Review by Big Daddy Dane Marti
Pow! As old, withered, but still dedicated Hipster, I had trepidations (very un-hip thoughts, Daddy) about seeing this film, sort as if I were undressing in front of millions of strangers. Still, Cat, while someone like Norman Mailer might write fervently about hipsters, the term for many folks is still rather broad and ephemeral, of course.
For me, The Hipster is at his best – or for some of you Squares, at his worst– during the Beat Generation, the latter 50’s era personified by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. These Post WW11 guys and their friends were a different cool animal from the kids personified in the zany film under review!
Hipsters, as opposed to Beatniks, were often African American and more knowledgeable about the harsh underbelly of life. Duh. They knew how to remain cool under unpleasant situations (which often seemed to pertain to police officers or white racists) they knew the jargon; they smoked the funny cigarettes.
Meanwhile, the Beats were into post-Rimbaud, William Carlos Williams or Whitman poetry; they often wore black turtlenecks, black berets, sporting facial goatees and enjoyed improvisation on bongo drums (for instance, James Dean). Some also enjoyed splattering paint on canvas like Jackson Pollock.Luckily for you, I won’t go into the definition of the word Beat. I’ve already zapped far enough away from the meat of this review already!Often, but not always, the Hipsters and Beatniks intermingled. If intrigued by this literary-poetic-and sociological culture, I recommend the book, The Subterraneans by Kerouac. Great Spontaneous Bop Prose! The element that brought the different groups together as an early manifestation of the modern counter-culture (In this review, it definitely isn’t important to reference the counter culture which roughly go back to 1840’s Paris.) was JAZZ.
Hell, I do love Jazz.
Anyway, this film is a freaking blast: “Boogies over bones”, as us cats say. And you, mammas are in for treat! (Snap fingers.) Although the word used over and over in the film is HIPSTERS (which might be true behind the Iron Curtain of the era) the movie’s music is primarily early 1940’s Big Band, with a smattering of Duke Ellington’s amazing work as well. We’re talking about Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and Glen Miller Big Band – swing music!
In the film, the kids listen to B. Band and a form of R & B that contains mid-1960’s electric guitar, but whatever, the film was still highly entertaining. As far as Russia goes, I cannot speak for the cultural or fashionable accuracy of the film and I don’t believe that this is the point the filmmakers wanted to make. The story has a little of the Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story-element in it, but the main conflict within the film has to do with the Communist culture of the early to mid-1950’s and the creeping, wild American influence: Young people trying decadent and sexually liberating ideas, you dig?
The main character starts as a good, young Communist – a Comrade in good standing. He’s even a little Square when it comes to the communist party. He has very little knowledge of sex with a woman. Was the proletariat in the U.S.S.R. really that much in the dark? He’s a member of some green/gray brigade of good citizens who are dedicated to finding and ratting-out the pernicious influence of all things liberal, of all things wild, free and different.Anyway, before long, the young dude is exploding out, dressing in multi-colored sports jackets and thin ties (the type of clothing this middle-aged, 21st Century Guy still likes to wear, but now, I look like an unfashionable freak to most people. Oh well. ) And out-of- site pompadour haircuts. As I keep repeating, and irritatingly enjoy repeating: This film is FUN in a very unpretentious way!
The film plays a lot of Jazz, but not the type of jazz that is normally associated with the Hipster, but a very loose form of Big Band intermixed with R & B. The type played by 1990’s groups such as The Cherry Popping Daddies and that ilk, which I have absolutely nothing against. I’m just not sure how close this fusion of styles meshes with the actual era – in particular the stolid, suffocating and dangerous era of the early 1950’s in the Soviet Union.
In many scenes, the movie characters sing and dance, reminding me of Pennies From Heaven (an underrated and brilliant film), Newsies, 1941 and other films that deal in music, Big Band and 30’s/40’s/ 50’s music in novel and cinematically interesting ways. Like those films, HIPSTERS is not a musical.
This is a multi-colored, sexy and fun film. As a document of an age in which the Soviet Union (as opposed to Russia) was stolid, repressive and dangerous, this is not the film to experience or understand the nightmare that was Stalinism. As a great, colorful and interesting musical about people learning to expand their horizons, while listening and dancing to Jazz, this is a helluva Trip. I loved it.
HIPSTERS played at the St. Louis International Film Festival earlier this week. We Are Movie Geeks apologizes for not getting this review up sooner but is sure HIPSTERS will come back to St. Louis for a longer run at some point in the near future.
