Factotum

Bent Hamer, USA, Norway, 2005, 94 minutes

"So, that's what they wanted: lies. Beautiful lies. That's what they needed. People were fools. It was going to be easy for me."

Long before Chuck Palahniuk concieved Tyler Durden, Charles Bukowski's semi-autobiographical hero Hank Chinaski was searching for the place of classical masculinity in modern America. He's the ultimate working man's anti-hero: alcoholic, misanthropic, eloquently insubordiate and a master of carnality. He rambles through life doing as he wishes, when he wishes and the devil with the consequences; living from day to day without worrying where the next meal is coming from; always writing, always drinking, always fucking. His search for an escape from commitment and obligation through liquor, loose women and dead end jobs is a stream of hellish anecdotes from a hard life. It's one of the classics of beat literature and a perennial favourite of those trying to get to grips with a world they think has no place for them.

Norwegian Bent Hamer's interpretation of Factotum is transposed from the '70s to the present day and it's an almost seamless swap; the timeless life of those on skid row - faded people living faded lives - is equally pertinent now as it was then, and the sweaty sickness of poverty is beautifully realised. Matt Dillon captures the poetic apathy and compulsive anti-authoritarian behaviour of Bukowski's hero brilliantly - his slightly swollen and sunburnt complexion tones down his good looks, but hones the primeval animal magnetism of Chinaski. Lili Taylor's and Marisa Tomei's protrayal of his barfly girlfriends - women who've passed their prime and fallen into a life of alcohol, cheap thrills and seedy johns - are similarly excellent.

For those who know and love Bukowski's prose Factotum is an excellent adaptation; Dillon captures the soul-sick Chinaski and Hamer presents us with a somewhat bleak, but accurate, recreation of a classic slice from America's rotting underbelly of discarded souls.

Review by George Williamson
Written for EUFS Programme Autumn 2006