Starring Joshua Burge and Joel Potrykus
Written and directed by Joel Potrykus
Sob Noisse Movies
By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Perhaps the easiest way to describe writer/director Joel Potrykus’s VULCANIZADORA is “disarming.” The film begins with uneasy simplicity, and then slowly lowers both the audience and the characters into a darker, and sometimes intentionally awkward, premise.
Potrykus’s films tend to teeter on this edge of metaphysical absurdity and grounded humanity. In The Alchemist Cookbook – perhaps his most approachable film – a young man tinkers with alchemy and memory, and the lines are artfully blurred between reality and fantasy. Relaxer is another peek into the mind of Potrykus, which creeps from mundane into downright apocalyptic. This is all to say that regardless of the quality or budget of these films, Potrykus is steadily carving a track for himself that allows him to blend cinematic fluency with the way he chooses to show us his world.
In addition to all his work behind the camera in VULCANIZADORA, Potrykus plays one of the two lead characters, Derek. With him on this journey is Marty, played by longtime Potrykus collaborator Joshua Burge. Aside from their obvious physical similarities, these two men are quite different. Derek is well-prepared for the hiking and camping trip, including bringing an abundance of Jägermeister, and does not seem to know how to stop talking for one single second. Marty is far less prepared, more focused on their collective mission, and frequently annoyed by his woodsy companion.
What exactly they are doing in these woods and precisely why Marty is in a hurry to get there is the guarded impetus of the entire film. Rather than unleashing the floodgates of this secret at the crescendo of the emotion in VULCANIZADORA, it comes out drop-by-drop, like a faulty sink. Single lines, or looks, between these two men build as the film continues. When it finally is clear just what they are doing and why they are doing it, it feels more like watching a slow car crash that cannot be avoided (if you’ll allow me to mix water and automotive metaphors).
Though the film’s true strength is this initial build up and payoff, and while it could have existed as a stand-alone short film, VULCANIZADORA continues on after the incident to show life after such a shattering experience. This singular character’s persistent existence does not have the satisfyingly tense relationship between two strong characters, and instead focuses on one man’s attempt to reassess reality. With earlier discussions between Marty and Derek about heaven and hell, VULCANIZADORA does question if anyone could possibly know if they are in one or the other while there.
Both Potrykus and Burge hit their character’s marks deftly and are able to convey the necessary frustration of each. The film is also assembled appropriately with occasional minimalist and long, static takes of the men hiking across perfectly plain looking hills. The average views meet the tone of humor of the film, but that does not make them any more engaging.
VULCANIZADORA continues Potrykus’s pattern of strange but engrossing characters in mundane but extraordinary circumstances. This balance is not easy, nor does it always lead to cinematic greatness, but it is difficult to look away.
