Black Brush - SkinnyFest 1

Film Review by Jonathan Liew | 14 Aug 2006
Film title: Black Brush - SkinnyFest 1
As a film fan, it's rare indeed to be present at the birth of an entirely new genre. I'd wager most of you weren't around to witness the emergence of film noir in the early 1940s or the French New Wave in the 1950s, and the significance of Blaxploitation or the Dogme 95 movement is limited by their failure to inspire enduring appeal beyond a niche audience. It is therefore both an honour and a privilege to be able to announce the dawn of a new age in cinema, and a brand new section that will soon be coming to your local Blockbuster Video: the Hungarian Stoner Movie.

And as pioneers go, this is a real groundbreaker. Witness as four Budapest chimney-sweeps who spend their working days smoking joints on rooftops contrive to lose a hefty stack of forints belonging to their boss and spend the rest of the day trying in a very stoned fashion to reclaim it. Marvel at the trippy soundtrack, the disorienting urban monochrome, gloriously 'surreal' set pieces featuring a goat, and, best of all, the complete lack of an ending. Genius! Why didn't anybody else think of this? Future generations will pore over this in a state of bemused wonder. Director Roland Vranik will be feted as the new Truffaut. You heard it here first.