I recently stumbled into a new (to me) corner of the fictionverse. The land of the New Weird, of the Slip Stream.
Some of you may already be reading New Weird fiction. A story from Clive Barker's The Books of Blood, "In The Hills, The Cities," is the lead off piece in the Vandermeer's anthology.a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy. New Weird has a visceral, in-the-moment quality that often uses elements of surreal or transgressive horror for its tone, style, and effects — in combination with the stimulus of influence from New Wave writers or their proxies (including also such forebears as Mervyn Peake and the French/English Decadents). New Weird fictions are acutely aware of the modern world, even if in disguise, but not always overtly political. As part of this awareness of the modern world, New Weird relies for its visionary power on a "surrender to the weird" that isn't, for example, hermetically sealed in a haunted house on the moors or in a cave in Antarctica. The "surrender" (or "belief") of the writer can take many forms, some of them even involving the use of postmodern techniques that do not undermine the surface reality of the text.
It's a 2007 movie about Alejandro, a Latino street kid who works in an auto-body shop on the outskirts of Queens, New York, and his sister Isamar.
The relationship between the two actors portraying Alejandro and Isamar is one of the key reasons I recommend this movie. Their way of speaking to each other, laughing together, and their movements convey a bond that exists well beyond the realm of the movie, even though the two actors had never met before filming.
The snap shop of life into Willets Point is another reason for watching this film. Basically a sprawling junkyard in the shadow of Shea Stadium, Willets Point is an example of the forgotten parts of America, where hardscrabble lives are endured daily. I'm always intrigued by these places, amazed they exist in what passes for a modernized nation.
Watching someone as young as Alejandro navigate his way through this world, exhibiting both child-like and adult behavior makes for a fascinating movie.
