Sweet and Lowdown 3 and 1/2 Stars (Out of 4) Reviewed by Mac VerStandig critic@moviereviews.org http://www.moviereviews.org January 16, 2000
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It comes as little surprise that Woody Allen, one of great filmmakers of the our time, has created another gem in Sweet and Lowdown. It ain't Manhattan or Annie Hall, but it is at the top of 1999's class, a strong statement about the filmmaker's talent.
Allen has previously ventured into risquE9 territory when he had = characters break role in Annie Hall and made Celebrity, a 1998 film, in black and white. Here he has created a mockumentary that is infinitely more realistic than The Blair Witch Project and might even create some consequent believers.
The film opens with Woody Allen being interviewed about a jazz guitarist named Emmet Ray who briefly flourished in the 1930's but is mainly remembered only by aficionados. Soon Allen and other interviewee's stories are acted out in segments by a typically recognizable Woody Allen cast including Sean Penn, John Waters and Uma Thurman. These bits are intertwined with continued interviews.
The assumption made is that this guitarist, Emmet Ray, was a major insider influence and Allen has decided to make a movie paying tribute to him. Ray was an oddball who got kicks out of watching trains, shooting rats and performing drunk. But he was the finest guitarist in the world and he knew it. . . "except for this gypsy guitar player in France," as he always had to insert. The gypsy in question was Django Reinhardt and Emmet twice fainted in his presence. The film follows Emmet through a couple of women, including one mute girl, and his experiences as a musician, hustler and part time pimp.
There is absolutely no reason that any of the things in Sweet and Lowdown couldn't have happened. But they didn't. Emmet Ray is work of pure fiction, although there was, undisputedly, a major jazz scene in the 1930's and a great guitarist named Django Reinhardt. Allen follows through with this fantasy to the point of even having the experts being interviewed disagree on certain issues. There is little doubt that at least one moviegoer will embarrass him or herself in the near future by requesting an Emmet Ray album in Sam Goody.
Emmet's personality is well expressed even beyond dead rats and speeding trains. He is also a kleptomaniac, something that probably serves to feed his monster sized ego. He won't allow himself to ever fall in love, but doesn't mind having girls live with him. Yet the guitarist also manages to justify all his wrongs in his own sick and twisted head. His extremely undesirable traits makes the supposed documentary all the more insightful.
Woody Allen's films, more often than not, mirror himself. In many ways, Emmet Ray is just an exaggerated reflection of the brilliant filmmaker. He has odd female companions in the aforementioned mute girl and other cartoon-like companions, works a small but appreciative music scene and is one of the best at his trait. Allen certainly has an abnormal female life that has come to light recently, continues to make independent films for an appreciative art-house crowd and is, indisputably, one of the greatest at what he does.
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