M. Blash’s Lying made it to Cannes, but it failed to make much of a splash anywhere else. Benefitting from a name cast in thesps Chloe Sevigny and Jena Malone, it took me a couple of tries to work through the denseness of the quasi-drama. Bobby Bukowski’s muted colors and the applied improvisational technique were perhaps the film’s most difficult hurdle to overcome. Blash is back with what I imagine is a more applied screenplay and instead of upstate New York, he has set up his next project in Van Sant country – Portland, Ore.. According to Variety, Sevigny and Malone are once again joining Blash and the new add-on comes in the shape of Shit Year‘s Luke Grimes and Devon Gearhart (the kid in Haneke’s Funny Games U.S. also has a part). Filming began this week.
Titled The Wait, it appears the project is part of a new wave of films about common folk being mislead by guru types. the film follows two sisters who decide to keep their deceased mother in the house after receiving a call that she will come back to life. Grimes will portray a philosophical and enigmatic man who becomes smitten with Malone’s character. Neil Kopp (Paranoid Park), Ryan Crisman and David Guy Levy (Lying and Austin Chick’s August). Here’s Blash talking about his film with Todd Haynes (it was an extra feature on the DVD).
