Combat
(2006/Patrick Carpenter)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Shorts/Extras: C+ Main Program: C+
Not to be
confused with the ever-popular hit TV War series, Patrick Carpenter’s Combat (2006) is the conclusion of a
trilogy of shorts in which the director examines time, space and gay sexuality
without overkill. This new DVD contains
the entire trilogy, including God Is A
Dog, The 9 Tuesdays (Les 9 mardis) and the title
finale. The first two run about a
half-hour, the conclusion twice as long.
Though
they are very different and the results are mixed, the pieces are ambitious at
times. Dog is a pastiche of Super 8 film of the director’s childhood with
reflections that sometimes works. Tuesdays tries to deal with time and
space, but is far from effective in its meditations, being easily the weakest
of the three parts. Alain Resnais he
ain’t.
That
leaves Combat, which deals with two
men in love who fight and are in conflict with each other (and possibly
themselves) more than able to be at peace with each other. This is the most intriguing of the three, has
the most potential and just does not have enough time to delve into what it
starts up. Like its predecessors, it is
too abstract too often to deal with the issues at hand, though it can be
interesting at times. That can be
fascinating and is definitely a risk not enough gay projects take on, but that
is still more ambitious than most we have seen lately, so Carpenter should get
credit he deserves just for trying.
The 1.33
X 1 on each of the three parts vary throughout, but is decent though expect
some degraded images from age, letterboxing in the dual screen section of Tuesdays and even detail limits of Combat.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is stereo at best, but fidelity can be mixed
at times. Besides the shorts, a
12-minutes interview with Carpenter is the only extra. Wonder what he’ll do next?
- Nicholas Sheffo
