“I know that if I were someone else, I wouldn’t like me either,” Silver Strand yells at her friend. She doesn’t like herself. She wants to escape from this world. Suicide offers the means, but what if things don’t change? What if after committing suicide, you are cursed to an eternity of sameness?

Director Cindy Baer’s “Purgatory House” presents these “what if” questions offering answers cleverly packaged in an experimental film. I say experimental to warn the lot of you: THIS IS A VERY DIFFERENT MOVIE AND NOT FOR EVERYONE.

Veering into dry sardonic “Ghostworld” territory, “Purgatory House” begins with the end or something close to it. Our protagonist Silver Strand (Celeste Davis) is already dead. She now resides in a place appropriately called Purgatory House. She is surrounded by other youths who have in one way or another done things in life that resulted in their untimely demise. Each of her fellow inmates has their own story of woe American-style—children whose troubled emotions manifest in drug use and sexuality, culminating in death or suicide. According to Silver, the idea of Purgatory House originated with the Catholic Church and God thought it was such a good idea that “she” created it.

The fact that Silver refers to God as a female is interesting because once we meet God his/her sexual identity is masked. God is depicted as a drag queen and the host of a game show featuring the recently departed as contestants. Lose this game and you might find yourself in Hell. In Silver’s case, she wins, well, kinda. She finds herself exiled to Purgatory House where she is given an eternity of drugs and will be forced to wear the same clothing she was wearing when she died. Basically, she will never change. The joke is that in seeking to escape, you end up condemning yourself forever to never escaping the person you were when you died. The perfect Hell is of your own making.

“Purgatory House” is an experimental film toying with structure and uses of different types of media (although it was shot exclusively in miniDV format). We get some kind of computer animation together with live action shot in color and black and white. The film intelligently balances this ambitious approach by providing both narration and a bit of titling that differentiates between the environments. For example, as part of her life (or existence) in Purgatory House, Silver is made to watch life on earth on a big screen television and in the corner of such screen we see the logo for “earthtv” much like the logos employed by today’s television networks. Flashbacks that appear periodically throughout are annotated with a caption and shown in black and white. Whereas, earthtv is shot in clear color. The scenes in Purgatory House itself are also in color but there are presumably some filters used to make things appear somewhat out of focus that gives it the appearance of an unearthly realm.

Although slightly titillating, “Purgatory House” isn’t exploitive. Avoiding the obvious conceits of other films about teens through the use of fantastical elements and original non-linear structure, the film held my attention and encouraged me to listen to its message of teen angst and confusion. While romanticized somewhat, there is truth in its story of teen sex, drug use, and violence. This is especially true since the original screenplay is said to have been penned by the 14 year-old star Celeste Davis. Davis’ performance as Silver runs the gambit and for the most part works. There is something sincere about her gaze and sarcastic charm. She has the looks and spunk of Drew Barrymore or Meg Ryan.

Not everything in “Purgatory House” works. I was not convinced by the performances in the early scenes in the purgatory teen home. The supporting cast there is limp at times. But some performances work in spite of those around them. Jim Hanks (brother of Tom Hanks) plays the caretaker of the house as well as the drag queen game show host God. He is good as both—one reserved, the other off the hook.

The score is wonderful. It is composed of old rock hits and a few new tunes written for the film. Silver’s drug overdose scene features the Violent Femmes classic “Kiss Off.” Ironically, this song while perfect for the scene is older than Silver/Davis herself (man, I feel old). Filmmakers must be very careful when using pop music throughout their score because it may have the unintended effect of making serious scenes trite or turn the film into one big music video. Of course, examples where an older pop tune can make a scene classic abound. For example, who could forget that scene in “Boogie Nights” when “Sister Christian” is blasting together with occasional firecracker explosions (who could even remember that Night Ranger song prior to its reemergence in PT Anderson’s groundbreaker)? In “Purgatory House,” music is important and helps to set the odd tone for the strangeness of the situations displayed.

I used to complain that the tastes of modern audiences are an outgrowth of too much television and directly related to the size of sodas sold at the concession stand in the theater lobby. In other words, the size of American bladders shortens the length of a film and makes the filmmaker jam a story of great breadth into less than two hours. While summer popcorn films like “Pirates of the Caribbean” have shown that American audiences will sit longer in the dark so long as their children are entertained, trends in American movie-goer tastes can create innovation. Thus, the result of this experimentation are movies like “Pulp Fiction” and more recently “Memento” (which is linear story-telling backwards). “Purgatory House” reminds me of “Natural Born Killers” with heart in that it employs different types of media (live action and computer generated footage) to tell its story. Its structure is modern and because of attention to detail, through use of captions, does not confuse. Ultimately, “Purgatory House” is original and unforgettable.

I have thought about Silver’s statement to her friend about being someone else and not liking her either. Objectivity is based in being able to take off the rose-colored glasses and see things the way they really are or, at least, from a different perspective. One of the terrific ideas of “Purgatory House” is the ability to see things from the outside watching “earthtv” from purgatory. It is only when you truly see things from the other side’s position that you can form your own opinions. Otherwise, you have only half the story and never change. Sameness is not only bad cinema, it makes for a bad life.

For more information about "Purgatory House" visit them on the Internet at www.purgatoryhouse.com.

Jonathan W. Hickman, 2003