Littlerock Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

Littlerock Blu-ray Movie Review

When words aren't enough.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater April 13, 2012

A few years ago, when I was living in Japan, I had an hour-long encounter with this semi-legendary street bum and novelist named Hideo Asano, a North Korean refugee-turned-Japanese national who hangs around popular tourist spots and lures foreigners into conversations about Hemingway, Friedrich Nietzsche, and--this is where it gets uncomfortably awkward--the dangers of interracial dating. He accosted me and a friend on Osaka's famed Dotonbori bridge, where he sauntered up, wearing a baseball cap and a dirty winter coat, and promptly asked if we were Americans. He proceeded to give us a spiel about the soullessness of modern Japan, warned us to never date Japanese girls--we sensed he'd had his heart broken one too many times--and then, just as we were about to leave, opened his bag and asked if we'd like to purchase one of his hand-bound, self-published books.

Now, some might say I got suckered, but I gave him a ¥1000 note--ten bucks, basically--and picked out An American Breakfast, a short novel in English about a Japanese student who gets stranded in Nebraska when the car he's driving breaks down. I wish I could say the book was a beautiful work of undiscovered outsider art--that would've made a great story--but it's a rather clunky read that oversimplifies most of the differences between America and Japan. I mention it only because the plot strongly but incidentally resembles that of the director Mike Ott's second feature, Littlerock, a quietly affecting film about language barriers and cultural divides that picked up several awards on the festival circuit last year.

Visiting on vacation from Japan, college students Atsuko (co-writer Atsuko Okatsuka) and her brother Rintaro (Rintaro Sawamoto) are driving from Los Angeles to Manzanar--in deep inland California--when their rental car breaks down, stranding them in Littlerock, a sleepy nowheresville on the edge of the desert. With two days before the rental company can get them a replacement, they check into a cheap motel but are kept awake by a raging party in the adjoining room. When Rintaro goes to complain, the partiers--a bunch of late-teenaged townies--invite him in and give him a cold one, curious about the far-out-of-towner. But they're even more interested in his sister. Atsuko, unlike her brother, speaks zero English, and her exoticness quickly makes her an objet du désir, fawned over and hit on by the local males. One of these guys is Cory (Cory Zacharia), a wanna-be model who's a bit too effeminate to fit in with his peers, who confront him at the party about being gay. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't, and maybe it's more complicated than a simple either/or proposition. Regardless, he's clearly enamored with Atsuko and offers to show her and her brother around town the following day. There's not a lot to see, but we do learn that Cory owes 150 bucks to his drug dealer, a thug who loudly threatens him later that night at yet another drunken get-together when Cory doesn't bring the cash. Rintaro watches nervously, Atsuko, with fascination.

I had a student in Japan who wanted to study abroad in the U.S. but couldn't because her parents felt it would be too dangerous. There's a common misconception among many Japanese that America is a lawless, bullet-riddled war zone where all citizens pack heat. Don't they know that's just Texas? (Kidding.) Compared to Japan, our violent crime rate is absurd, though, and when you're watching Littlerock, you often get the sinking feeling of uh oh, something terrible's going to happen to Atsuko. Is she going to get raped? Involved in a drug deal gone bad? Trapped in a situation where her inability to communicate puts in her in a state of utter defenselessness? But the thing is, this simply isn't that kind of film. The lingering dread is a misdirect, one that eventually points back to Littlerock's real themes--the universality of emotions, the frustrating inability to express them when faced with language gaps, and the way we treat "outsiders" with whom we can't easily communicate. And that last item goes both ways. The Japanese slang word for foreigner, gaijin, literally means "other person," and this is the attitude Rintaro adopts; he can't understand why Atsuko wants to hang around Littlerock with her dopey new American "friends" after their rental car replacement arrives. We wonder about her motivations too. Does she simply enjoy being the center of attention, or is there some deeper psychological force at play?

