USA,
1995, 99 min
Shown in 1996
CREDITS
- dir
-
Peter Bratt
- prod
-
Peter Bratt, Benjamin Bratt, Alan Renshaw
- scr
-
Peter Bratt
- cam
-
Garret Griffin
- editor
-
Robert Grahamjones
- cast
-
Alfre Woodard, Benjamin Bratt, Jesse Borrego, Steve Reevis
- source
-
Digital Domain
-
COMMENTS
Peter Bratt, Alfre Woodard and Benjamin Bratt in person.
OTHER
In Peter Bratt’s auspicious debut feature Follow Me Home, four artists—an African American, two Chicanos and a Native American—concoct a wild scheme to drive to Washington, D.C. and paint a mural on the side of the White House. As the band of artists takes to the road, Tudee, the group’s leader—played with unusual restraint by Jesse Borrego (Bound by Honor)—suspects ancestral spirits are guiding the journey. Spiritual intervention, however, soon proves the least of the group’s worries as San Francisco-based Bratt’s multicultural spin on an old genre quickly places the young men at odds with each other and head to head with a few twisted characters they meet on the road, including the rifle-toting owner of a small restaurant and a trio of cavalry aficionados seeking to reenact the Indian Wars on the plains of Nebraska. Benjamin Bratt (of TV’s Law and Order), transformed beyond recognition, delivers an inspired performance as Abel, a Chicano muralist whose anger, misogyny and appetite for violence can barely conceal his inner despair. Stunning imagery, a hypnotic soundtrack of world music and strong performances by the ensemble cast—which also includes Alfre Woodard, Calvin Levels and Steve Reevis—make Follow Me Home an insightful and penetrating film about the far-reaching implications of colonialism and the transformative power of art.
—Julia Jaurigui
FACTOID #111
Both parents of TV star Mariska Hargitay attended the Festival, but not at the same time. Actress Jayne Mansfield attended in 1966 on a lark, and bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay attended in 1989, having appeared as himself in György Szomjas’s film Mr. Universe.
