Wanda (1970) In a galaxy long long ago, my kiddies, independent films were as independent as they could possibly be........
They were few and far between. Exhibition of them usually was limited to one tiny art-house theater in New York and one in L.A.......if any.
Filmmakers would scrape together enough cash to buy some raw stock and lease a camera for a couple of weeks........and then hit the streets and start shooting, devoid of almost any excess equipment or crew members.
The results? Raw as you could possibly imagine. These filmmakers dared you to take an adventurous leap and view their work.
The early 'indies' don't come any more raw than Barbara Loden's 'Wanda' the first of these independent groundbreakers to be written, directed and acted in by a woman.
Fair warning: Loden's movie more than earns its reputation as one of the most bleak, desolate, heartbreaking experiences you'll ever sit through.
It's challenging, uncompromising in its American wasteland imagery and not at all easy to sit through. It's an unvarnished study of one individual who's living in her own self-induced private hell.
Loden based her role in the film on a real woman. Her 'Wanda Goronski' is a barely educated housewife and mother, eking out a lifeless existence in a Pennsylvania mining town. Wanda, it's made brutally clear, has no affinity, aptitude or the slightest interest in the standard roles society assigned to her - wife and mother to 2 toddlers.
After abandoning her husband and kids like a piece of gum she tired of chewing, Wanda hits the road......
She's a human tumbleweed, with no other purpose than to keep moving aimlessly. When forced to, she'll deploy without much enthusiasm, her two primary assets - being blonde, and vaguely pretty: she resembles an exhausted Hollywood starlet gone to seed.
So she'll fascinate some lonely, horny guy long enough to secure a cigarette, a beer, a meal, a roll in the hay, a couple of bucks and a ride out of town.
As depressing as this is to describe, it's even more dire and sad to watch.
Fate puts Wanda in the path of Mr. Dennis (Michael Higgins) a foul tempered, cigar chomping thief who robs banks, bars and convenience stores. This doomed odd couple, hits the highway together, with the abusive, creepy Higgins slowly displaying glimmers of humanity and something akin to affection for dim bulb Wanda's loyalty to him.
And that's about it for the storyline........other than Higgins' enlisting Wanda in a foolish elaborate bank caper that sounds like he cribbed it from a movie he saw on the late, late show.
Somehow the film's final shot seems inevitable.........Wanda surrounded by people but completely cut off from them........unable to find a purpose, unable to figure out her place in the world or what she's supposed to do in the meantime.
If you treasure and celebrate independent film as we do, "Wanda" is 4 star (****) essential viewing.......
But remember we warned you.......this isn't some slick culture-vulture, navel gazing, self absorbed Sundance wanna-be, shot on some graduate film student's I Phone and financed by charging it to his daddy's credit card.
This is crude, ragged, messy creativity on display.......and maybe the saddest film you'll ever see. Try it, if you dare........
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