Plain Dirty (2003)

Touches You

Good movie but grossly overrated

A Masterpiece!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This small independent film is a rare gem especially if you like a good southern American Gothic tale. Briar Patch or "Plain Dirty" as it is alternately titled is a rich atmospheric blend of Flannery O'Connor, Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams all thrown into the gumbo pot.One major strength of this film is that avoids the usual redneck clichés. These characters are very real each complete with their own complex pathos transcending their life's conditions whether comfortably rich or dirt poor.Every performance is spot on. The directing and cinematography are lavish and the plot keeps you riveted to the end. Dominique Swain as Inez is by far the star of the film. Her salty Mother Earth mesmerizing charm expands the typical love triangle to a quadrangle. She has two men literally worshiping at her feet while her husband has her literally chained to the bed. Throughout the whole film she becomes progressively more tattered, raged and dirty yet all the while intoxicating and beautiful. The ending is a surprise complete with a wonderful ironic twist well worth the wait.

My heavens, why such a low star score!! This was a very well done movie in all aspects of theater, given the storyline plot is one commonly hackneyed. This movie isn't in the Cat On A Hot Tin Roof notch, but it sure did play a close second in the intensity department! This wasn't of the style of Billy Bob Thornton in Chrystal or Redford in Gatsby, but you got the hillbilly gal semi-tushing her way into the wishful richer world and get out of her backwoods living. The direction, casting, styles and acting were all topnotch and keeps you anticipating more unto the very end. I do get weary of movies using cornfields as inexpensive scenes in these types (and others) of movies (and it was a little whacked to see a Kansas type cornfield not far from a swamp), but it fit well in this movie for the short use they made of it with Officer Avon and Flowers characters ... it was ideal for that particular important scene and it set a motif for next scenes very well. Photography was done very well with good angles, and for once! a decent background music score. I do get weary of dueling banjos even though I really like it, but it wouldn't be suitable to have an association of Deliverance here. It was just all very well put together and the movie just flows.Too many movies have come across with backwood hicks being stupid or racists and other such stereotyping. This movie put more meat into the character developments with serious and calculated depth. Even tho the Inez character obviously had a hard streak about her, her manipulations were upfront and honest, with rational reasoning to stomp her steps through the movie. You can't help but like, admire and pity her and yet be accompanied by dismay (and minor frustration, but not annoyingly so) of her intellectual limitations to step out of her bad situation with a better solution. However, that doesn't happen in life and this movie albeit intense, was a refreshing straying from stereotyping of a battered and abused woman. I liken this movie to the level of the movie Tim, with Mel Gibson, whereby the characters are portrayed with specific complex and simplistic limitations/boundaries giving the audience the decision of forming their own separate opinion(s) of each characterization instead of the director "telling" you this-or-that is what you should be thinking.Would I watch this movie again? I probably wouldn't rent it again, but would watch it again, but would need to be mentally geared for another viewing. This was a rather deep movie to take the first time around, and is probably why others gave it a lower score. I would recommend watching it, but would say if you're more into less mental type movies, this would not be your cup of tea.

You can't argue with the crisp, moody cinematography, the "Dead Man Walking" soundtrack or the weirdly perfect obsessed performance of "Flowers" by Irish actor Arie Verveen. The wardrobe department made sure that fans of Miss Swain won't be disappointed. The film swings back and forth to contrast the class differences of the South. Intense swampy desire loosely outlined by a Shakespearean theme? What's not to like here people? I don't think the Lolita comments in other reviews apply to the plot in this film. Other than Dominique Swain's role in that film, this is not a similar story what-so-ever.

This is one of those films. The kind that stays with you for days. Continues to haunt you with the beauty of its images. Stirs up a chilling current of passion that begs to be released. One of those films that unfurls too much raw beauty not be considered a work of art. "Plain Dirty" is the first feature film (hard to believe) for AFI grad, Director Zev Berman. A rare literary & visual triumph, this film delivers the richness of Southern landscape with a cinematic finery rarely achieved. From the opening title sequence to the last leaf of the Briar Patch, Berman proves himself a true master of detail. Combined with an emotive, suspenseful score, & a playfully sinister aura, "Plain Dirty" beckons us into its Southern Gothic world. This artful tale of true love and murder (never so magically linked) is layered with the nuance of a brilliant, young director. With references to age-old allegories, the language of "Plain Dirty" almost sings with description - thanks to screenwriter, Deborah Pryor. Berman shows the gentle & poetic restraint of a true veteran of cinema and will certainly be one to watch in the next decade of film-making. He seems to make his points in fitful stabs that penetrate your consciousness. But, a nurturer, he is quick to temper the audience's pain with humor - the kind that is born from the tragedy of real life. In this case, Southern life. A charismatic & daring director, Berman also instinctively knows when to leave his audience to its own imagery. He teasingly pans away from a much-anticipated sex scene with Dominique Swain's character, "Inez." A less mature, showy director might have "sold out" for the almost expected flash of flesh. (Particularly with leading lady, Swain, known for her erotic debut in "Lolita.") Instead, one is struck by Berman's control, his ability to whet the audience's appetite. And leave us panting in our seats for more.Berman clearly has tremendous communication with his actors. Under his direction, Swain gives a tour-de-force performance that brings her (thankfully) out of her role as "teeny-bopper sex-film Goddess," and into the realm of serious actor. In "Plain Dirty," she transcends stereotypes with the raw grit and youthful anguish of a respected performer. Emotional territory previously unclaimed by her.The juxtaposition of all of these riveting elements proves startling. And not to be missed. "Plain Dirty" is not only a work of art, but an incredible vehicle to launch Director, Zev Berman, into the forefront of today's film scene. From the likes of Berman, this is only the beginning . . .