CURTAINS

Written and Directed by Michael Legge
Edited by Les Moreland
Director's of Photography - Robert Legge and Mark Thyme

Gordon - Steve Mullahoo
Darren - Bruce Adams
Florinda - Cherry Lynn Zinger
Dirk - Michael Legge

What is death? What happens when our time on this mortal plan expires? Do we move on to another, higher level of existence? Do we become worm food? Whose version of the after life is right, the Christians, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the Agnostics…?

How in the wide, wide world of sports should I know?

If there is an after life, I hope it's nothing like Michael Legge's witty and surrealist comedy CURTAINS. According to Legge, limbo consists of being confined to the back of a Ford pick-up and being driven around the block by a dead Private Eye named Dirk.

How does one deserve this fate worse than hell? For Florinda, it was putting some crackpot comet religion before God. For Darren, it was pushing his Liona Helmsly-like mother over a cliff, with a little assistance from Grim Reaper himself. For Gordon it was an adulterous affair with a pal's wife, before a plane fell on his house. Dirk is the only one who didn't break one of the Ten Commandments. His tale involves hot dames and noirish mystery. He's the straightest arrow of the bunch. Maybe that's why he gets to drive the truck…

Instead of conventional narrative, director Legge opts to tell each person's story in a round-robin fashion with each person taking their time to get the details right. Of course we never get the full, unabridged versions of each person's demise, only bent and biased recollections of what they would and wouldn't change. The question none of the characters even tries to answer is where they COULD have changed anything before their deaths.

In the end, one person is allowed to return to their life. They were all taken before their time, and in one way or another, they all deserved their fate. But in Afterlife comedies, someone always gets a second chance to get things right. They might not be able to change the past, but they can strive to make a better future.

I can't say I agree with the choice for reincarnation. Given the sins, all of which are laws set by the Christian God, Dirk would have made the most sense. But it's Legge's movie and he's having fun with it. Pure fun told without the mar of sex, drugs, and foul language many filmmakers find necessary. CURTAINS is a story about stories and the journey it takes to tell them. Journeys that are all worth the trip.

Sideshow Cinema
Sub Rosa Studio

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