It’s hard to bring a short film into the world. The market is very small, with shorts airing in-between features on independent movie channels or airing before films in art-house/indie theaters. Most directors use them as a calling card, displaying their chops as a film-maker and hoping to get a bigger gig out of it. “District 9” worked this way, and many recent shorts have been picked up such as “The Cup of Tears” (by Universal) and “Pixels” (by Adam Sandler). But they should be appreciated on their own merit, and there are a lot of great short films that are worth searching for. One such film is “The Bowler” by Brooklyn filmmaker Sean Dunne.
“The Bowler” follows Rocky Salemmo, an erratic and entertaining character from Staten Island. A hustler for most of his life, Rocky takes us along for a ride, dropping funny anecdotes and spilling his guts out along the way. The film plays like a love letter to bowling alleys of recent past, before the loud and obnoxious pop-music light shows took over and bowling alleys themselves stopped looking like a day-time bar. Much like Rocky, the film is bursting with personality, at once feeling like a 90s Coen Brothers film and at another feeling like an old polaroid come to life. When asked about his influences for the film, the film-maker explained, “My main influence is Bruce Springsteen. I grew up in the suburbs and from a very young age his music spoke to me… honestly, the imagery in his songs has pretty much shaped my vision of the world.” Indeed, the attitude of the film is very much Bruce, with the short displaying a little slice of Americana that is often unsung and disregarded.
Rocky is an amazing and entertaining presence; you can’t help but be taken in by his hyper-charm and old school aura. The film runs briskly at 14 minutes, and though the short stands superbly well on its own, it does leave you longing for more. “That is one of the first things I thought when we wrapped,” Dunne noted. “I’m thinking about pitching a TV show where we chronicle the adventures of him and his band of goons. We can put them in small towns throughout the US with a couple grand a piece and see what they get into.” With reality TV still hitting pretty hard, we don’t see why it couldn’t work on the small screen, and Dunne’s directing style would be very welcome and distinct in the realm of bland, uninteresting reality TV.
Dunne shows no signs of slowing down, with future projects ranging from a music doc titled “What A Way To Die” about garage punk band The Mummies and a topical doc about the oil spill in the gulf titled “Summer of Sludge.” For now, check out “The Bowler” embedded below. It’s tons of fun and we highly recommend it.
The Bowler from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.