..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

Schizo

Directed by Guka Omarova
Written by Sergei Bodrov & Guka Omarova

I was thinking about how I would write about this oddly compelling tiny film from Kazakhstan while I was watching it. And I came up with the notion that it was like Gaspar Noe's version of Napoleon Dynamite. It never gets as violent as Noe, but that intensity seethes underneath. And it's never quite as goofy as Napoleon, but there is something about the title character that embraces the same blind optimism in a pessimistic package like Mr. Dynamite's journey.

Schizo is the nickname of the somewhat blank, but remarkably relentless anti-hero of the film. People think he's whacked… and he is… but not the way they think he is. A lanky torso and a gently handsome face make Schizo (played by Olzhas Nusuppaev) the Keanu Reeves of Kazakhstan. He's is having trouble with school and falls into an underworld of to-the-bone bare-knuckle fighting. The story gets complicated. But Schizo starts to find his way towards something he wants. And like Chance The Butler, he is the fool who overcomes simply because he doesn't know any better.

I was turned onto this film by publicist Mickey Cottrell, who is in Toronto for the final festival event on the long road to a theatrical release of Tarnation, a film that is sure to become the biggest selling video in the gay marketplace in history after a nice, small run via Wellspring. In any case, it was a good call. It's not the greatest film in the world, but as a small, intimate drama that takes you into a world you don't usually get to see, it is well worth the effort.

- David Poland