FAMILY PORTRAITS: A TRILOGY OF AMERICA

Douglas Buck first assaulted our senses with the bludgeoning short film CUTTING MOMENTS, in the late 90s.

He followed his award-winning debut up with two more similarly themed ventures - HOME and PROLOGUE.

FAMILY PORTRAITS: A TRILOGY OF AMERICA is essentially all three shorts re-edited and combined together to make one 2-hour-long anthology that seeks to strip away the veneer of American family life and show us the alienation and despair lurking beneath.

Proceedings begin with the first chapter - CUTTING MOMENTS, which to this day still packs an incredible punch.

It's the tale of a woman (Nicca Ray) who is aware that her husband is sexually abusing their son. In an effort to revert the pervert's attention back on to her, the woman resorts to desperate measures of auto-mutilation.

This half-hour descent into hell builds slowly, weaving a crushingly sad and claustrophobic atmosphere around the struggling family unit. And then, when communication between the family appears to have been lost completely, things escalate with one of the most jarringly gory set-pieces in recent memory.

To cap it all, the epilogue wrap-up is heart-breaking.

We then move on to chapter 2 of the trilogy, HOME.

HOME is described by Buck as a loose remake of CUTTING MOMENTS, only this time told from the violent husband/father's point of view. In this case, the lead character is office worker Gary (Gary Betsworth) who reminisces via flashbacks to his abusive upbringing - and reflects on how it's influenced his attitude towards fatherhood and marriage.

Although HOME ends predictably and suffers from weak peripheral performances, it does however possess the same slow-burning intensity and awkward silences that make CUTTING MOMENTS so uncomfortable to watch.

PROLOGUE ends the trilogy with a faint suggestion of hope. Only faint though - it's still as bleak as hell!

It tells the tale of a tennaged girl returning home after a year of hospitalisation, following a violent sexual assault that has left her paralysed and without hands.

Struggling to remember the events of her attack, the girl eventually recalls who was responsible and seeks an explanation from the perpetrator.

At almost an hour in length, PROLOGUE is the longest of the three chapters. It's also the most accomplished, demonstrating how Buck has developed as a story teller.

There's no graphic violence on display in PROLOGUE - the concept here is more to do with how the act of violence affects the various concerned parties afterwards.

It's intelligent, thought-provoking film-making.

The two disc DVD has been released by Buck's own production company, Voice In The Head, and is superb.

First off, the film is presented in 1.66:1 non-anamorphic (as it was shown during it's limited US theatrical run) and looks as good as 16mm possibly could. Colours are balanced, sharp and clear.

The 2.0 audio does it job without ever faltering. A 5.1 mix would have been a nice touch perhaps, but there's so many silent moments of reflection during FAMILY PORTRAITS that it hardly seems worthwhile!

As if having such an impressive film on DVD, uncut and uncensored, looking and sounding great wasn't enough ... there's some excellent extras to peruse too.

All three films are available to watch in their original isolated versions, with original credits and editing intact. It's worth noting that Buck trimmed a shot of a woman having her breast amputated by a pair of shears from FAMILY PORTRAITS as he felt it was excessive - but he's left the scene uncut when you watch the original short film version of CUTTING MOMENTS.

CUTTING MOMENTS and HOME are presented in their correct full-frame ratios when you watch their original short film versions. The picture and audio quality match those of the feature.

Having the short films available to watch individually is a Godsend, because as impressive as FAMILY PORTRAITS is, it's heavy-going stuff when you try and sit through all two hours of it in one go!

All three shorts have two audio commentary tracks - one each from Buck, who sounds similar to Martin Scorsese and has plenty of insight to share into the making of his films; and one apiece from various film historians/authors.

The feature-length version of the films has it's own separate commentary track from Buck and film critic Douglas Winters. It's highly informative and interesting, although a little repititious of the previous six commentary tracks.

There are short "behind the scenes" featurettes devoted to CUTTING MOMENTS (including some footage of Tom Savini overseeing the FX work) and PROLOGUE. These last 7 minutes and 16 minutes respectively.

Stills galleries offer plenty of onset images and publicity photos, if you're into that kind of thing.

Then we get original theatrical trailers for all three shorts, and one for FAMILY PORTRAITS. All capture the mood of their pieces perfectly.

Draft screenplays are available on the disc for HOME and PROLOGUE, as is a deleted scene from the latter.

AFTER ALL is a very early short film from Buck which is a grainy black-and-white tale of alienation and cannibalism that, by the director's own admission, is "pretty silly". It's a fun 17 minutes regardless.

Finally, there's a four page booklet with enjoyable liner notes from Buck, plus Peter Straub (GHOST STORY author) and Larry Fessenden (director of WENDIGO).

Rumour has it that Buck is working on a Hollywood remake of Brian De Palma's SISTERS. Hard to imagine, but I sincerely hope he doesn't lose the edginess and morbid attention to detail and character that makes these shorts so utterly compelling.

All in all, a fantastic package that superbly exceeds it's task of showcasing three of the most disturbing short movies of the last decade. Essential, I'd say.

Review by Stuart Willis