VULCANIZADORA (Joel Potrykus 2024)

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JOEL POTRYKUS, JOSHUA BURGE IN VULCANIZADORA

JOEL POTRYKUS: VULCANIZADORA (2024)

Sad friend

In this interesting, strange film from indie auteur Joel Potrykus, two men go on a camping trip in the Michigan woods. We begin with low-quality video of fire and arson. That lures us into the handsome 16mm shots of a rural trail. There is a lot of bickering, a lot of nervous monologuing by the leader of the trek. After an overnight, they come out overlooking a sandy beach. There, a climactic event occurs. There seems to be a joint ritual planned that goes awry. Only one of the pair comes back. He has a rendez-Vous with the law that does not turn out at all as he expected. He visits the young son of his friend. It's all like a loser bagatelle, a play with an underlying strain of sad sack gallows comedy.

Samuel Beckett might approve. In the interplay of the pair in the woods it's easy to recognize something of the humor of desperation Beckett explored in his novels and then built into the iconic tragicomedy of Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Here again there is a pair fumbling through something, on the edge at least of their own apocalypse.

Derek Skiba (played by Potrykus himself, who wrote, directed, edited, and costars) is a balding man with a goatee. He first appears weighed down with camping gear and plans. His spiky hair evokes the image of the classic clown. He keeps a line of running patter going. He is accompanied by his friend, Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burge), unincumbrered, younger, without enthusiasm. Derek has all these plans, all this foolish cheer. But Marty is the one who has the ultimate plan. He looks gloomy, hopeless, and we start to learn why.

When low-res, mini-budget filmmaking is in the hands of an experienced practitioner, as here, there is no end of how its implications may spiral. Siddhant Adlakha attempts to suggest this in his Variety review when he says "These are men at the end of their ropes, who have now forced themselves into a symbolic purgatory. They exist, now, at the precipice of oblivion, but the result is unexpectedly funny despite this probing spiritual lens — or perhaps because of it."

There is a nice interplay of dimensions between the trek through the woods and what happens to Marty in the reckonings he faces back in town afterwards. It gives you something to think about. Ultimately Potrykus' dialogue hasn't the rich resonance the great Irishman, with his love of "the old questions, the old answers" achieved. But Potrykus finds his own kind of thought-provoking tragicomedy here too nonetheless.

Musical moments achieve a considerable resonance. They range from the 20th-century European sophistication of Francis Poulenc's "La Voix Humaine" to the heavy metal violence of Christian Cooney's Vulcantera to the transcendence of "Casta Diva" from Bellini's Norma as sung by the immortal Maria Callas. See, do-it-yourselfers, what you can achieve with minimal means.

(I reviewed Joel Potrykus' Buzzard in New Directors/New Films in 2014.)

Vulcanizadora, 85 mins., debuted at Tribeca Jun. 8, 2024 and played also at two dozen other American and international festivals. Released by Oscilloscope, it opens in New York May 2, 2025 at IFC Center and the filmmaker will be present for the opening weekend.