Eventually, your Michael Jackson records will
finally be worth something on the collectors market. You will just have to
survive at least one apocalypse, maybe two. This post-post-apocalyptic Ethiopia
might look like a strange land to us, but the diminutive, stoop-shouldered
Candy is not particular comfortable with it either in Miguel Llansó’s evocative DIY SF minimalist epic Crumbs (trailer here),
which opens today in New York.
This is a post-industrial, post-everything
world, but there are still flashes of power thanks to occasional electromagnetic
pulses emanating from the dead-or-hibernating space craft hovering overhead. It
happens quite frequently in the abandoned bowling alley, where Candy lives with
his beloved Birdy. He is convinced the hulking mothership is rebooting and will
soon be leaving for its home planet. Candy wants a seat on that flight, so he
will embark on a cross-country quest to find the man who can fulfill his wish:
Santa Claus.
It is easy to get distracted by Llansó’s clever cultural anachronisms, like Candy’s talisman, a Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtle figurine and the Michel Jordan altar Birdy worships at.
However, Crumbs is thoroughly
marinated in Joseph Campbell. It is absolutely a hero’s journey in the Pilgrim’s Progress tradition. Sometimes
it does not make ironclad logical sense, but the background for Candy’s quest
is truly stunning. Although it was shot in the Northern Ethiopian ghost town of
Dallol and the surrounding terrain of salt marshes and lava formations, Llansó could claim he filmed on Mars and most people would believe him.
Despite his delicate appearance, Daniel
Tadesse is a powerful presence as Candy. He is an everyman’s underdog, yet he
forges some acutely sensitive romantic chemistry with Selam Tesfaye’s Birdy.
Frankly, it is pretty impressive they can withstand Llansó’s awesomely surreal visuals.
