Wild West capitalism hits the Far East with a vengeance in documentarian John Maringouin’s adventuresome first narrative feature, “Ghostbox Cowboy.” This original if sometimes befuddling vision blurs the line between fiction and documentary elements, conventional storytelling and improvisational collage, all to oft-bracing effect. Starring indie-cinema regulars David Zellner and Robert Longstreet as Yank hustler-entrepreneurs wading into the financially frenetic waters of the People’s Republic, it’s a freewheeling absurdist parable that might be dubbed “Fear and Loathing in the Chinese Economic Miracle.”
Though by its very nature somewhat uneven and unwieldy, what Maringouin has wrought here has a kind of exhilarating chaos to it, something comparable to relatively few prior films. Alexsey German’s just-restored 1998 “Khrustalvoy, My Car!” and the prime-time Fellini of “8 1/2” come to mind as similar phantasmagorias of modernity’s institutions run amuck.
Appropriately for the era it depicts, “Ghostbox” has a much more jittery, digital aesthetic than those movies,...
Though by its very nature somewhat uneven and unwieldy, what Maringouin has wrought here has a kind of exhilarating chaos to it, something comparable to relatively few prior films. Alexsey German’s just-restored 1998 “Khrustalvoy, My Car!” and the prime-time Fellini of “8 1/2” come to mind as similar phantasmagorias of modernity’s institutions run amuck.
Appropriately for the era it depicts, “Ghostbox” has a much more jittery, digital aesthetic than those movies,...
- 11/30/2018
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
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