FROWNLAND
Frownland
Ronald Bronstein, 2008
Catalog No.: FTF-001
Length: 107 minutes
First-time director Ronald Bronstein describes his extraordinary film as "a rotten egg lobbed with spazmo aim at the spotless surface of the silver screen." Be forewarned: audience response has been intensely divided. Frownland has garnered both passionate raves and scathing denunciation, while festival screenings have ended in screaming matches between patrons. It is strong stuff, yes, but none of its notorious reputation does justice to its savage dark humor, emotional heft and stylistic audacity. Above all else, Frownland is a pitch-black character study of Keith Sontag (Dore Mann), a neurotic, manipulative, stridently unlovable New Yorker whose pitiless roommate aptly describes him, to his face, as "a burbling troll in his underwear." With the most basic elements of human communication a struggle, Keith lurches his way through an uncaring city, attempting to aid a suicidal friend, evict his unctuous roommate, and simply attain some measure of self-respect. An apoplectic seizure of blind rage, sorrow and bleating humor...Frownland.
PURCHASE
WATCH THE FILM
PRESS
"This is personal cinema at its most uncompromising and fierce."
- Manohla Dargis, The New York Times
“When US independent film has become so drab, marching on Sundance to better reach Hollywood, it is high time it regained the essence it lost twenty years ago...This is the reason why Frownland is so important”
– Cahiers Du Cinema.
"One of the most unusual and audacious American independent films ever made."
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“There is some kind of demented brilliance at work here”
- Scott Foundas, The Village Voice
"A horror film nearly as creepy as Eraserhead and more unsparing."
- Amy Taubin, Film Comment
"Frownland is like a shriek for help. It centers on an extraordinary performance that plays like an unceasing panic attack. To call it uncompromising is to wish for a better word."
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times