Julian Po (1997)

I thought this might be an unexpected surprise, and it certainly was that. I’m still not sure what to make out of this film. It had elements of daily small town life wrapped up inside of it, from a wandering traveler’s point of view. It was an adaptation from a book by Branimir Scepanovic apparently, and there was a 1982 Yugoslavian/Czechoslovakian co-production titled Smrt gospodina Goluze (Death of Mr. Goluza) which was previously made. The stories are slightly different, but are pretty much the same overall. Alan Wade directed Julian Po and also wrote the screenplay for it.

I thought the casting was simply brilliant, and they picked people who were very believable in these roles. It seemed like a very small town out in the middle of nowhere for the setting backdrop of the story. Christian Slater grabs the lead role in this as the character Julian Po; I thought this was one of his best performances since some of his earlier work. His character wanders into this small town after his car breaks down, little does he realize what a bunch of quirky weirdo characters he would stumble into. He has his own issues, but these people were truly strange. There are some small town stereotypical type characters that emerge, and they capture your attention as well. But, Slater delivers in this one with each of his scenes.

The people befriend him in their own odd ways, some of these are acceptable and in other ways not so much. This story is for the most part a fable about life and death, relationships and finding some type of happiness for even just a brief moment in time. The film does move at a pretty good pace, as you try to figure out what in the world is going on. The initial setup is there, but by the end you start to wonder what is going to play out next.

Robin Tunney plays Sarah, Michael Parks plays Vern, Cherry Jones plays Lucy, Frankie Faison plays Sheriff Leon, Harve Presnell plays Mayor Henry Leech, Allison Janney plays Lilah Leech, LaTanya Richardson plays Darlene, Dina Waters plays Dee, Bruce Bohne plays Pastor Bean, Roy Cooper plays Tobias the Barber, Zeljko Ivanek plays Tom Potter, Ellen McElduff plays Reva, Io Tillett Wright plays Walter and Jeremy Jordan plays Bobby.

Julian Po has an epiphany after his car breaks down; from then on you enter this strange story. I highly recommend watching this one; it was quite different as well as entertaining. It was categorized as a Comedy and Drama.

Julian Po

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 20th, 2010 at 12:30 am and is filed under Comedy, Drama, Indie, Latest Reviews, Romance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.