Review: The Transcendents

Text © Robert Barry Francos / FFanzeen, 2020

Images from the Internet (click to make larger)

The Transcendents

Directed by Derek Ahonen

Erratic Behavior / Indican Pictures

96 minutes, 2018 / 2020

www.facebook.com/TheTranscendentsFilm

www.indicanpictures.com/new-releases/the-transcendents-9dj3c-tcw3m

It is either here nor there that I recently reviewed a film about an indie rock band that has disbanded called The Incoherents. Now I’m reviewing a film about the formation and break-up of an indie rock band called The Transcendents, and of a person looking for its members. No connection other than just overarching themes, though. This one has done the film festival circuit for the past two years, and now it is time for a full release (on the usual online platforms).

Rob Franco

The central character that holds everything together is a severely damaged musician and songwriter, Roger (Rob Franco), who doesn’t imbibe (except…) and is celibate (except…). He is seeking a band that once existed that he has a connection to, called the Transcendents (not to be confused with the real Ohio band with the same name), which was formed more than a decade before (or as the title cards say in a flashback, “5,479 days earlier”). This version of The Transcendents is harsh realist lead singer and sitarist Kim (Savannah Welch, definitely in a Kim Gordon pose as I remember her in the 1980s; Welch’s real band is the folk-country The Trishas); the bassist is starry-eyed Foster (Ben Reno), who has his own dark streak.

This film is full of music and music-related personalities in both large and small roles; for example, there’s Kathy Valentine, better known as the bassist of the Go-Go’s… yes, that Go-Go’s... who plays the dominant character of Jan, a bar owner where “shitty bands” play and who takes Roger in. The bartender, Matthew Pilieci, is a co-founder (along with the film’s director) and Associate Artistic Director of the Amoralists Theater Company in New York, whose mission is to produce work of “no moral judgment.” A small yet pivotal role is played by Billy Leroy, who was the owner of the infamous Billy’s Antiques on the bygone Lower East Side.

Savannah Welch

Speaking of music, the background soundtrack throughout is mostly operatic or chamber-like. Odd choice, but it works considering the depth of the storyline. The focus is on the quite different levels of despair and the twisted lives of the people involved, both during the rise of the band and in the present, years later. Essentially, there are two basic styles that are used to convey time periods: the present uses sharp angles to signify how off-kilter the personalities are, and the past employs handheld cameras, but not shaky in that annoying found footage way. It’s more of a representation of the cloudiness of events over time, in the same way sit-coms and cartoons often use a slightly out-of-focus lens to represent a different era.

Another method to express emotion is the shifting of colors and lenses on occasion (but not enough to be much of a distraction). But most noticeable is the sheer use of color and then the drabbing down of it’s intensity, such as in Jan’s apartment. It could have looked really garish in real light, but the muting works well to keep it in perspective and just enough skewed for the personalities and story tones.

As far as editing goes, there are also a couple of completely opposite approaches used to convey intensity: first, there is the sharp, bam-bam editing, such as when Foster is yelling at Roger, and then there is the looooong, slooooow zoom in mixed with extreme close-ups, like during a 15-minute soliloquy by Kim.

One of the indirect fun things about films like this, frankly, is reading tee-shirts. Yeah, it makes sense that someone would be wearing a The Transcendents shirt, but also seen is one with T.Rex. There are some albums nailed onto the wall without sleeves and records on a shelf, and I found myself trying to see if I could read them (did I see Elton John’s Captain Fantastic back there? Note that I do not have a wall-sized screen. If so, not very indie, if it is; *self-righteous snicker*).

Franco, Kathy Valentine, and kitsch

The acting is a bit over the map, but there is no question that the two leads, Franco and especially Welch come out the strongest. They show a wide range of emotions, including some of the harsh ones, without letting you find ease, nor can you look away. Powerful acting.

If there is any issue with the film, in my opinion, it is that it felt a bit long. This may be due to a sense of art that it feels like the director was aiming for (this is his first feature), and it tries a bit too hard. Now it actually succeeds in being more than just a story, but it is just a tad overdone; like when you want a rare steak and it comes back medium: still pink, but not red; at least it’s not charcoal.

Anyway, the film, which is shot around Austin, Texas, and Rockland County, New York (what we Brooklynites used to refer to as “Upstate”), really is more about the personalities within the band and those around them, and of the harshness of the music business, more than about the music itself, hence a soundtrack that is polar opposite of the neo-psych indie output of The Transcendents.

If you’re looking for a light story about a band like The Thing That You Do! (1998), you are in the wrong spot. This is more Ingmar Bergman-esque than that. And are there resolutions? Well, see the film, and we can discuss.