. It
probably isn't because he is too broke to purchase
film. He is an accomplished and talented filmmaker
who could surely dredge up the money for more expensive
productions were he so inclined. He's not inclined,
though, and so continues to make feature-length video
movies that look terrible and cheap, but that are
still gripping--even mesmerizing--thanks to the power
of his storytelling ability.
Hysteria is the latest addition to his video legacy. It tells the story of an obsessive Croatian boxer, Ikar (Jakob Bokulich) who comes to America to fulfill a religious mission that he believes was assigned to him by the Virgin Mary while he was camped out in an old church during the Serb-Croatian War. One of the first movies to be set post-9/11, Hysteria achieves the nifty feat of addressing the paranoia that surrounded that day without exploiting it. Ikar is a terrorist who wishes to do harm in the name of religion, but who has arrived at that conclusion internally, with no influence or pressure from outside groups or causes. How do you stop someone like that? How do you find them? All the technology in the world won't trace a person who doesn't leave any tracks. Hysteria drives this point home with slow, meticulous grace. The development of its protagonist's horrific plan is not maniacal, but careful, even gentle. Alli's movie will prove to the skeptics that though video may be ass-ugly, it can also reach a kind of elegance, and it can definitely profoundly disturb.