In a way, this all started back in high school, in an art classroom, painters-turned-filmmakers Andy Duensing and Chris Doyle meeting there. Better known now as the pair behind the collective the Deagol Bros., Andy and Chris, working with longtime friends and fellow artist-musicians Eric and Jordan Lehning, have spent from production to final cut the last five years of their lives making the at turns poignant and goofball, genre-defying coming-of-age indie Make-Out with Violence.
As chronicled in journalist Jim Ridley’s feature story for Nashville Scene, the production was beset early by stumbling blocks. Budget limit halts of production, wear and tear on the seams of friendship and at least one very ill-timed break-up roughed up the filmmaking journey. Yet despite these trials, the high school friends, not knowing if they’d ever have another opportunity to make a feature, sought to tell the most distinct and interesting story possible.
Pulling from memories of growing up in a much more rural Hendersonville, TN than exists now, Andy, Chris and Eric, all working from separate cities, began a script crafting process that would, in its final stages, blend styles of many seeming opposites. One part comedy, one part drama, another mystery and the last (very small part in the scope of it all) horror, Make-Out with Violence tells the story of teenage twin brothers Patrick (Eric Lehning) and Carol (Cody DeVos), who after the disappearance and death of their friend Wendy (Shellie Shartzer), diverge in their paths toward after high school futures. While the somewhat obsessive Patrick tends to Wendy’s barely animated (read: zombie) corpse, Carol chases, much of the time ineptly, his elusive, tender sweetheart Addie (Leah High.) Told through the eyes of the brothers’ younger sibling Beetle (Brett Miller), the story unfolds with a necessary level of detachment into its punchy and disconcerting yet graceful, moving conclusion.
With its deftly-handled blends of style and score, Make-Out with Violence is at its best as an experiment; it’s both familiar and unexpected, nonchalant and thought-provoking, slapstick comic and full of all that’s yearning and desolate. As such the film in its festival run so far has had both its fervent champions and its quieter skeptics, those who really appreciate its many layers and those who stand in some confusion as to what is ultimately being said here. It’s undeniable, though, that whichever side holds greater sway for the individual filmgoer, Make-Out with Violence leaves a person wondering deeply, and just a little happier afterward for having seen this mix of ideas, images and songs. As Andy puts it, “There’s a certain amount of room there for the viewer to experience the movie in whatever way they want.”
Talking here in phone conference, Andy, Chris, Eric and Jordan share stories about the film’s development, particularly the crafting of its memorable original soundtrack — the disc length of which is longer than the film itself, “by quite a bit” says Jordan, who worked alongside Eric to compose all of the tunes. In the background of our conversation, Kevin Doyle, one of the film’s directors of photography, folds origami DVD sleeves for screener copies of the film. He does this for a full hour while the four others of the film’s creative core talk.
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The lineup for the 2009 SXSW Film Festival is now out, and pasted in full after the jump. First skim highlights:
