Double Bill

Petr Zelenka , director of `Buttoners', on his ideal cinematic pairing

GUMMO DIR. HARMONY KORINE (1997)

BUFFALO 66 VINCENT GALLO (1997)

THESE FILMS represent the very healthy stream of author/director movies. Both directors also appear in the films. They are very experimental, yet not so way-out that they are unwatchable. When directors have been writers or actors, it seems to me that they are experienced enough to tell what is important and what is not. Which is a vital quality when you want to make good films on a small budget.

Gummo was a real revelation. It's so authentic - you can't mistake this film for any other. For instance, the music is very specific, thrash-metal. The acting is also superb. There's a combination of actors and non-actors and you are unable to tell the difference. You can usually use amateurs for a small part, although in Gummo the main character was played - brilliantly - by a non-actor.

Gummo is a different take on a familiar genre. It is about a very depressive neighbourhood, where young boys are coming of age. The boys kill alley- cats for money, which is rather like having a job somewhere between killing people and an ordinary occupation. Like Buffalo 66 it's a grey area between a gangster film and a film about a typical middle-class life. Buffalo 66 could be a violent jail-house film, except that the guy who gets out of jail is gentle. He is too shy to kiss the girl.

Both these films are very funny. Humour is very important to me, otherwise it's like a Bergman film and can risk being a bit pretentious. A lot of the humour comes from Gallo and Korine because they don't take themselves too seriously. You can tell a lot about the director from the script - much more than from directing techniques. And, because of this, writers are more interesting to me.

Interview by Jennifer Rodger