To begin, I've always loved mind-bending and thought provoking movies (Salo, Enter the Void, Donnie Darko, Eraserhead, Pink Flamingos *haha John Waters isn't really "thought-provoking" but hey!* :P) I've been on a disturbing film kick and trying to see all of the "best" out there that I've missed- which is not many. A Serbian Film and Irreversible have been the past 2 nights features (which I enjoyed very much! Especially Irreversible)- so with all the recommendations, I decided to see Ex- Drummer. Of the 104 minutes...I'd only ask for about 80 of them back, but I WOULD ask for them back. I love foreign films and have no problem following the subtitles and getting the storyline, but this one just fell flatter than a sheet of paper for me. The "Mongoloid" song was stuck in my head admittedly. But during the last 20 minutes (by this point all my friends but one had left saying this film made no sense and they couldn't follow the plot), I found myself saying that if they just made the last moments into some bizarre heavy metal music video or something- I would have enjoyed it and found it to be very artistically pleasing. When Dries goes out on his destructive rampage and the music was playing, that's when I was finally INTO the film...sadly, it came way after I could appreciate anything. I really wanted to like this film, having heard such good things about it. I've also heard there is a book, which may be something I would enjoy more (sometimes the translation from book to film loses those little details that make the plot). I'm not giving up on this film- and perhaps would try it again sometime alone where I could really focus and check for something I've missed. But gosh, from what I experienced last night this movie just SUCKED. Really. For the first time in a long time, I'm very disappointed.

Based on a story by infamous Belgian novelist Herman Brusselmans, Ex Drummer is a dismal, nihilistic trip into the world of three handicapped gentlemen who want to start a rock band.The local battle of the bands is coming up and Koen, Jan & Ivan want to participate, the only problem is they don't have a drummer. They soon decide to ask local author Dries to join their band, thinking his celebrity status may give them a better chance at winning. Seeing as all the members have their own particular handicaps, they ask Dries what his is - it seems he can't play the drums.The band is a motley crew indeed; vocalist / guitarist Koen is a horny, skinhead rapist with a horrible lisp, bassist Jan is gay with a paralysed right arm and an obsessive mother complex, and rhythm guitarist Ivan is a deaf junkie who treats his wife and child like sh!t. Dries accepts the invitation to join their band purely for his own amusement and in the hope that he'll get a story idea from it. They name their band The Feminists.Ex Drummer overflows with glorious politically incorrect offensiveness: rape, pedophilia, rampant misogyny, racism, homophobia, infant death, incest… there's really something for everyone. Although with the misanthropic attitude and overall bleak atmosphere coexists a sense of the surreal and an undertone of pitch black comedy. For instance the scene where Big Dick, a member of a rival band with a horse-sized appendage, forces his wife to show her wrecked vagina to Dries, the two men literally walk around in her womb as Big Dick points out the tunnel he's carved out with his mammoth member. The film doesn't shy away from graphic violence either, particularly in the last quarter - there's some rather gruesome death scenes and an extremely bloody rape / castration.Ex Drummer is quite technically accomplished and visually stunning at times too, bizarre sequences such as the one mentioned above don't really seem out of the ordinary when Koen the skinhead rapist lives upside down in his blood-splattered house, and some scenes are shot completely backwards. The camera-work and editing are utterly frenzied - especially during the final concert - with certain sequences being superimposed one on top of the another. The fantastic soundtrack deserves a mention here too, the film opens with the awesome Lighting Bolt track 2 Morro Morro Land and continues on with songs that complement the often harsh imagery on display. The bands in the film are actually quite decent also, they all have a similar lo-fi gutter-punk sound, and The Feminists do a wicked cover of DEVO's Mongoloid.A highly impressive feature film debut from Koen Mortier and a must see for fans of transgressive cinema.

"Ex Drummer" is Belgian Koen Mortier's feature film debut, based on the book of controversial writer Herman Brusselmans. Set on the wrong side of the tracks of coastal city Oostende, the movie tells the story of Dries Van Hegen, a famous but arrogant intellectual writer who is asked by three social misfits to become a drummer in their band in order to obtain an award in the first rock rally of Leffinghe. Apparently, they thought they would increase their chances at fame and fortune if they had someone with name recognition to perform with them. Dries agrees, not in order to help them out but because he wants to wallow in the filth and misery that these three men's lives consist of, knowing that he can return to the comfort of his own luxury penthouse and have sex with his lovely girlfriends every night. The band's lead singer is Koen de Geyter, a lisping skinhead who spends his days beating up women, basically because they annoy him. The only woman that he is able to have sex with without killing her afterward is his homosexual bass guitarist Jan Verbeek's bald and bulky mother. Her mentally disabled husband, who still lives with her, but who had to be chained to his bed with a restraint jacket in order to prevent him from hurting himself, no longer sexually satisfies her. Apparently she became bald when she caught her son masturbating, causing him to suffer a permanent cramp in his right arm. The band's lead guitar player is Ivan van Dorpe, a 40 something junkie who is living in what can only be described as a pig stile. When Dries becomes acquainted with the man's wife, she immediately informs him her vagina smells bad because it's probably rotting from the inside. The only sane person in this household appears to be their baby girl, who eventually overdoses on cocaine, which was administered by her mother, because she couldn't stand her daughter's crying any longer. During the band's quest for super stardom, they are confronted with more lowlifes from the Oostende region, such as "Big Dick", a man whose penis is so large, he is unable to satisfy a woman sexually without mutilating her and who has a distaste for homosexuals that Dries eagerly exploits in order to settle a personal vendetta with one of Jan's boy toys. Although "Ex Drummer" is so far over the edge it's funny, it confronts the viewer with man's darkest urges and the filth it depicts is sometimes so close to the reality of everyday life, it's almost scary. This is by no means a feel good film and often takes a turn for the dramatic, especially when the characters' background is explained towards the end of the film. This, along with its experimental photography, raw, grungy look and punk rock soundtrack contributed to "Ex Drummer" winning numerous awards such as Best Feature Debut at London's Raindance film festival with, among others, Iggy Pop and the Clash's Mick Jones in the jury. Not recommended for the faint of heart and lovers of romantic comedies, though.

I kept waiting for this film to reveal itself in terms of satire, dark humour, social commentary - whatever. I am not overly familiar with Belgian culture, but I am left to assume this film perhaps has more relevance in its country of origin.The film is supposed to be about a band, comprised of "handicapped" men - who are looking for a handicapped drummer so that they can play at a rock festival. The handicaps of the members, as I understood it, are that one is a rapist, one is deaf, and one has an arm that he can not move because his mother caught him masturbating at a tender age. Right off, I'm a little lost. Perhaps if some of these performances had been convincing or had any depth, I would see the humour. But Ex Drummer fails to convince me that being a rapist is a handicap, or that the afflictions of a man who lives in addicted squalor while beating his coke-whore wife - both who eventually terminally neglect their infant child, are downplayed by his "handicap" of being a deaf musician. Let's move on, the band finds their drummer, a successful writer who, out of bourgeois ennui wants to submerge himself in the sordid underbelly of society and whose magical "handicap" is his inability to play the drums. He manages this with frequent trips home to his posh-toddy wife to partake of threesomes and panoramic views from their well-appointed condo. One of the bands rivals at the upcoming music festival will be fronted by a lead-man called "Big Dick". A fair amount of the film is dedicated to his big dick, including a life-sized tour of his wife's vagina, which we see two men standing in, and is referred to as her "blasted out rat". We also get to watch a rather drawn out scene of a gay man trying to put his pants back on and walk down the street after taking the 20 inch "big dick" in a toilet stall. Ridiculous? Yes. Funny? Not so much. Shocking? Maybe if you are a 12 year old. Ah, yes Big Dick is also a racist - apparently he feels bad that he has to pay for the "darkies" out of his dole allowance.For something to pass as satire, or social commentary I think the audience needs to be able to identify with the afflicted. It would be impossible to do that with the two-dimensional caricatures put forward in this film with little to no character development except the wanna-be hip try-to-shock me intro by Dries (the writer). It all just seems like misogyny, gay-bashing and racism. The plot and pacing are bad to awful. Characters, like I said, completely uninterested in each and every one of them including the dead toddler of the marginalized addict parents.Comparing this film to Trainspotting is just wrong. Clearly the obvious references - gratuitous vomiting in filthy toilet stalls, dead babies of addicts and people walking on the ceiling, all of which you'll see here - were memorable moments of that (vastly superior) film. And I guess both are book adaptations. I don't really think it's appropriate to compare one film to another when the similarities begin and end with fairly obvious mimicry.The trailers for this film make much use of "special" effects: walking on the ceiling, repeated car-hitting reminiscent of Jonathan Glazer's music video for Rabbit in your Headlights. But the movie doesn't bear this out stylistically. And anyway all this stuff is almost a decade old - hardly fresh. Sitting through this film there's no sense of stylistic innovation - like I said the production isn't bad, but it's nothing special outside of these few effects. In short, don't let the packaging fool you - this is not a cutting-edge, stylie piece.Some people have said this film isn't for the feint of heart. I've sat through many films that have earned that title, the most memorable at this point would be Noe's "Seul Contre Tous" which I watched to the end at the Toronto Festival after fully half the theatre had walked out. I don't think I'm typically prudish, queasy or easily-offended.This film is not shocking. I felt no real revulsion toward it, but I did not feel any connection to any of the characters. Nor did I appreciate it as a dispassionate survey of a marginalized sub-culture as some have implied. I think it was just poorly directed. Maybe being Belgian helps with this one - but maybe not.