Like his peer John Sayles, director Victor Nunez is a veteran independent filmmaker of three decades. Even before the Hollywood studios closed their doors to auteurs and turned their backs on audiences who appreciate complex dramas and original styles, filmmakers like Nunez and Sayles realized the need for a production model that existed completely outside the Hollywood industry. Nunez helped found the Independent Feature Project (IFP) in 1979, which provides money and means for indie directors, and he serves on the boards of the IFP and the Sundance Film Institute. Nunez also produces and directs films, in addition to teaching filmmaking in his native Florida.

Nunez’s latest film, Spoken Word, recently played at Facets Multi-Media, where I work as a writer, researcher, and jack of all trades. I am a major fan of Nunez’s films, and I was pleased that our intrepid programmer, Charles Coleman, landed a film from a director of his standing, but I was also a bit surprised. Given Nunez’s reputation and track record, I pondered why the film was not playing at a larger venue. But, I didn’t have to think too long before I realized that it has to do with the same issues that have plagued the film industry over the past few years: Hollywood studios have sacrificed good storytelling and creativity to waste money and effort courting teen audiences with noisy, badly made blockbusters and dull animated features, and it’s at the expense of older, mature audiences. This leaves independent filmmakers to pick up the slack by offering well-acted dramas starring actors with experience and credibility. But, the indie market is flooded with good films that most distributors market badly, making exhibitors leery of taking chances on them. Currently, directors like Victor Nunez find it difficult to get their films distributed and exhibited.

VICTOR NUNEZ

Nunez directs indie films that resonate with a strong sense of time and place. He fits the mold of regional filmmaker in that his movies embody the culture, embrace the landscape, and pay tribute to the inhabitants of parts of the U.S. most people know little about.  These are places Hollywood studios either ignore or stereotype. However, Nunez’s films go beyond the quaintness of regionalism to expose universal themes and characters that audiences everywhere can relate to and appreciate.

Nunez’s region of choice is generally Florida. Born in Deland, Florida, he has used the northern part of the state as the centerpiece of many of his films. Some of them, such as his feature film debut Gal Young ‘Un (1979) and his follow-up A Flash of Green (1984), were adapted from literary works by Florida natives. Influenced by Italian neorealist films and Southern literature, he adapted the agenda shared by both Italian filmmakers and Southern writers to integrate character, place, and story. Neither Gal Young ‘Un nor A Flash of Green are available on DVD, though they can be found on VHS. Rumor has it that the IFC is currently completing a full restoration of both films.

Nunez gained national attention with Ashley Judd’s feature film debut Ruby in Paradise (1993), a tale about a young woman’s journey of self-discovery in Panama City, Florida. He financed the film himself and served as writer, director, editor, and camera operator. The film shared the grand jury prize in drama at the Sundance Film Festival. While Ruby in Paradise launched Ashley Judd’s career, his next film, Ulee’s Gold (1997), resurrected Peter Fonda’s. Nunez cast Peter Fonda as a reclusive Florida beekeeper who brings his dysfunctional family back together. Fonda seemed to channel the image of his father, Henry Fonda, in his portrayal of a man of integrity in a world of declining values. Nunez directed Fonda to an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe win. Coastlines (2002) starred Josh Brolin and Timothy Olyphant in a romantic drama about three small-town friends who find themselves in a love triangle. Nunez tapped Brolin and Olyphant before they became high-profile stars; discovering major acting talent seems to be one of his strengths as a director.

Spoken Word is Nunez’s first directing project outside of Florida, although it shares with his work a strong sense of place and character rendered in a naturalistic style. His involvement with Spoken Word was serendipitous, as he had been researching a different New Mexico project for almost a year. The producers at Luminaria asked him to join the project as director in January 2008, and, two months later, he began principle photography in Santa Fe, Chimayo, Espanola, and Truchas, New Mexico. Spoken Word is a quiet drama about family, art, and the power of self expression. Unknown actor Kuno Becker plays Cruz Montoya, a rising star of the West Coast slam poetry circuit who returns to rural New Mexico to be with his gravely ill father. Once home, he falls in with bad company from the old days, and he yields to the temptations of late-night revelry and easy money. As a result, he very nearly loses his poetic voice as well as his artistic identity.

Spoken Word is not Nunez’s best effort; the storyline is clichéd, and the dialogue is weak. However, the director and the actors do a lot with the material, and to understand that is to appreciate that a movie is more than just a story. Becker is an attractive leading man, and his character’s inner turmoil makes for a portrait of a fiery artist. But, Ruben Blades steals the film as the father. Much like Peter Fonda in Ulee’s Gold, Blades is the unbending, moral center of Spoken Word, but he learns something about himself through the events in the story that helps to heal his family’s wounds. It’s a humbling experience, which makes us respect and empathize with him. Like Fonda, Blades inhabits the role, commanding the screen in a controlled performance. Spoken Word is worth watching just to see Blades ply his trade with the depth and experience of a veteran actor—something you rarely see in Hollywood movies these days.

One of the hallmarks of Nunez’s naturalistic style is a sense of stillness that is difficult to describe in words. Instead of talking on top of each other, actors tend to wait a beat before speaking their dialogue. They speak gently with deliberation as though reflecting on some internal thought, or often, they don’t speak at all. Shouting and acting pyrotechnics are kept to a minimum. I first noticed this with Ruby in Paradise, and I am drawn to this quiet ambience that underscores the idea of reflection. Nunez seems to prefer characters who are at a cross-roads in their lives and are experiencing a painful process of self-examination. Sometimes critics have called his films “slow” because of this uniquely quiet ambience, but that is not a correct assessment. It has nothing to do with pace but everything to do with tone and mood.

