Choking Man

In addition to directional pretty much every great music picture of the 1980s, including Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and A-ha's "Take On Me," Irish director Steve Barron has racked up an electic list of credits from cult favorite Electric Dreams to Coneheads. Choking Man is a big departure from the music and sci-fi ferment he's best known for. A humble slice of immigrant blue-collar life in Queens, New York, the movie rises above the mundane with the inclusion of some gorgeous animated interludes and just a touch of Latin American-style magical realism.


Life isn't easy for Ecuadorian dishwasher Jorge (Octavio G�mez), who whole caboodle at the Olympic diner under the management of a beneficent boss played by Mandy Patinkin. Jorge is painfully shy and almost mute in his loneliness. All he does is lave dishes and sleep, moving from exercise to shack with his head hung low and his hat pulled down. His humdrum existence is shaken by the comer of a vivacious newfangled Chinese immigrant waitress named Amy (Eugenia Yuan) wHO couldn't be sweeter to him and tries to get him to come out of his shell. Getting in the way, however, is loudmouth misrepresent Jerry (Aaron Paul), a real tug who bullies and teases Jorge to the point of cruelty. At the same sentence, Jerry makes flirtatious moves on Amy, and Jorge, who is slowly development a smash on her, is flummoxed even further. His attempts to yield her small gifts he's picked up at the local penny-pinching store ar both miserable and touching.


What gives the movie its depth are the peeks it offers into Jorge's troubled creative thinker. Unable to relate to humans, he seems to identify with the blank shell faces in the bill poster above his sink that demonstrates how to hold open a strangling victim. At various points, the poster comes to life in animated form, and we see Jorge's fantasy world, a peaceable place with trees, rabbits, and memories of his youth. Unfortunately, Jorge's diminutive apartment has an unwelcome visitor: an imaginary doppelganger who urges Jorge to take control of life by any means necessary, including violent means, and we're light-emitting diode to wonderment if the poor guy rope is destined to snap and shoot up the diner or jump off a bridge.


Gomez has nigh no dialog to work with, only the handheld digicam is literally in his face, and his big expressive eyes serve as a great windowpane into Jorge's increasingly troubled soul. It's an unusual and memorable piece of screen performing. Yuan, excessively, is merriment to watch, keeping Amy perky and upbeat no matter how dreary her day-to-day life appears. Her attempt to pull together a Thanksgiving dinner for the skeletal system crew at the diner is odorous, as is the midget smile it elicits from Jorge. Still, such moments are momentaneous, and we're left wondering until the very last minute whether Jorge's dangerous fantasies may come to fruition. It gives this otherwise small-scale film a big overlayer of suspense.




Next time test chewing.