Trans

Headnote

THE FILM ITSELF HAS NOT COME TO REST. A YEAR AFTER SCREENING AT SUNDANCE AND WINNING A PRIZE IN BERLIN, THIS FILM STILL LACKS WIDE U.S. DISTRIBUTION. GIVEN THE STATE OF THE ARTHOUSE/INDIE SCENE THESE DAYS, IT CAN'T BE TOO SURPRISING THAT A FILM LIKE trans IS LEFT BY THE ROADSIDE.

Trans, as in "in transit," being in motion, between things. Also "transition," which works the same way. Trans is also the title of an early-Eighties Nell Young album, obscure enough (one of those toenail-paring thingies Young sometimes puts out) so that nobody would make a connection between movie and record - although trans, the movie, is woven together with an evocative song score. Surely trans must also be a pun on trance, which describes the dreamy hum this 80-minute film creates. You will also notice that the word is not capitalized, a titling habit I usually deplore, but one that, in this case, fits: a word from the middle of a sentence, something plucked from a phrase already in motion.

The film itself has not come to rest. A year after screening at Sundance and winning a prize in Berlin, trans still lacks wide U.S. distribution. Given the state of the arthouse/indie scene these days, it can't be too surprising that a film like trans is left by the roadside. It doesn't carrv the calculated feel-good vibe of a Full Monty or Happy, Texas (the latter being another Sundance '99 indie that begins with the escape of prisoners on a road crew in the South). Though unconventional in style, it doesn't brandish the hostile revolutionary zeal of a marquee-ready bomb-thrower like Harmony Korine. Of course, perhaps director Julian Goldberger has some good stories about maxing out his credits cards or donating his body to science to come up with the budget, the media octopus being far more interested in tales of backstage ingenuity than the nuances of what's actually on screen. Yet trans is exactly the sort of smallish, idiosyncratically...