(don't bother to click on the image. this is as big as it gets)
so no clips, no abundance of linkage, just me (gulp!) words. which it is a disservice to
Eat the Peach, one of the best, most original, and sweetest movies I've seen. as a rental. a vhs rental. in 1987 or 1988. rented from one of those funky, super small, every space jammed with rickety shelves loaded with tapes video stores run by a a strangish-looking-yet-friendly-movie-obsessed-fellow-who-could-talk-about-every-movie-in-the-place-for-hours that, believe it or not, used to be a fairly common type of video store until BlockBuster (whose descent into bankruptcy gives me no end of
schadenfreude and glee) ran them all into the ground.
<sigh>
the movie takes place in a small Irish village. when I say "village" it is - the roads (even in town) are dirt, most houses are barely more than shanties, there are large empty areas all over town, overgrown, unkempt.
Eat the Peach is set in the early 1980s, a period when poverty-ridden Ireland was taking a turn for the worse. one of the few employers in town, an automobile factory, closes shop, making a bad situation even more dire. one of the town men (our hero as it were) owns a motorcycle. alongside a friend, our hero catches a TV showing of one-of-the-most-forgettable-among-many-forgettable Elvis Presley movies:
Roustabout (1964). the scene we are shown the friends watching is one where Elvis rides his motorcycle around a carnival-type velodrome, and our hero, inspired, decides to build a wooden velodrome in his backyard.
this is hard for me to explain, but the idea is that the velodrome is like a big tall barrel with a ramp entrance: the rider enter the velodrome and goes round and round until riding almost perpendicular to the inside walls of the velodrome. hell, if you've seen
The Simpsons movie you may have an idea of what I'm trying to describe.
things happen, other things happen, our hero builds a shakey and fragile-looking wooden velodrome, manages to perform the feat, and since this is not an American movie, fails spectacularly at making any money out of it. not only that, but a veryverybadthing happens towards the end of the movie that leads to... nothing. nothing. no insight, no redemption, ...nothing. we are left with the impression that life will continue kind of as it were. maybe not.
I cannot express the impact this movie had on my thinking and appreciation of movies. it was such a shock to not have a nicely-wrapped-up ending. I'm forever thankful that no American studio was ever interested in remaking
Eat the Peach since as we all know, American studios
hate untidy movies, untidy people, untidy endings.
another lovely, lovely characteristic of
Eat the Peach: though it takes place in Ireland, there is not much
"Irishness" in it. there is a pub, yes, but no full-of-wisdom bartender or witty banter. no one with a 'spring on their step and a wink on their eye'. the men sit, silent, staring into their pints at the pub. the women try to maintain their households on a string and a prayer. kids play. there are joyous moments but mostly life is hard, you get kicked regularly and you pick yourself up. sometimes.
update @19:43 11/04/2009: added link to trailer and 2nd paragraph