There is, of course, but I won't spoil it here. (Though, if you know anything about the history of Manzanar, you'll already have a good idea why two Japanese siblings might be traveling to this otherwise unremarkable spot in the middle of the California desert.) At Atsuko's insistence, Rintaro angrily leaves her in Littlerock while he drives up to San Francisco alone. Atsuko spends the next few days bumming around with Cory, spurning his fumbling advances, working at his father's Mexican restaurant--where she has a timid friendship with the hispanic head chef, who also speaks no English--and sneaking out at night to sleep with Jordan (Brett L. Tines), a mop-haired would-be musician who caught her eye. Nothing especially dramatic happens, not even with the love triangle, but the film moves with simple emotional honesty to a wistful conclusion that emphasizes the role of chance in life, as well as how frustrating it is not to understand or be understood. Littlerock has been described as "Lost in Translation in reverse," and while that gets us part of the way there, there's also some Mystery Train here--Jim Jarmusch's film featuring a pair of Japanese tourists lost in Memphis--and also a clear homage to Werner Herzog's Stroszek, about a German pair adrift in Wisconsin. But the film differentiates itself with naturalistic cinematography and acting; Littlerock strives to feel real, down to the actors keeping their own names for their characters, and minus a few contrivances--like the subplot with the drug dealer--it succeeds. I'm excited to see what director Mike Ott has in store for the sequel, Pearblossom Hwy--in post-production now--which will reunite several of the characters. Here's hoping Atsuko has since boned up on her English, or Cory his Japanese.

Littlerock Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cinematographer Carl McLaughlin deserves some credit for his naturalistic, hand-held camerawork, which is responsible for much of the film's tone. Littlerock was shot with the Sony EX3 digital camera--think a little, less-expensive brother to the Red One--and the image quality of the Blu- ray's 1080p/AVC encode is quite nice for an extremely low-budget indie production. Not "reference grade" or "demo-worthy" by a long shot, but clean, fairly sharp, and always watchable. Although focus slips here and there--most of the footage is hand-held, after all--the level of clarity is generally strong, with finely delineated facial features and clothing textures. The shots at night and in darker interiors tend to be a bit softer due to increased source noise, but at no point does the image ever look murky or blurry. Color is strictly realistic--besides a slightly warm cast--and contrast follows suite, with a look that's neither too punchy nor washed out. Of course, anytime you shoot on less than top of the line video gear, there are occasional source-related issues--brief banding, clipped highlights, etc.--but there's nothing here that remotely distracts or detracts from the experience of the film.

Littlerock Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There's not a lot to say about the film's uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 stereo track other than, yes, it does what it needs to do. A 5.1 surround mix would've been nice, and there are brief moments when it's obvious that the production didn't have the sound department resources of a bigger film-- listen, for instance, to the slightly muffled dialogue when Atsuko, Cory, and Jordan are riding bikes--but for the most part, the audio is decently recorded and faithfully reproduced here, with vocals that are always easy to understand. (Which is good, because there are no subtitle options on the disc whatsoever. A disappointment for those that might need or want them. Do note, though, that all Japanese dialogue is accompanied by forced English subtitles.) The film prominently features songs from the Icelandic all-girl ambient group Amiina, and these sound great.

Littlerock Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary: Director Mike Ott, Cory Zacharia, and Atsuko Okatsuka spend this track drinking and getting high off whippets-- inhaling nitrous oxide--so don't expect a serious analysis of the film. Zacharia even falls off his chair at one point. Probably only worth listening to if you yourself are stoned.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p, 8:56)
• Trailer (1080p, 1:49)
• Screen Tests (SD, 15:28)
• Festival Promos (SD, 3:33)
• Stills Gallery (1080p)

Littlerock Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Littlerock goes one step further than Lost in Translation--here there's no translation to be found. The characters, Japanese and American, are forced to communicate almost solely through the medium of emotions, which are easily misunderstood. I found the film to be moving in a simple, honest way, so if you're into low-key indie dramas--not to sound like a Netflix category--it's certainly worth checking out. Recommended.