Bitter Ash, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 19, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Larry KentRelease Date(s)
1963 (August 27, 2024)Studio(s)
Larry Kent Productions (Canadian International Pictures/Vinegar Syndrome)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A
Review
“You know, everywhere you go there are nothing but creeps!”
The Canadian International Pictures label has been yielding some fascinating finds. Of those seen by this reviewer, Dirty Money (1972) has been the biggest revelation, highly recommend, but they’ve all been at least interesting and worthwhile.
The Bitter Ash (1963) is another such find, reportedly the first feature film emanating from Vancouver, British Columbia, made by trailblazer Larry Kent for just $5,000—Canadian!
The picture straddles the boundaries of indie human drama a la Cassavettes’s Shadows and Doris Wishman sexploitation with its ensemble story of dissatisfied young adults looking to not repeat the drab, unhappy lives of their upwardly mobile parents. The film undeniably lacks polish, but that it achieves as much as it does on its microbudget is impressive.
Des (Alan Scarfe) is a typesetter unhappy with his dead-end job and nagging girlfriend, who’s missed her period and may be pregnant. Out and about in his Sunbeam convertible, he meets Laurie (Lynn Stewart), a waitress and working mother who also supports her pretentious (but entirely unsuccessful) playwright husband, Colin (Philip Brown), who insists he can’t write the great Canadian play and work a 9 to 5 job simultaneously. Short on rent money, he decides to host a big party where paying guests indulge in hedonistic acts of Free Love, pot-smoking, and booze to numb their socioeconomic despair.
Shot silent in 16mm black-and-white with everything post-dubbed, The Bitter Ash suffers somewhat for all the post-production dubbing. The actors’ voices all sound like they’re coming out of the same cramped recording booth, the constant musical underscoring is sometimes grating, and there’s a dearth of ambient sound effects, but that the picture is coherent with consistently interesting characters is admirable.
Though made for an adult audience with its fleeting nudity, profanity, and drug use, The Bitter Ash isn’t exploitative by 1963 standards and quite tame when viewed today. Nevertheless, those elements contributed to filmmaker Kent’s inability to find commercial distribution, so he distributed it himself, embarking on a cross-country tour of Canadian universities, where he made his money back after just two weeks of screenings.
The 80-minute film has many fine moments, such as when several characters visit a young man and his wife, he dying of leukemia though on an experimental trial drug. He hated his life before he got sick but the alternative frightens him also. Some flashbacks involving Laurie are interesting, she as an 18-year-old living at home with her heavily-imbibing mother and authoritarian father, both upset about her daughter’s plans to marry ne’re-do-well Colin. In flashbacks the young couple is very much in love; a few years later they can’t stand one another.
CIP’s Blu-ray of The Bitter Ash is a 4K restoration of the original 16mm A/B negatives, with the audio restored using the original 16mm magnetic final (mono) mix. Even on a big screen, the image is impressively sharp with good blacks and contrast. It doesn’t resemble a student film. Optional English subtitles are provided.
As with other CIP releases, extra features abound. They include a new audio commentary track with filmmaker/historian Stephen Broomer; an archival commentary with director Kent and film professor David Douglas; a brief introduction to the film by Kent; Vancouver Memories, an 11-minute interview with Kent; From the Outside In, a 13-minute interview with star Scarfe; After Ash, 13 more minutes of Kent; An Authentic Beat Film, a 22-minute interview with Douglas; a 2023 post-screening Q&A discussion running 30 minutes; Hastings Street, Kent and Scarfe’s first film, shot in 1962 and completed 45 years later (20 minutes), also including an introduction by Kent; a silent pre-final cut of that film; and an archival audio interview with Kent from 1964.
Also included is a fat booklet with essays by Brett Enemark and David Spaner.
Though it falls well short of greatness, The Bitter Ash is a fascinating work, recommended for fans of early indie and Canadian cinema.
- Stuart Galbraith IV