Buffalo 66: Revenge Is Bitter

Between Sally Potter’s The Tango Lesson (1997) and Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo 66, local film goers are treated to a mini-festival of idiosyncratic and shamelessly self-centered movies that straddle a border between docudrama re-enactment and pure wish-fulfilment fantasy. Gallo – a memorable acting presence in films including Arizona Dream (1993), U.S. Go Home (1995) and The Funeral (1996) – is much younger than Potter, and his exercise in introspection and self-dramatization has an accordingly softer, more indulgent feel. Singing on the soundtrack and granting himself many protracted, moody close-ups, Gallo at moments seems to imagine himself as a glorious superstar in a lazy, Warholian reverie. Mercifully, however, there is a rawer, angrier, more desperate edge to Buffalo 66. At its simplest level, it is a rather disconcerting payback fantasy in which Gallo (playing a character named Billy Brown) dishes the dirt on his formative years – particularly his parents, rendered as insensitive, uncultured monsters by guest performers Ben Gazzara and Anjelica Huston…. read more >