Speedy Boys. 1999. By James Herbert.

(9/17/00-9/21/00)

In Speedy Boys Herbert dispenses with his rephotography technique. We see the actual footage, not removed through the rephotography. And the people he films speak; we hear dialogue, improvised though it is. The film has characters with names who act out situations. And the film is 75 minutes long, leaving us with the impression that we are watching a "regular movie," or at least something similar.

The result is not particularly happy, or at least not to my taste. Herbert's rephotographed films have a special, haunting quality and Speedy Boys doesn't. When the nudes walk around a room striking poses it just seems silly. Silly and pretentious.

I mentioned that Porch Glider draws on the power of pornography for its effectiveness. Speedy Boys makes me think that James Herbert really should have worked in the adult film industry. His films--this one obviously so--are about sex as much as about nudity. I really think that Herbert goes just about as far as he can in this direction while remaining "respectable." Or maybe his work is aimed at viewers who would like adult films but don't want to admit it. And the strategy works.

When I think of Speedy Boys as being close to pornography the scene that comes to mind is the one in which the nude male appears to be banging the girl in the print dress while his friend stands in the foreground and masturbates. The frame modestly cuts him off so that we don't really see it--we just see his arm moving. Yes, it is certainly titillating.

There is one very funny scene in which the male and female are in bed with the male's friend appearing as a shadow--for lack of a more precise word--on the other side of the curtain. He wants to have sex; she wants to talk about her job which isn't of any great interest to him. This scene is in the spirit of Andy Warhol's I, A Man.

There is a lack of meaningful communication between man and woman in this film. At least once--and I think twice--the sound fades while a female is talking, as if to emphasize that what she is saying isn't of very much interest.

It is interesting how as the film prowls to its conclusion we see images that we have seen at the beginning recurring, such as a boy looking at the nude characters from over a wall. But those recurring bits really don't make the film that much more interesting.

Speedy Boys has characters that we sort of get to know. It has "situations" which kind of substitute for a plot. And there is no rephotography. So it imitates, if only superficially, a conventional narrative feature film. And that is unfortunate because it doesn't have those qualities of remoteness and mysteriousness that permeate James Herbert's best work.