FORT BUCHANAN
A film by Benjamin Crotty
2015, 65 minutes
2015, 65 minutes
No. 039
Narrative
Narrative
Description
The feature debut of American-born, Paris-based writer-director Benjamin Crotty marks the arrival of something rare in contemporary cinema: a wholly original sensibility.
Expanding his 2012 short of the same name, Crotty chronicles the tragicomic plight of frail, lonely Roger, stranded at a remote military post in the woods while his husband carries out a mission in Djibouti. Over four seasons, Roger (Andy Gillet, the androgynous star of Eric Rohmer’s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon) seeks comfort and companionship from the army wives in the leisurely yet sexually frustrated community, while trying to keep a lid on his volatile adopted daughter, Roxy.
Shot in richly textured 16mm, and slyly appropriating dialogue from American television shows, Crotty’s queer soap opera playfully estranges and deranges any number of narrative conventions, finding surprising wells of emotion amid the carnal comedy.
Expanding his 2012 short of the same name, Crotty chronicles the tragicomic plight of frail, lonely Roger, stranded at a remote military post in the woods while his husband carries out a mission in Djibouti. Over four seasons, Roger (Andy Gillet, the androgynous star of Eric Rohmer’s The Romance of Astrea and Celadon) seeks comfort and companionship from the army wives in the leisurely yet sexually frustrated community, while trying to keep a lid on his volatile adopted daughter, Roxy.
Shot in richly textured 16mm, and slyly appropriating dialogue from American television shows, Crotty’s queer soap opera playfully estranges and deranges any number of narrative conventions, finding surprising wells of emotion amid the carnal comedy.
Festivals
* Official Selection, New Directors / New Films
* Official Selection, Rotterdam Film Festival
* Official Selection, Rotterdam Film Festival
Reviews
"A witty and eccentric debut... as if someone had hired the postcolonialist director Claire Denis (Beau Travail) to shoot an episode of “M*A*S*H.... Evokes the vitality and experimentation of the French New Wave." Critic's Pick - The New York Times
"Soapy, sexed-up, and anarchic, Benjamin Crotty’s Fort Buchanan may be the only military-spouses comic melodrama as indebted to the Lifetime channel as it is to the oeuvre of Eric Rohmer." - Artforum
"Thrillingly weird and unclassifiable." - Filmmaker Magazine
"Soapy, sexed-up, and anarchic, Benjamin Crotty’s Fort Buchanan may be the only military-spouses comic melodrama as indebted to the Lifetime channel as it is to the oeuvre of Eric Rohmer." - Artforum
"Thrillingly weird and unclassifiable." - Filmmaker Magazine
