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KABLUEY Send This Review to a Friend
Talk about offbeat films. “Kabluey,” written and directed by Scott Prendergast, stars the filmmaker as Salman, a comical, bumbling misfit who, although a decent sort of fellow, has trouble holding a job. Prodded by his sister Leslie (Lisa Kurdrow), with whom he has come to live in exchange for looking after her bratty children while she works, Salman looks for a job. He is hired by a nasty woman to don a weird, puffy suit that makes him look like an oddball clown. His job is to stand by a roadside and hand out leaflets advertising office space.
The spectacle of Salman sweating away in the costume is pathetic, but also funny in its absurdist way. We are able to root for him as he fumbles his leaflets because he is so encased and as he takes abuse from passersby. One woman, intrigued by his get-up, hires him to entertain at a children’s party, where he overhears gossip about infidelities and creates a crisis when he spills the beans about what he has learned.
Gallows humor underlines the story, and there are funny visual effects, as when his hand reaches out from an unlikely place in the costume. The choice of a venue for the advertising is odd in itself, as Salman is stationed at an infrequently passed outpost. And whatever happened to sandwich signs?
Kudrow is effective as Leslie, who carries a sub-theme of the film. Her husband is serving in Iraq with the National Guard and she is furious at his absence and the need for him to extend his tour of duty. The film in its way examines the war-spawned tensions that can happen on the home front. But although a catalyst for Leslie’s’s problems, the situation is treated as merely background for Salman’s humorous life of woe. A Regent Releasing release.
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