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| Director Allison Anders |
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| Anders with the ensemble cast |
BORDER RADIO B USA (87 mi) 1987 directors: Allison Anders with Dean Lent and Kurt Voss
Many curses on those who tried to thwart us. —end credit message
While Monte Hellman’s existential American road movie Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) was about an underground 60’s car culture that was dying, soon replaced by Jiffy Lubes, car sensors, cruise control, and all the modern conveniences, this film is about an underground LA music scene in the post-punk era of the 80’s before production values cleaned up the music industry with a studio sound that was equally cleansed of all rawness and spontaneous energy, erasing the very heart and soul of a live performance, reminding us of what was happening at the time, accentuating a sound that is now extinct. But this film is a quietly potent example of a rugged improvisational style from first-time director Allison Anders and her fellow UCLA film school students Dean Lent and Kurt Voss, who made the Portland indie rock, all-girl band movie DOWN AND OUT WITH THE DOLLS (2001), turning into something of a family affair, as it stars the director’s sister Luanna Anders as Lu, a no-nonsense rock journalist, while her own daughter Devon appears as Lu’s 5-year old child. Taking four years to complete the film, by some strange act of fate the depicted music scene disappeared altogether, swallowed up by the mainstream, finding themselves working after hours in the UCLA editing room, arriving via a side entrance after 11 pm and working through the night to be out by morning, with kids sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags under the editing table (security was much more lax before 9/11). A high school dropout, a former welfare mother, and a rape survivor (including a brief stay in a mental hospital after a breakdown) who briefly dated Quentin Tarantino before becoming a MacArthur Foundation winner in 1995, Anders went on to make the feminist films GAS FOOD LODGING (1992) and MI VIDA LOCA (1993), both low-budget examples of highly observant, realist inspired, independent filmmaking. While the principal photography took seven weeks, initially made for just $2000 dollars, eventually soaring to $82,000, the filmmakers only had six hours of film stock, so they didn’t have the luxury for multiple takes, yet in this experimental project DIY filmmaking merges with the music business, as DIY music had its origins in the late 70’s punk rock subculture, developed as a way to bring artists and fans closer together by circumnavigating the corporate mainstream. Lacking film permits, much of this was shot-on-the-fly, guerilla style in West Hollywood, Baja California in Mexico, and Twentynine Palms, while the musical venue is the Hong Kong Café in Chinatown, a haven for punk musicians in the early 80’s, yet also a home to outcasts and artists who were not welcome anywhere else, giving the film a disjointed narrative and primitive look, where there’s nothing cleaned up about this picture, still very rough around the edges, not like anything we’re used to seeing today, as there’s simply no production embellishments to make this look like anything other than a chaotic memory fragment, as these are recollections of something time has passed by, providing a glimpse into a bygone era. With only sparing use of punk music, the film instead evokes the disordered “feel” of the punk era, containing that same anarchic spirit. The UCLA student trio all worked as production assistants on Wim Wenders’ American road odyssey Paris, Texas (1984), with Anders running lines with Harry Dean Stanton, where much of this feels like a bleak sojourn into the same kind of sprawling Southern California landscape, where there’s not much of a story, yet this roundabout road movie captures the uncertainty and insecurity of a ragtag group of musicians living on the fringe of society who pretty much make things up as they go along, refusing to be part of the commodification of the music industry.
Chris Desjardins (aka Chris D.) is the legendary singer/songwriter from the Flesh Eaters, a staple of the LA punk scene of the 80’s, appearing as Jeff Bailey, named after the doomed Robert Mitchum character from Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past (1947), a down and out musician on the verge of achieving success, but it comes at the risk of selling out, with production values added to his latest album to make him sound more radio accessible. When he quickly disappears to a trailer park in Ensenada, Mexico, word has it he’s pissed at the changes made to his record without his consent, yet a violent incident that opens the film tells a different story, as he’s escaping from some thugs in what looks like a drug deal gone wrong, Border Radio (1987) -- (Movie Clip) Bring A Lot Of Beer YouTube (3:26). Iris Berry is a real-life punk rock groupie interviewed early on as an example of the pseudo documentary style, as she rapturously describes how much better the music scene was in the late 70’s, describing how the good bands got record deals, but the bad bands broke up, the clubs closed, and the fans got left behind, Border Radio (1987) -- (Movie Clip) They'll Boo You Off Stage YouTube (3:17). Her authentic insight, however, whatever we may think of her, is right on the money, serving as the film’s de facto narrator and cultural ambassador, as she was a you-are-there eye witness to one of the most rebellious movements in rock history. One curious aspect of this film is by the time it was released, a decade after the Ramones released their first album, punk had already become part of the accepted American consciousness, so the film has a way of looking back, like a faded memory. Shot entirely on location on 16mm by Dean Lent, the gritty black and white photography gives the film a distinctive look, Little Honey YouTube (1:37), along with random pieces of music scattered throughout which were mostly compiled by David Alvin, founding member of the Blasters, while music posters are seen everywhere lining the walls, yet there’s a story within a story. One centers upon Chris hanging out