Drawing Flies Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Drawing Flies Blu-ray Movie Review

What's harder—finding Bigfoot or growing up?

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater September 25, 2013

Hardcore Kevin Smith fans might know Drawing Flies—even if they haven't seen it—as the "lost View Askew production." Made in the space between Mallrats and Chasing Amy, the 1996 film was produced by Smith, features many of his regular actors, and shambles along with dialogue-heavy, typically Smithian slacker comedy. As much as it bears Silent Bob's looming influence, though, the movie was actually written and directed by Canadian filmmakers Matt Gissing and Malcolm Ingram. The latter had been a film journalist covering the making of Clerks, and during his on-set visits he befriended Smith and much of the cast, pitching his story in the process. With View Askew's financial backing—a mere $40,000—Ingram and Gissing set out to make Drawing Flies in and around Vancouver, British Columbia, shooting out in the woods and on sets made in a cheap rented warehouse. The crew was largely made up of amateurs, working for free beer, and this comes across in the film's all-around lo-fi aesthetic, as handmade as a zine and just as emblematic of 1990s D.I.Y. indie culture. It's rough around the edges. It feels like a bunch of friends who got together just to make something. It may not be great, or remotely professional, but it is enthusiastic.

Slacker

At least, as enthusiastic as a film about a group of cynical layabouts can be. The five jobless, aimless twentysomethings of Drawing Flies live for the monthly celebration that is "Welfare Wednesday," when they collectively go down to the Vancouver unemployment office to get paid for lying about how hard they've been searching for work. But on their latest trip—at the beginning of the film—the government claim worker denies benefits to all of them except the cherubic Jake (Martin Brooks), whose sweet face nets him a cool $500. Jake, naturally, will end up bankrolling the living expenses and further adventures of the rest of gang—ringleader Donner (a characteristically smart-assed Jason Lee), shaggy-haired stoner Az (Jason Mewes, basically playing Jay), sweet Meg (Renee Humphrey), and manic-pixie-dream-bitch Cassidy (Carmen Lee)—who share a run-down flat in an industrial part of town.

They are protoslackers of the highest order. Terminally bored and disaffected. Pop-culture literate. Pot-smoking. Unwilling to work or ask their parents for money. When they wonder aloud how they'll pay this month's rent, Donner says, "Get a job" like it's the funniest phrase imaginable. A scheme is hatched to throw a kegger and charge admission at the door, but this idea goes kaput when someone steals the beer out of Az's sketchy-looking panel van.

To escape their financial responsibilities, Donner suggests they go on an extended camping trip, driving hours outside the city and then hiking for days up to his uncle's cabin in the woods. There are many potential hitches to this plan—they've never gone backpacking before, they're underprepared, and they have to steal cans of beans from gas stations for sustenance—but the key one is a doozy: there is no cabin. Unbeknownst to the rest of the group, Donner is essentially leading them on a blind goose chase or, rather, a Sasquatch chase. Inspired by a dream in which he dances arm-in-arm with Bigfoot himself, Donner grows increasingly obsessed with finding the legendary cryptozoological creature and his hairy kin, to the extent that he puts his friends' lives in danger.

The hunt for Sasquatch might be read as a metaphor for the seemingly fruitless Gen-X search for meaning in a meaningless postmodern world, but I'm not sure Drawing Flies holds up to much deeper scrutiny than that. The film is as directionless as its protagonists, and while this may be the entire point, it amounts to a shaggy-dog tale that, even at a slim seventy-six minutes, seems to go on for longer than necessary. Still, there are momentary flashes of pleasure as we go on this meandering journey with these characters, who—for anyone who came of age in the late '80s to mid '90s—will be nostalgic and familiar as they bicker, question gender roles, and find themselves in the literal and figurative wilderness. Doc Martens, flannel, and mechanic shirts all make appearances, but it's the attitude here that's really reflective of the 1990s—a drowsy blend of premature world weariness and pre-internet ennui. Nearly twenty years after the film's release, with our retrospective knowledge about how Gen-X rose to the occasion, we might imagine a hypothetical sequel where the characters finally get their acts together and become bloggers or move to San Francisco to create tech startups. A happy ending after so much unambitious anger and self-imposed poverty.

