A PORTRAIT OF SOULS LOST & FOUND ON THE STREETS OF MANHATTAN
by Darren Rhodes

Yuma Voice 7/99
Although I don’t usually review short subject films, I kept hearing a buzz about a particularly unusual one that had been making the festival rounds, and decided to take a look. I don’t usually say this, but “Red Light August,” written, directed and co--produced by Jeff Gomez, lives up to its hype. The story concerns a young artist named Boothe, who has isolated himself in a bizarre Medieval castle-like apartment building in New York City’s Spanish Harlem. Boothe’s “everyday world” is unlike most anything experienced by us “between the coasts” types. He haunts Manhattan rave clubs at night, a lonely Sir Galahad dressed in black velvet, watching over his blissful subjects. Especially the pretty young ladies in waiting. When one of these ladies is threatened by a rave “poser,” Boothe glides into action. He tries to defuse the encounter, but ultimately he is forced to employ a carefully practiced karate chop. The bad guy is flipped into the air, but the lightning slip of Boothe’s carefully polished boot keeps the bad guy’s head from striking the ground. You see, Boothe doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He’s the closest thing to an urban saint you’ll find.

Well, except for that interesting “ritual” he performs... “Red Light August” opens with perhaps one of the most intriguing sequences I’ve seen in film this year. Boothe engages in a mysterious candle-lit ritual that combines artistry, eroticism and madness in such a way as to lay the foundation of Gomez’s themes from the first minute of the film. As Boothe, Richard H. Blake languidly strips and writhes on his futon, bathed in the eerie red light coming through his apartment window. Grimacing and trembling against his own actions, he is clearly hating himself for what he is doing. Not simply an autoerotic exercise, Boothe is acting out a compulsive ritual in response to obsessive thoughts that link sexuality with masochistic violence. Intrusive thoughts, signified by hissing and rattling sound effects as well as the image of a young woman’s fingernails scraping her boyfriend’s nude torso, burn into Boothe’s head, driving him with guilt. As the film progresses, they force him to recreate the image more and more explicitly on canvas.

At first I felt distanced from Boothe’s plight. The opening sequence looked more like a music video than an intimate struggle between an artist and his demons. This is helped along by the music itself, “Gorecki” by Lamb, a song that both celebrates Boothe’s romantic dreams and serves as ironic counterpoint to the eerie imagery. But on a second viewing, I realized that when we are introduced to Boothe’s ritual, he is still deeply embroiled in it. Like a junkie who still enjoys his highs, Boothe loses himself in the beauty and mystery of his ritual. We visit the ritual two more times in the film, and realize that—like a junkie who can no longer find satisfaction in his drug of choice—Boothe must escalate the intensity and anguish of his actions in order to stem the tide of dark images that are running uncontrollably through his mind. By the final ritual, we hear no pretty music, there are no gliding camera moves. We are just shown a tormented man, whose continued isolation can well lead to death.

Into Boothe’s life comes Eric. As played absolutely convincingly by Adrian Johansson, Eric is both Calvin from “Calvin & Hobbes” and Leonardo DiCaprio circa “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.” A fragile Robin to Boothe’s lonely Dark Knight, Eric humanizes Boothe, gently pushing him to embark on a quest for his own lost soul. Eric also serves to magnify Gomez’s examination of artistry and the creative drive, and how these relate to the demon haunted minds of addicts and obssessives. Listen carefully to Eric’s poems, which are recited during the film’s bridge and at its conclusion, and you’ll be gain access to the details of an intimacy and growing adoration rarely portrayed between young men on screen.

Which is not to say the Blake is any slouch in the acting department. A veteran of Broadway (Blake has portrayed the lead in “Rent,” and is set to star in the stage version of “Saturday Night Fever” this fall), Blake pulls off a subtle, sensitive performance unlike anything he might attempt at the footlights. Even before Eric arrives, for example, we are treated to a superb moment in which Boothe gazes into his bathroom mirror, and with only a pair of murmured words (“Oh, man.”), Blake reveals both the sanity and shame of this haunted young man.

In fact, the bathroom scene most clearly expresses the issue at hand. As we learn after the closing credits, Boothe’s mental affliction has a name: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Jeff Gomez, who has struggled with OCD for nearly three decades, has created a character who embodies and clarifies the dual life sufferers of OCD must engage in. No one with OCD actually likes what they are doing when the intrusive thoughts force them to commit small ritualistic actions. (Boothe also compulsively turns door locks, and locks are a subtle image system in the film.) The passion to do good, “to stand up, no matter how dark it gets,” is actually penance. They are Boothe’s way of redeeming himself for hidden shame and silent self-loathing brought on by the bloody mental images. Boothe’s OCD has clearly got hold of his sexual anxieties (watch the subtleties in his interactions with Darlene Dahl’s sexy Elaine), and for most of the film, he is too naive to understand what is happening to him.

By the end of the film, despite his best efforts to protect others, it became clear that the one person Boothe cannot protect is himself. Internally he is disconnected and alone. But Eric serves as both Boothe’s foil, and Gomez’s sacrificial lamb. The teen’s heroin addiction becomes a pivotal turning point, paralleling Boothe’s OCD, and shattering Boothe’s compartmentalized approach to his own problems. In the affecting climax, he realizes that he has a very real impact on other peoples' lives, and that going it alone against your demons is simply a set-up to failure. During his final confrontation with the ritual painting, Boothe takes his first hesitant step toward clarity and recovery. He departs the plastic, Medieval wonderland that could well have served as his coffin.

Lensed, according to the production notes, in several locations across Manhattan over the course of a scant five-day shooting schedule, the film looks gorgeous. Production design, editing and cinematography are all top-notch, making the picture look completely professional, despite its relatively small budget. The soundtrack, cutting edge. But this is icing on the cake. The story of “Red Light August” almost bursts the seams of its 30 minute running time. And while it may take a second or third viewing on videotape, the perceptive viewer will discover an exceptional, almost mythic portrait of souls lost and found on the streets of the city. I, for one, will be watching Jeff Gomez’s career closely.

Darren Rhodes is a freelance writer, actor and accomplished Yoga instructor who lives in Arizona. You can write him at rhodeo@theriver.com.