PROLOGUE: I was wondering if anyone was home. It turns out there was. A TRUTH: Believe it or not, What Is It?, a rather strange film by Crispin Hellion Glover, is actually a somewhat traditional re-telling of the heroic myth. A young man is thrust out of his home, engages on a quest in which he encounters strange and wondrous situations, and learns something about himself that leads to a personal revelation; this revelation allows him to return home as a more complete person. (See the work of Joseph Campbell, et al.) YET: This is a film that obfuscates the narrative by putting forth a lot of questionable (and questioning) imagery. It doesn’t so much push buttons as it does fasten them down permanently with heavy-duty packing tape. Witness women portrayed as animals, a minstrel in blackface, racist songs, and Shirley Temple re-imagined as a Nazi icon, among other things. (See the work of Sigmund Freud, et al.) A CAVEAT: The portrayal of a cast largely consisting of people with Down Syndrome was handled with sensitivity. EPILOGUE: Fairuza Balk can scream like nobody’s business.

Somewhere between and

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