Drawing Flies Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Following in the Kevin Smith's Clerks footsteps, Malcolm Ingram and Matthew Gissing opted to save some money by shooting with a 16mm Arriflex camera, which inevitably results in decreased sharpness and more pronounced grain compared to a 35mm production. On the flip side, this aesthetic—which is reminiscent of the cinéma vérité documentaries of the '60s and '70s—really works for this kind of indie slacker movie. (If it were shot today, it'd be done digitally and would lose much of its handmade charm.) Kino-Lorber has given the film a new 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, and the results appear absolutely true to the low-budget source material. The warm, grainy image is organic and unfiltered, with no obvious digital noise reduction or edge enhancement, and there are no immediately visible compression artifacts either. There is some light print damage in the form of white/black specks and occasional vertical scratches, but nothing major. While I've never seen the film on its now long-out-of-print DVD, I'm sure texture and fine detail are much improved here; the picture is rarely sharp—due to a combination of the 16mm analog resolution, heavy grain, and sometimes misplaced focus—but I doubt Kino could've gotten any more clarity out of the print. The black and white tonality is likewise subject to certain amateurish filmmaking quirks—inconsistent exposure, mostly—but the contrast is as stable as can be expected.

Drawing Flies Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The disc's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio mono track is also no better and no worse than the original materials, which are decidedly lo-fi. "Sound design" is limited, and the dialogue—while always understandable—often has a slightly soft, fuzzy quality. Pops, hisses, and crackles aren't a huge source of concern, though, and neither is there any brashness to the high end. Actually, there's not much high end at all; the films soundtrack of indie sludge-pop has a mid-heavy, somewhat faraway sound. This isn't a complaint so much as a simple observation; the audio is what it is. At the very least, it's functional and reflective of the way in which the micro-budget film was made.

Drawing Flies Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries: The disc includes two audio commentaries, a track with both co-directors giving us the low-down on the making of the film—which was produced for under $40,000—and then a far more raucous cast commentary featuring Kevin Smith and most of the film's principal actors.
• Deleted Scenes and Outtakes (HD, 11:01): A series of assorted extended scenes, crack-ups, alternate takes, and improvisations.
• Stills Gallery (HD): A user-directed gallery with 14 images.
• Original 2002 Introduction with Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier (SD, 4:32): Kevin Smith calls the film "the Canadian Dazed and Confused of its generation."
• NEW Introduction with Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (HD, 3:13): Silent Bob and Jay talk up the film, which they refer to as a quasi-sequel to Mallrats.
• NEW Interview with Jason Mewes (HD, 11:28): Mewes talks about how the movie changed his life, convincing him that he could make a living out of acting.
• NEW Interview with Matt Gissing (HD, 2:44): The film's co-director talks about the film's disappearance and new remaster. Look out for Sasquatch.
• Trailer for Malcolm Ingram's Bear Nation (SD, 2:11): A trailer for Ingram's documentary about the bear gay subculture.
• Groovy Cartoon Movie Trailer (HD, 2:19): A trailer for the Jay and Silent Bob comeback cartoon.

Drawing Flies Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Drawing Flies, the oft-forgotten Canadian feature from Kevin Smith's View Askew production company, finally makes its way back to home video after being out of print for years. With the recent surge of re-interest in the 1990s—see this year's 20th anniversary reissue of Nirvana's In Utero, for instance—now seems like the perfect time for the film to return. It's not a great movie—it has less direction than its shambling, aimless characters—but it's definitely emblematic of the decade. Flannel and Doc Martens. Scooby-Doo references. Lo-fi indie rock. It's like a micro-budget, Canadian Reality Bites, following the exploits of a group of twentysomething slackers too young to grow up and too old to be as irresponsible as they are. For View Askew fans, it's fun to see many of Kevin Smith's stock company of actors working together in this non-Kevin Smith film made between Mallrats and Chasing Amy, and this may be reason enough to check it out.