Unmatched underground

This film is a typical example of the absolute most exciting and innovative film production the Americans can offer, is the one that to the greatest extent avoids the largest commercial actors. "American Splendor" was actually not meant for the big screen at all. The film is made for that, albeit large, but independent and quality-conscious cable company HBO by the inexperienced New York couple Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini in the feature film context, and won awards both during the Sudance Festival and at Cannes.

So what is "American Splendor"? Well, first and foremost a comic book about thirty years old, and there's no reason why you should now feel the need to go into the corner of shame because you've never heard of it. The series was originally an underground phenomenon that at best can be said to have developed into a notorious underground phenomenon, and the man who is in every way in focus is the self-proclaimed series author, cartoon character, misanthrope and notorious joker Harvey Pekar. Pekar can in many ways be said to have revolutionized the comic book genre when in the early 70's he began to write everyday poetic depictions of his miserable life in Cleavland. Previously, this genre was largely reserved for speculative male fantasies, or superhero stories for teens of all ages. There was a Gilbert Shelton (Freak Brothers) and Pekar's friend and illustrator Robert Crumb, but no one had approached an adult audience in a more literary way before "American Splendor". Pekar's universe is the streets of Clevland, where he himself is the undisputed protagonist in introverted and realistic stories about his own life. Literarily speaking, he can be said to be somewhere between Charles Bukowski and James Joyce in eternal portraits of the artist as a bitter man.

Pekar himself could hardly draw a straight line, and was at all times dependent on cartoonists such as Crumb to illustrate the stories. The series therefore has a rather cunning meta-aspect where the author and the main character are identical, but take different forms depending on who illustrates him. One of the great achievements of the film is how it takes care of this aspect in a creative and very successful way. Here we meet not only Pekar in the actor Paul Giambatti's eminent figure, but also the real Harvey Pekar who tells and constantly comments on his own life from a kind of fictionalized version of the film's recording (nothing less!). At the same time, the film is both a story about Pekar's life and the life he himself wrote in the series. The directors have managed the feat of combining feature films, documentaries and cartoons in the same film, and made it fabulous. Perhaps no wonder that wise minds have described the film as a kind of meeting between last year's metaphor "Adaptation" and the cartoon adaptation "Ghost World". Sure, "American Splendor" will appeal to some of the same audience, but that should not scare anyone from putting this film at the top of the priority list of films that mustn't seen this winter.