FILTER SCREEN
The Nowhere Inn
★★★★ Dir: Bill Benz
WIENERWORLD. DVD/ST
St. Vincent mock-doc probes fame and projected identity.
Referencing 1975 Bowie doc Cracked Actor, The Nowhere Inn opens with Annie Clark sitting in the back of a limo, a star being driven through desert. Except in this version, the driver takes pains to point out that he’s never heard of St. Vincent, and forces her to sing a few bars of New York. It’s a smart entry into this pastiche fly-on-the-wall co-written by and featuring Clark’s Sleater-Kinney buddy Carrie Brownstein, which riffs on the idea that a bright light shone on an artist off-stage might reveal not much at all. The pair have fun with the concept:
Brownstein as director blindfolds Clark and takes her outside the prison housing her father to “elicit something authentic from you”. The showstopper title track, meanwhile, revisits Twin Peaks, with Clark chasing through red velvet curtains after her faceless doppelgänger.
Entertaining, and quite a trip.
Tom Doyle
This Much I Know To Be True