Ned Rifle

It was a little surprising to listen to the intro to "Ned Rifle" this evening and be told that the director, Hal Hartley, had been appearing at TIFF since his first film, "The Unbelievable Truth", twenty-five years ago. I was at a 9 am screening of that film that year and have been following his career ever since.

His latest is the third film in a trilogy that began with "Henry Fool" (1997) and continued in 2007 with "Fay Grim". Characters introduced in the earlier films return and several actors from his previous works take on new parts. The son born of Fool and Grim is an adult now and is on a mission to kill his father, who he blames for his mother's incarceration. It's a comedy.

Hartley's style has remained a constant over that time. Character-driven, wordy films with a consistent deadpan humour (if Buster Keaton used words the way his face resisted expression, he'd be in a Hartley film). Even the music (also written and performed by Hartley) and the cinematography (a flat pale light suffuses every frame, interior or exterior, no matter where the action is taking place) are constants.

So why keep coming back?

The humour. A wry take on the world that continues to raise a small smile, if not a chuckle. There is, I admit, a feeling similar to putting on an old comfortable pair of shoes. It's also interesting to watch an artist work similar themes in new, if not innovative ways.

For those who know his work, the film is an automatic recommendation. It's hard to say how his film would play to the uninitiated. It would be interesting to hear the reaction of someone new to his work.