on the beach drinking beer, chatting with the locals, playing songs to an Elvis China doll and a clay devil on top of an abandoned car, burning his guitar on the beach, and just biding his time, where he’s in no particular hurry to go anywhere, where his long exile out of the country is wreaking havoc with the record company’s attempts to promote the album without his input. Another follows his on-again off-again wife Lu and their precocious child Devon, who are left to sort things out and fend for themselves, not exactly sure what happened, left in the same kind of limbo as Chris on the beach, yet she’s forced to contend with the mess he left behind, consumed by the constant frustration from the lies of self-indulgent men in her life. John Doe, of the band X, plays Dean, the bass player of the group, Border Radio (1987) -- (Movie Clip) I'll Still Be Drunk YouTube (4:06), who openly acknowledges that his music is the “only thing that sets me apart from other drunks,” while Chris (UCLA theater student Chris Shearer) is Jeff’s roadie and longtime best friend, emblematic of the Southern California mindset with that everpresent wry smile, as if high on weed, where he’s a little goofy, scatterbrained, never seeming to have a care in the world, and completely enamored with Jeff, who he idolizes, yet he holds himself in such high regard with delusions of grandeur, believing he’s the essential component to the band’s success. He’s interviewed before the camera at one point:
Chris: Well, yeah. I’m the roadie, but I. . .I do a lot more than
that. I, uh. . .I mean, I. . .I do a lot more than just set up equipment
and stuff. I’m like a. . .Well, I’m more what you call a hands-on roadie. I’m
basically Jeff’s right-hand man. And when he needs advice or somethin’, he
comes to me. And. . .You know, like when he has trouble with Dean or something
like that. Yeah, when Jeff’s up there onstage, it’s like a. . .It’s like a part
of me is up there with him.
Man: Do you get paid?
Chris: Nah, I do it for rock. Rock’s
much more important than money. It’s like a statement.
Man: A statement of what?
Chris: Well, it’s. . .Uh. . .I don’t
know. It’s. . .It’s, uh. . .Well, it’s like when guys are rockin’ out onstage,
you know. . .and they’re. . .they’re doin’ what they want and bein’ cool.
That’s a statement.
Man: Well, how do you support
yourself?
Chris: Well, that’s extraneous
information.
Initially there’s a humorous narrative device, with each morsel of information followed by a chapter heading “one week later,” which repeats itself three or four times, later changing to a completely undetermined time frame “2 or 6 months later,” where time seemingly stops, often feeling meandering and sluggish, as we’re stuck in a disorienting state of inertia filled with existential characters whose free-wheeling lives show aimless direction, Border Radio (1987) -- (Movie Clip) Followed By A Jeep YouTube (3:35). That empty space may drive some viewers batty, as nothing really happens for most of this uncompromising film, with no actual script, feeling more like a road map that uncovers a distant archaeological relic from the past with deep cultural significance, reminiscent of the trippy mindset of Dennis Hopper’s nearly indecipherable The Last Movie (1971). After several attempts to get the straight dope out of both Dean and Chris, they remain tight-lipped about Jeff, claiming no knowledge of what happened, while also remaining constantly at odds with each other, so Lu starts to get desperate, as she expected her husband would return but still hasn’t heard from him. All the other guys in the band hit on her at some point in Jeff’s absence, with Chris actually moving in temporarily, taking full advantage of the situation, yet he’s completely unreliable and undependable, like a grown-up child who can’t take care of himself, but he helps pass the time. At some point Lu gets more forceful, with Dean finally confessing a weird plan concocted by Chris after the band was stiffed out of their cut one night by a crooked club owner, so in retaliation they returned to bust open the safe, making off with a thousand bucks and a handful of Quaaludes, with the owner sending his thugs after Jeff to rough him up (“F*ck The Clash, man...all those bands just ripped off everything from Iggy and the Stooges”), but he escaped, leaving them to pulverize Dean instead. Irritated that so much time was wasted, she tries to make amends by selling her car and offering the owner compensation for what was taken, but she’s surprised to hear Jeff has already squared things away just days after he disappeared. So she heads down to Mexico at the same time Jeff decides to return home, discovering, of all people, Texacala Jones of Tex and the Horseheads acting as the inattentive babysitter in Lu’s absence. It’s a hilarious take on what is arguably the most spaced-out babysitting job in cinema history, as Jones has a completely self-absorbed mindset, yet she’s filled with unguarded moments, contributing an outrageous artistic sensibility that reads true, as most of these unrecognized musicians are just struggling to survive. While ambiguity is at the heart of the film, we discover Lu working on a book near the end, as we hear Berry’s summation, “You can’t expect other people to create drama for your life—they’re too busy creating it for themselves.” All about personality and atmosphere, beautifully reflected in the film trailer, Border Radio trailer [dir. Allison Anders, 1987] YouTube (2:33), carving out previously unexplored territory that many might have missed, while also offering a very strong, authentic, female point of view, this is a film that lingers in the subconscious long afterwards with a naturalistic, yet rambling life of its own, filled with wall-to-wall music from tinny Norteño (music) radio, including Los Lobos from their first album, María Chuchena (Son Jarocho) YouTube (3:57), with fleeting, impressionable images of wild horses running free along the beach, paddle boats in Echo Park, an isolated desert motel, and electric radio towers looming on the horizon, as it captures all the restlessness, anger, self-deception, and regret of the 1980’s LA punk subculture in decline.
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