In
Trash, which had a premier screening in Hollywood
on June 24, youthful director/writer Mark Anthony Galluzzo,
has attempted to bring assorted true events of the area near
Ocala, Florida, to the screen in order to show the difficulties
that poor Whites face in a part of the South where economic
opportunities are limited. The tagline of the film is "Nothing’s
easy on the edge." When the film starts, an eleven-year-old
boy accidentally shoots a rifle and kills an adult while several
men are on a hunt through rough back country for fresh game,
but most of the film focuses on teenagers who are about to
graduate from high school with no particular future ahead
of them. One of the teenagers, Anthony DeMarie (played by
Eric Michael Cole) has no father, and his mother (played by
Grace Zabriskie) comes and goes from the home in a trailer
park. Anthony therefore falls back on a group of schoolchums
as a support group. Although Ms. Evans, the principal of the
school (played by Veronica Cartwright), recognizes that Anthony
has considerable writing talent, and enters a short story
of his in a contest, when he wins third place and a college
scholarship, he cannot contemplate leaving his close boyfriends
behind in Ocala. In due course, Anthony robs a jewelry store,
runs from the store, is shot while police pursue him, and
he is then jailed. Later, he escapes from a hospital while
being treated for the gunshot wound, and he is tracked down
again by police, and soon shot and killed. Sometime during
the project, filmed around Ocala, Florida, the working title
"Nobody’s Children" changed to Trash to refer
to "white trash." An observer with no previous experience
in trailerhome communities will find difficulty in reaching
empathy for any of the characters, as they seem so lacking
in ambition and direction. Galluzzo’s voiceovers, though attempting
to provide poetic statements about various situations, are
cryptic and obscure. After the screening, when asked about
his cinematic role models, Galluzzo named a number of directors,
including Stanley Kubrick, but curiously not John Sayles,
the one director whose path he clearly parallels. However,
Sayles has a clear message about how the ruling class in America
rides roughshod over ordinary working people. Galluzzo, who
hails from somewhere near Ocala and has achieved a measure
of success, is content to construct Trash without
a clear message about who in the United States gets what,
when, how, and why, preferring to focus on the poor White
victims of poverty for whom he has some nostalgia. MH
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want to comment on this film
