Review of American Movie (1999) by Alex G — 26 Apr 2010

Very powerful vision and very powerful delusion collide in the person of Mark Borchardt, an independent filmmaker struggling to complete a short horror film and pay back his mounting debts. In another time and in another place, Borchardt could very well be an irascible Hollywood savant with his fine-tuned powers of persuasion.

Unfortunately, he's in Milwaukee, with few resources and fewer kindred spirits. Yes, Borchardt and the people in his orbit are quite odd, quite provincial, but there is a heavy pathos visible in nearly all of them and the sense that finishing Borchardt's film might just fill a collective void.

Sad and inspiring, "American Movie" shows us the motivational power of unattended emotions and deferred dreams and the masochistic therapy of the creative process--as Borchardt has likely known for a while, vision is both a gift and a curse.