Factotum (2005)
Starring: Matt Dillon, Lily Taylor, Marisa Tomei
Directed by: Bent Hamer
Written by: Bent Hamer & Jim Stark, based on the writings of Charles Bukowski
Rated: R
Rating: ** (two stars out of five)
Factotum, n., an employee or assistant who serves in a wide range of capacities. This is what the dictionary and the movie credits tell us about the title. And it definitely fits the story.
The story revolves around Henry Chinaski (Dillon), a potrait of Charles Bukowski, which is to say a drunk, womanizing writer who aspires to … What does he aspire to? The story starts off brilliantly. The first scenes follow Chinaski through his job as an ice man out on a delivery to a bar. His boss follows him, discovers the ice melting in the back of the delivery van and Chinaski inside having a few drinks next to an old man who says he’s slept longer than Chinaski’s been alive. It’s a great sequence.
Chinaski then moves along to various jobs — working at a pickle factory, bicycle shop, and brake shoe manufacturer among others — and he ends up living with Jan (Taylor). Later he’s spending his time with Laura (Tomei) after a spat with Jan. Then he’s back with Jan again, for a few minutes at least. And then it ends.
Bukowski is reknowned for his drinking and womanizing, living in the gutter for a significant portion of his life. He was not the best man who ever lived. I love his poetry, and my favorite poem of his is featured in this movie. “A poem is a city filled with streets and sewers / filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen, / filled with banality and booze / filled with rain and thunder and periods of / drought, a poem is a city at war.”
That poem is a perfect example of Bukowski’s work and possibly his person too. It describes a significant portion of Factotum as well. But it doesn’t make the movie any better or more meaningful than it was. The movie lacks a purpose.
The filmmakers intended to make a film about a man, a writer, who drinks and has found a difficult path through life, but a path that he chooses to take nonetheless. What they ended up making was a film about a drunk on a difficult path through life, one that he’s too lazy to step away from, who happens to write.
The movie is extremely well directed, and the acting is very well done. It is very much a professionally made movie. But again, that doesn’t give it a larger purpose or meaning. The first act had me enveloped in the story: the awkward moments, the quirky statements Chinaski makes, they all wove together precisely. The last two thirds of the movie repeated the territory it had already traversed over and over again. By the end, I was left in the same place I started, with no better grasp of any single character, and feeling no different about anything.
The movie ends with another Bukowski piece: “If you’re going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like it. You will be alone with the Gods. And the nights will flam with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It’s the only good fight there is.” I found myself in love with that quote. And yet, I felt it had no place being in that movie.
It was meant to be a movie about a man devoting himself to writing, everything else be damned; it turned out to be a movie about a man who refused to change and sometimes wrote something. Well made, but lacking in purpose and vision. Bukowski devotees may love this film, but not many others.