“HEAVY SOUL” (2005)

Starring: Sally Conway, Brittany Kubat, Guil Fisher, Mike Horn, Joe Cabbatit & Asaf Kolin with special guest Pete Ludovico
Written & Directed by Oren Shai
Rocking Oren

Polly Staffle Rating: ****

Will somebody with bankroll please give Oren Shai a budget to make a feature film? “The Lucy Liu character in ‘Kill Bill?’” you ask. No, that was O-Ren Ishii. “So who the hell is Oren Shai?” Allow me to introduce this talented director to you. I don’t know him personally, but I took notice of this 25-year-old through the internet community Myspace. He’s a filmmaker, music video director and the man behind the short film “Heavy Soul,” which has been making the rounds this year at film festivals like South By Southwest in Austin, Texas.

Shot on 16mm on a budget of $10,000, “Heavy Soul” looks better than some features that cost millions. It’s made in vein of a 50’s educational scare film like “Reefer Madness,” and is fun and campy with visual style galore. “Heavy Soul” would fit perfectly as a DVD bonus feature on a Something Weird Video release. It just looks a hell of a lot better than their usual archive shorts. Clocking in at 14 minutes, “Heavy Soul” is part horror, part exploitation and part film noir about a woman losing control of her life to addiction. The production moves from color to black and white and back, looking and sounding beautifully. Oren, who served as writer, director, producer and editor, keeps the locations simple and relies heavily on close-ups. Some scenes are dimly lit with characters practically being swallowed up by the darkness around them, while others give off a heavenly feeling. The effect of it all is perfect for the story as Dakota (Sally Conway) gets mixed up with the wrong crowd in the form of a greaser named Hal Grover at a party. Dakota quickly turns from saint to sinner.

Though Hal tells Dakota, “Don’t worry. I’m not a juvenile delinquent,” we know better as we’ve been informed by the narrator he is a “thief of souls” with an “evil heart.” Soon Dakota finds herself a junkie in constant need of a fix, going as far as offering her body for one. Her drug of choice appears to be heroin at first, but turns out being something quite different. But don’t go blaming all of Dakota’s misery on Hal. The modern day culture filled with automobiles, drive-in movie theaters and especially the devil’s music rock-n-roll are as much to blame as anything. The latter two influences being key to “Heavy Soul.” Especially rock-n-roll. This film eats, lives and breaths American rockabilly culture. The soundtrack never seems to stop as it moves from doo-wop German group The Crystalaires, gospel rockabilly band The Found Cats to Israel rock legend Charlie Megira. The Found Cats’ front man Pete Ludpvico, who reminds me of a cross between Kramer from “Seinfield” and Mickey Rourke, is a special guest in the film as rocker Johnny B.

It’s hard to cram a full story into a short film, but Oren Shai doesn’t really try that here. To me “Heavy Soul” is more of a glorified trailer with bits of the story shown in sequence. I feel it could easily be turned into a feature-length film. Features are Oren’s current main goal. He says he is in the early stages of writing a late 60’s-esque exploitation script. He has no plans on flushing “Heavy Soul” out into a longer version, but could do it with some adjustments if a producer wanted him to. Regardless, this isn’t the last you will hear of this filmmaker. Oren Shai is the real deal. He could very well be the next Quentin Tarantino. Oddly, Walt Disney seems to have been more of an early influence on Oren, whose been making short features since he was ten, than grind house works.

“I wanted to make films right after the dreams of being an astronaut dissolved and if I have to pin-point it, I would say that watching the original version of ‘The Parent Trap’ as a kid is what made me realize that this is what I want to do,” Oren said.

To me, the most unique part of his story is that he was born and raised in Israel. Oren, who cites Russ Meyer as a heavy influence of his, has only been in the United States since 2001 when he moved to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts.

“I always wanted to move to New York. It was really just a matter of time,” Oren said. “I’ve been so influenced by American culture that this seemed the natural place for me to create my art.”

While at the School of Visual Arts, Oren completed four shorts, several international music videos and nabbed Outstanding Achievement in Directing for “Heavy Soul.” It was also at school where Oren says he was introduced to the films of Russ Meyer, which has changed a lot at how he views films. However, his love affair with the 50’s and exploitation cinema began long before.

“I’ve been listening to 50’s music since childhood and even my Israeli works were about the American suburb,” Oren said.

Television and internet mostly is how Oren was exposed to American culture, adding that living here isn’t quite the same as what he grew up seeing.

“The American culture I grew up on and researched was that of the 1950’s, but I did have a grasp of reality,” Oren said. “I had been to the U.S. about five or six times before I moved here so I knew what I was getting into.”

Oren says American and Israeli cultures are actually very similar in parts, but completely different at the same time. He says he is just as influenced by both.

“The ideal for me would to be able to make films in both places,” Oren said. “I feel an obligation to help Israeli films get international acclaim but at the same time, some of the subjects I want to deal with are more fitting for the United States.”

So far at festivals, the reactions have been good to his film, but he said he has actually had trouble getting it shown. “Heavy Soul” has been submitted to CineVegas and is set to screen at both San Francisco’s Hi/Lo Film Festival in April and the Brooklyn Independent Screening Series in May.

“We’ll see how those go,” Oren said. “South By Southwest was the festival I destined this film to get into so it was great that it happened, but because it’s so off-beat, many festivals don’t know how to handle it. It’s not exactly a drama, a horror film or a comedy. It revives a dead genre.”

Oren says music videos are a labor of love that he wants to continue. He only works with musicians he admires. So far he has done videos for Charlie Megira and Shy Nobleman. Completing a film of his own is his next step though.

To me, it’s a shame that someone that embraces the 50’s and rockabilly as much as Oren wasn’t behind the helm of “Walk the Line.” I didn’t review the film, but wasn’t fond of it myself. Oren said he’s a big fan of Johnny Cash and liked the film despite its weaknesses.

“I enjoyed it very much,” Oren said. “I feel that filmmaking-wise it’s a pretty standard Hollywood film. If not for (Joaquin) Phoenix and (Reese) Witherspoon I doubt it would have worked that well, but their performances were so damn good that it compensated for the other parts. What bothered me in the film was that every other musician besides them was poorly portrayed - Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, Sam Phillips... They are being underplayed so they would not overshadow Cash. Elvis moves nothing like Elvis, Jerry Lee is just plain bad and Phillips is not even close to how eccentric the man was. That’s kind of a cop-out. But I did like the film.”

I can’t agree with Oren’s appreciation of “Walk the Line,” but otherwise feel he knows what he’s talking about. He’s right, Elvis was absolutely atrocious in the film and I did highly enjoy “Heavy Soul,” so I’ll cut Oren some slack.

- CCF, March 2006