KUNO BECKER PLAYS THE PROTAGONIST IN 'SPOKEN WORD' . . .

This sense of stillness is apparent in some scenes in Spoken Word, but Nunez also employs a technique that is outside the bounds of his usual naturalism. Cruz Montoya is a poet compelled to express his internal feelings—his truth. Throughout the film, when he is struggling with his feelings over his family or his situation, he recites some of his hard-edged, urban-style slam poetry in voice-over. A montage of disconnected, rapidly edited images fills the screen as Cruz expresses himself in words. Some of the images connect with the words; but it is the technique that suggests the discontent and disharmony that Cruz is experiencing at this juncture in his life.

The montages aside, Nunez’s style is so subtle that viewers might miss some of the images that convey information that the words do not. A shot of Cruz and his girlfriend, Shea, sleeping together shows matching tattoos—a signifier of their identities as outsiders to the mainstream and of their closeness as a couple. The film takes place at Christmas, and a giant, plastic Santa looks out of place on top of an adobe house surrounded by sagebrush and sand, reminding us of the Southwest locale. The opening titles are written with chalk on a blackboard. The first dialogue spoken is, “Spoken word,” so the written word becomes the spoken word—a clever introduction to the movie as well as a reference to the idea of screenplay into performance into film.

. . . BUT, RUBEN BLADES STEALS THE FILM.

What I liked most about the film was the theme regarding the intersection of artistic expression, personal identity, and communication. Given Nunez’s body of work as a regional indie filmmaker, it’s easy to see why he was drawn to this story of a poet whose confusion over his personal identity affects his abilities to express himself in his art. And, Cruz is not the only artist in the film; artistic creativity and expression are central to several characters in Spoken Word. Cruz, Sr. is an amateur painter; Cruz’s girlfriend is a professional painter getting ready for a major exhibit; Cloudy, Cruz’s old friend in Santa Fe, mixes and creates original hip-hop-style beats; and one of Cruz’s students strives to become a slam poet like his mentor. All of these artists express something about themselves through their art that they could not otherwise say, and, in doing so, they build an identity that makes them stronger. For example, Cloudy hangs on to Cruz when he first returns home, hoping to combine his beats and mixes with Cruz’s spoken word poetry so they can become a team. But, Cloudy gains confidence when Cruz lands him a gig as a nightclub deejay, and after Cruz falls prey to self-destructive habits, Cloudy has the determination to forge on alone.

MIGUEL SANDOVAL, COSTAR OF THE TV SERIES 'MEDIUM,' PLAYS THE ANTAGONIST.

Self-discovery through artistic expression is only part of the internal struggle of the artist, however. Cruz, his father, and his brother are unable to communicate with each other or their loved ones. They keep their feelings for each other—good and bad—bottled up, an approach to handling life’s problems that Cruz, Sr. learned from his father and has passed on to his sons, Cruz, Jr. and Ramon. Yet, artistic expression forges a pathway of communication that allows the characters to open up as a family. When Cruz Sr. reads about his son’s poetry in a newspaper story, he learns much about his son that he never knew, and he admits that his father’s way—the lack of open communication and self expression—had been the wrong approach to handling family hardships and problems. He wants his sons to choose a different way to live their lives.

The death of Cruz, Sr. is handled quietly, without melodrama or histrionics. And, anyone who has ever lost a parent will be moved by the scene and reminded of their own family issues—resolved or unresolved—that become irrelevant in the face of death. For that reason, the scene is moving and comforting for mature audiences in a way that it isn’t for young viewers. I once heard that good art speaks to the spectator in different ways at different points in his or her life, and I think this is true for a film like Spoken Word. I don’t think I would have found its theme as powerful or certain scenes as moving if I had watched this at age 25. And, in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, the drama could have easily turned into sentimental melodrama.

Aside from Roger Ebert’s review, other Chicago critics were not kind to Spoken Word, particularly The Onion’s A.V. Club. I guess the film’s quiet style, solid acting, and family drama weren’t hip enough for them. While Spoken Word is not Nunez’s best effort, and the screenplay is weak, there is much about this film to be appreciated, and it deserved better from local reviewers. As is the case with young viewers, young reviewers (I hesitate to call them critics because they rarely engage in true criticism) lack experience with classic-style dramas that may not be to their personal tastes, which have been honed on Tarantino-style irony and hyper-editing. In other words, if the film looks unfamiliar, and they don’t like it, then it must be bad. Few can discuss with any depth what good acting or a star turn can add to the material, and none of them can interpret how film techniques serve or detract from the content. Considering the film within Nunez’s entire body of work (a standard strategy for examining a film from an important indie director) would have yielded some of Spoken Word’s strengths, but my guess is most young reviewers are unfamiliar with his movies.

Spoken Word is currently playing the art house circuit in Phoenix, Santa Fe, and Albuquerque, and then it moves to the Cleveland Institute of Arts. If you like true dramas rendered in a naturalistic style, or films about the nature of artistic expression, or the work of Victor Nunez, you will probably like this film, despite its flaws. It will linger on your mind long after you see it.