FANTASTIC FEST 2011: Aardvark review

Aardvark concerns Larry, a recovering alcoholic who is also blind (played by Larry Lewis Jr.  who is blind in real life).  Wandering  by a Jiu Jitsu studio one day and intrigued by the sounds he hears inside, Larry strikes up a conversation with Darren, the young man who teaches there. Next we see Larry learning and rapidly advancing through the program as he and Darren become fast friends and begin haunting a local strip club together where he makes the acquaintance of,  and becomes a client of, exotic dancer Candy. They make an interesting if seedy trio especially when the viewer becomes aware that Darren is in trouble with people who keep calling him, and who are unhappy with various jobs he has been sent to do. A violent crime then involves Larry in a dark underworld where he he tracks a killer and finds himself quickly in over his head. 

This is real world noir, touched by but not ruled by the atmosphere usually associated with that genre. Instead solid character development and surprising turns take full advantage of viewers tendency to make all sorts of assumptions about Larry and where his journey will lead him. This is no Wait Until Dark (1967) but niether is it emotionally flatlined. Director Kitao Sakuri is always balancing the tone of the action, never sacrificing his palette to anything gaudy. It's almost as if he wants us not to watch his film but feel it in ways that are unconventional.  In fact the film seems to question whether viewers will simply let Larry be a character rather than a blind one. The movie is full of references to sightlessness and the moral ambiguity surrounding Larry (and threatening to consume him) is all the more powerful in that we question in what way Larry does or doesn't realize the danger he is putting himself in. But then are all the characters are in the same boat. By the time the devastating and abrupt conclusion comes all assumptions have been blown away leaving the audience to confront it's own ambiguous embrace of both film cliches and physical disability.