Candy Mountain

The 1987 film Candy Mountain is a lesser known product of the same downtown New York art scene that birthed such quirky classics as Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise and Jonathan Demme's Something Wild. Considering that Candy Mountain is also a road movie -- and a fairly deadpan one that heads straight into the heart of winter -- there are definite shades of Wim Wenders and Aki Kaurismaki in there too. I don't bring up these comparisons to peg the film as derivative, but more to marvel at how many art-house and indie filmmakers around the world were clearly processing the same cultural influences at the same time in similar stylistic ways.

The film certainly comes by its hip attitude honestly. Writer and co-director Rudy Wurlitzer previously scripted the existential all-timers Two-Lane Blacktop and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Top-billed co-director Robert Frank meanwhile is best known as the still photographer behind the classic late '50s book The Americans; around that time he got his start in cinema co-creating the famously incoherent Jack Kerouac adaptation Pull My Daisy. 

These two collaborators have fashioned an offbeat picaresque that is carried along by the spirit of music. Kevin J O'Connor, who you might recognize from any number of character parts, stars as this picaresque's roguish Julius. Julius parlays a gig playing bass adequately behind Keith Burns (David Johansen, essentially playing himself) into a bounty hunt of sorts, on the trail of the reclusive guitar maker whose rare instruments are bandleader Burns's obsession. 

Naive schemer Julius figures it'll be an easy payday to find this missing luthier, known as Elmore Silk, and broker a deal. Of course, we've all seen enough movies to know that nothing like this is ever easy. Elmore Silk's trail leads Julius from New York City all the way up past the Canadian border, aided intermittently by a parade of unreliable and wallet-draining cars.

Unluckily for Julius, but luckily for the viewers, each last known address is peopled with delightful eccentrics, played by a variety of musicians and noteworthy character actors. Joe Strummer is a handgun-toting lowlife who refuses to give Julius back the guitar he borrowed (celebrated No Waver Arto Lindsay is shown playing a coat rack as a percussion instrument in Strummer's impromptu jam). Tom Waits is Silk's sell-out brother, introduced while practicing his putt in garish golfing gear. Laurie Metcalf is Silk's daughter, shown in the violent death throes of a failing marriage to Dr. John's wheelchair-bound scoundrel. Roberts Blossom (the old man from Home Alone) holds Julius prisoner in his house for trespassing, while his adult son (Leon Redbone, displaying surprising acting chops) plays disingenuous good cop to his dad's bad cop. French New Wave veteran Bulle Ogier is an abandoned flame of Silk's, stuck in frozen seclusion with an ailing mother.

Once Julius finally pinpoints Elmore Silk, he's more life-size than we might be led to expect. Harris Yulin (the judge from Ghostbusters II) doesn't try to invest the character with any mysterious hokum. He's clearly just a talented man whose druthers would be a comfortable life on the road rather than any sort of artistic acclaim or lavish paydays. The film is too terse and oblique to flatly state that Julius is on the threshold of beginning a hard life like the one that Silk is trying to eventually exit, but that was this viewer's main takeaway. In many ways, the way that the film wraps up made me like it more than when I was in the middle of viewing it. Each sequence is pretty memorable, if only because of the colorful and hip cast, but the episodic structure sometimes undermines the overall momentum. The conclusion, while not unexpected, is satisfying enough to make the whole journey worth it.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Film Movement Classics and OCN Distribution present Candy Mountain in a standard keepcase, packaged with a 16-page booklet that includes a new essay on the film by Jonathan Dixon. As of this writing, the limited slipcover edition, designed by Steak Mtn., is available for purchase exclusively at the Vinegar Syndrome website. The disc loads directly to a full-motion main menu.

Based on the included booklet, this AVC-encoded 1080p 1.66:1 presentation is sourced from a new 2K restoration. Considering the film's low budget, this is an attractive restoration. Detail is strong, and the colors are stable and look accurate to their vintage. Contrast is sometimes less than subtle, with shadow detail getting obliterated in night shots. This might be present in the original photography. However, an early panning shot that goes from a sunlit window to a shadowy corner is noticeably compressed and marked with big pixel-y clumps.

The original soundtrack is nicely reproduced in this 2-channel mono LPCM mix. Dialogue and ambience are typically well-balanced, and the music -- both the score cues and the smattering of onscreen performances -- sound rich and full. I noted two hiccups but they were minor: one was a one-second audio dropout that was probably a reel-change issue and the other was muffled dialogue in a scene where Julius picks up a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker seemed like a non-actor, so I suspect the filmmakers didn't attempt to re-record his dialogue later and just stuck with the imperfect production sound to maintain the spirit of the scene. One subtitle option: English SDH.

The on-disc extras for Candy Mountain sadly lack any material from directors Robert Frank and Rudy Wurlitzer, but they do offer some enriching context and entertainment value.

• Thoughts about Candy Mountain from Alex Cox (HD, 10:58) - The Repo Man and Walker director talks about his relationship with writer-codirector Rudy Wurlitzer and offers what gossip about the production he can. All while driving and talking to a passenger-window video camera. At one point, he offers a written onscreen correction to the anecdote he just shared and amusingly justifies not just editing it out.
• The Road Goes on Forever (HD, 6:17) - Film noir scholar David N. Meyer offers a thoughtful and wry analysis of the film, examining it within the great American tradition of road movies.
• Trailer (HD, 1:17) - A new promo for Film Movement Classics’ reissue.

Candy Mountain offers a quirky riff on the American road movie that is buoyed by a few dozen memorable performers delivering memorable performances. It's a film with some interesting thoughts on how to maintain your integrity in a world where seemingly anything and everything is for sale. But considering the flick's deadpan obliqueness, you might have to squint your eyes just right and cup your hand over your ear to see what the flick is trying to show you and to hear what it's trying to say. Worth the effort, though. Recommended.

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