The Brown Bunny

When I left Washington, D.C. at the end of my sophomore year in college, Visions Bar Noir, an independent film establishment, had recently closed down. Its last film was Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny. I had no idea. I was caught in the mellow drama of a strange relationship, and I was stressed about my poor academic performance and my over-reliance on marijuana. I moved back to Arizona for a year and a half, had more failed semesters at ASU, and then finally decided to return to D.C. to finish my education. I moved into an apartment in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, three blocks away from the condemned Visions theater. I was incredibly focused on my academic performance to the great expense of my social life. I had no girlfriend and no friends to keep me company or to talk me through an often unbearable sense of alienation. I found D.C. to be quite beautiful in the physical sense, but completely empty of the kind of thing I wanted from a city. What was that? Friendly, attractive and creative people, and interesting and affordable places to hang out. In retrospect, my attitude had a lot to do with this negative perception, but to me, the city felt like a movie set emptied of all talent. All I could see were boring policy wonks, snobby fat girls, and violence.

Visions was still intact, and I would walk past its decrepit marquee daily on my way to the bus. The Brown Bunny poster still hung in the Now Playing frame outside of the theater. The empty facade came to symbolize how Washington felt to me in those last two years of college. I finally finished, and after four months of failed job hunting in New York, I drove across the country, home to Arizona.

It may be something more than coincidence that Gallo's film is about alienation, failed relationships, and a lonely drive across the country. Perhaps not. The film also features the only blow job I've seen outside of porn.