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Show 0CT12 4030 those "right people" those people few and far between that aie out there trying to do something reaL "Casing Cambodia" I was sitting Budweiser next to Trent still in hand in his office, staring at a wide-mout- h f ' s W "r I3 screening monitor where we were scanning through images from his latest film about his travels to Cambodia. "1 don't do a lot of research of the places before I go there. Most of what you can learn is just tourist stuff anyway. Plus, I try not to give my - travels too much direction, Trent said. It was trueat least that's the idea you got from watching his films. d a series of short tobiographical films In Cambodia, the images of green mountain after green mountain engulfed in mist appear on the screen as Trent is taken up a winding river, brown with silt. The many ruins are literally a maze of crumbling structures and forest overgrowth. Watching the camera swoop into darkened room after room, around comer after corner, you get a feeling of the immense. reverence and awe the place must inspire. At one point, Trent comes upon an older man with a stick broom quietly and quite methodologically sweeping the ruin floors clean of natural debris. Trent seems to have this knack for running into interesting people on his travels for instance, the sex-toentrepreneur in the middle of the Utah deserts, the lovely Peace Corps volunteer in North Africa, Barbara Streisand picking her nose in the middle of Hollywood traffic and a landmine collector in Cambodia. As I watched the cider man sweep, the meditational aspects of his movements crept into my brain, making me ponder such questions as why do I drive a car, why have I never been to Cambodia and when was the last time I swspt? The man speaks in broken English and successfully pedals a small token of the Hindu deity Ganesh to Trent for $2, and then looks straight into the camera and asks, "Would you like to see the echo room?" COVER - R7 fashion, into the flowing, silt ridden river. Trent breaks out into a sharp laugh that seems to echo my intemai reaction as I ask him if the man just said, which may very well describe all of his short films where he simply wandered around the Utah deserts. Most people couldn't get away with just turning the camera on themselves and shooting away while they waxed philosophical about life's randomness. Yet somehow, Trent can do that, and with grand results. But it's net just what is on the surface that makes the films so much fun to watch and yes, the images are often amazing it's the underlying themes and pictures that Trent creates with those images that will permeate your thoughts for hours, days, weeks and years into the future. Pictures like one of children playing with land mines that were left littering the countryside by the Khmer Rouge, and a solitary hand gripping a grenade, shaking ever so slightly as the matching hand pulls "Beaver Trilogy" "echo room?" I couldn't believe what I heard, and I can only imagine the surprised look cn Trent's face behind the camera at the time. See, "Ruben and Ed," Trent's e-length cult classic about two Republicans trying to bury a frozen cat, shows Crispin Glover declaring triumphantly from a desert mound, with hubcap strapped to his head, that, "I am the King of the Echo "It really is weird," Trent said. "I began filming this over 20 years ago and finished nearly 15 years ago. But now it's receiving all this media attention." "It" is the "Beaver Trilogy." It's not a badly titled porn movie, as the name may suggest, but a series cf films about a small-towvery amateur drag queen named Olivia Newton-Daw- featur- n People." Intriguing? Yes. To a wider audience? Very much so, as Trent is just now figuring out. "It was 1979 when I filmed the first segment, and when I started showing it around, people got really pissed off, saying I was exploiting this guy "Yes, I want to see the echo room," Trent said to me in his office, but his eyes clearly looked as if his mind was back in Cambodia. Later in the film, Trent meets a young man who had joined the Kh.ner Rouge at the ripe fighting age cf 10. The man describes how when he joined he was no taller than the automatic rifle that he now swung like a toy. This man," said Trent, "spent years laying land mines all over Cambodia, and now he spends his time searching them out and cleaning them up. No one pays him. He doesn't work for anybody. He just does it He has cleaned up over 5,000 mines, and while I was with him, we found 40 more." Trent showed the guy picking at a land mine with what looks like a long trowel stick with an head on one end. 1 couldn't help but think about the intimacy of death at the moment. The mines did look like playthings at times, and then the shadow' of death reminded m e of the destructive nature and power of the the pin mmmvF - RED Gary." What is so compelling about the first segment of the film is that it isn't fiction The story is true to life as Trent follows the unveiling of Olivia Newton-Daw- n in Beaver, Utah, at a local talent show replete with bad singing, a bluersequined drill team and an unknowingly n. war toy. , "It is something everyone should experience," Trent said. "What's that?" I asked. "This," Trent said, nodding in the direction of the monitor. It was the hand, Trent's hand, quivering slightly, gripping a large grenadea toy, perhaps a water balloon made.to look like a grenade? No, this one was real, just like all the rest of the war toys made for death and destruction. Trent's other hand gently reached over and pulled the metallic pin from its safehold and paused. He paused. He paused before tossing it quite gingerly, in an arching Trent Karris' "Rubin end Ed" hat become a suit classic, frozen cats and a!i. p Possibly the strongest point of the first segment is that it is shot so objectively. There is little commentary by Trent as the sequence develops and climaxes with the nearly horrific performance by Gary as Newton-Daw"The second segment was shot in 1981. 1 had convinced Sean Perm, who was little known back then, to play the Gary role," Trent continued with his chronological explanation. "I didn't have any money, so I shot it with a home movie camera and without a script." "Part 2" can only be likened to a quick, yet telling, portrayal of the same events in segment one. It is somewhat fictionalized and dramatized, but is generally close to the actual story. The young Perm is great in the role and nails the Newton-- . Dawn sequence with uncanny accu- . y over-the-tc- MC. : racy: ; The main addition to the film is the fact that Trent has the film makers himself iri the true story play a direct part of the movie, which ultimately adds another dimension not really captured in the first segment "The third film, starring Crispin Glover, was finished in 1985," Trent said. Arguably the best performance ever given by Glover rivaled not by "Back To The Future," but rather only by "Ruben and Ed" the third segment is somewhat culminating. "It's funny," said Trent, "I never even thought about hooking the three pieces together. It wasn't until 1997 that I finally did and it started receiving all this media attention." Trent has now shown "Beaver Trilogy" at vari- rMji f I 'if I '-- if ift?irrtCT' f. t lei - - ous festivals, including shows in New York City and Edinburgh, Scotland. "It really is weird that I am now receiving attention from all over the globe for a movie I finished years ago," Harris said. "I have plenty of new stuff, really good stuff, but it's this film getting the attention." And perhaps that is the way it works. But all things Mondo, especially those from Utah and better vet Beaver are not directly what's getting the attention. The eccentricity and the obsession of the filmmaker himself are truly at the center of it all. "Beaver Trilogy" plays twice Friday, Oct 13, at the Utah Film and Video Center at 20 S. West Temple, at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. For more information, call J 257-983- COPY - :::: .... |