The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle
I’ve just left the theater after seeing the Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, and would go to sleep, however I’m too… well… excited. This film was great, not that “great” even comes close. Odd. Puzzling. Emphatic. Ambiguous. Invigorating. Hilarious. Unique. Well, I guess those are closer. But seriously, at what other time in your life could you feel your stomach churn with empathy, or anything at all for that matter, for a man sitting on his kitchen counter staring into the sink at a little blue fish that has recently exploded out of his butt?! This is one of the many feats director David Russo accomplishes with this film. You are drawn to investigate emotions, implications, and ideas in a story so far-fetched and unrealistic, and yet are entirely immersed that you hardly have time to doubt.
The film starts when Dory, a strangely religious man, loses his temper at his cubicle job and subsequently loses his job as well. After a fruitless job search, he falls in with a group of misfits that work at Spiffy Jiffy’s Janitorial Service. Late at night, while blasting heavy metal music over the loud speakers, the team cleans, investigates, and sometimes fornicates in the office building. However, this all gets messy when a product testing company decides to use them as guinea pigs for their new product: cookies that emulate oven freshness by warming in your mouth (because god forbid you actually bake your own cookies!). The cookies have some strange side effects though, including being completely addictive, inducing hallucinations and extreme sodium consumption, and quasi-pregnancies that result in the birth of a small blue fish.
The story, written by Russo, was inspired by his eleven years as a late night janitor and his encounter with a miscarriage in a bathroom toilet. The director explains that the bizarre story was conceived during the build up to the war in Iraq, and was a reflection of his being “pissed at his country, his culture, his species, and his gender.” The film doesn’t especially reflect this indiscriminatory angst, but rather focuses on, among things, corporate deception, biochemical engineering, America and its conscious-less pursuit of money money money, no matter the costs. Secondly, the film centers on forgiveness. A conversation through a message in a bottle picked up off the shore leads the main character Dory (played by Marshall Allman) to ask for forgiveness. At the same time, his co-worker and friend OC, using an art grant, distributes brand new coats to the homeless with the words “I’m sorry” lettered on the back.
Who is this “I’m Sorry” to? Who is it emanating from? Why does the main character switch religions almost weekly? Why would you knowingly allow these life-altering cookies to be widely distributed? Who is going to be sorry, in the long run? The film raises a number of questions and should certainly appeal to any who can understand that life is about watching fireworks from a rooftop, drinking beer, screaming into a microphone and calling it music and living life. Its about not knowing what’s gonna happen, but finding peace in that fact. Its a lighthearted film about gender roles, sex, loss, forgiveness. I would understand if this film doesn’t appeal to everyone, but I can say it is one of the best I’ve seen at Sundance, the only of its kind, and definitely worth watching. Check it out, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Tags: Kaye Breeman