THERE’S BEEN A FUCK UP. It’s 1979; the Vietnam war is over
and the Cold War
is heating up, and Corporal Rudy Spruance (Jason Biggs)
is dropped off in mysterious Military Base in Qangattarsa, Greenland
rather than the sun-kissed beaches of Hawaii. There, he is referred to
only as ‘Martin Pederson’. Rudy’s attempts to correct
this error are quickly shot down as Corporal Lane Woolrap (Jeremy Northam)
has plans for ‘Pederson’; to manufacture a propagandist newspaper ‘The
Harpoon’, but Rudy uncovers more than he is asked; that this base
has a darker purpose…
Scottish Director Saul Metzstein and cinematographer François
Dagenais create a hypnotic nebula in Guy X. From the moment Rudy Spruance
lands at Qangattarsa, he is attacked by a malevolent wisp of mosquitoes
and collapses. He awakes in a hospital wing, and from here in, things
are not quite what they seem. Billed as a black comedy ‘in the
vein’ (gettit? Mosquito?) of M*A*S*H and Catch 22, Guy X exhibits
a odd blend of humour and surrealism, shot against the beguiling settings
of a twenty-hour hour Greenland sunshine on outlandish volcanic planes.
Here, people eat puffins.
The dreamlike quality resonates through the films direction; Rudy walks
about the base in a form of shock, he appears both unconnected and unconcerned
with the madness happening all around him. He eventually takes to sneaking
into restricted areas, a trick which earned him his ticket into the military
(that or prison) and falls for the alluring Irene Teal (Natascha McElhone);
girlfriend of baseball-loving sociopath (-with a darkside?) Corporal
Woolrap.
Guy X is a film that will either engage or flummox audiences. There
are fine examples of scathing black-humour, and a nod to emblematic military-men-behaving-badly
characters (the pumped-up intimidating guy is particularly memorable);
but Guy X desires not to communicate with its contemporaries;
and like its main character, it wonders off to own devices. Cheekily,
Guy X even manages a sarcastic-nod to its dreamlike-ambiguity with a
belated “There is no Teal” moment.
Jason Biggs, now post-pie-porking, shines as Corporal Spruance. Biggs’ main asset is his everyman qualities; he exudes a maturity and congeniality beyond his years and can accurately portray a range of emotions and characteristics. All of which are central to this role, as Guy X demands an affable yet strong protagonist that will pull the audience through confusing expositional scenes and panoramic navel-gazing. Likeable also, are the performances of Natascha McElhone (who provides a touching yet strangely easy love-concern) and Jeremy Northam (whose beard and peaked cap barely conceal the psychosis and torment of his character). Nevertheless, most notable is Michael Ironside (previously wallowing in a succession of TV Sci-Fi appearances since the early 90s) as the mysterious Guy X, a nameless invalid monitored at Qangattarsa since the end of the Vietnamese war.
In summary, Guy X communicates a surreal blend of black humour and spiritual-quandary (Rudy explains his life from inside a box), its is an illicit yet gentle romance, and boasts a king-sized portion of haziness. In comparison; Sam Mendes’ Jarhead seemed to say very little about the people-in-war, but Saul Metzstein’s Guy X is more concerned with the war-in-people, and its a story that stays with you longer.