The Leafblower . Austin Chronicle . 03-30-98

The Leafblower

DIRECTED BY: Dominic DeJoseph

REVIEWED: 03-30-98

Dominic DeJoseph's The Leafblower is a piece of pure Dadaism in black and white; and the ambling oeuvre (it was shot without a script) is as coreless as it is colorless. Emotively akin to Institute Benjamenta and Tetsuo: The Iron Man, The Leafblower very plainly follows a leafblower (Jon Hearns). That's it. And it's what the leafblower does - namely not much of anything, or anything meaningful at least - that makes watching him such a relentlessly tedious experience. The truly lamentable aspect of The Leafblower is that the outset, the film does establish the potential to explore some interesting themes, among them (and in direct concord with Tetsuo: The Iron Man) the convergence of man and machine (even when swimming the leafblower does not separate from his mechanical apparatus) or the obsessive way people take to ultimately pointless tasks (early in the film the leafblower is clearing a lot of garbage in preparation for an alien landing never to occur). Instead, the few promising moments quickly dovetail into a series of painfully aimless scenes. The leafblower lays down by a pool for a nap. The leafblower talks to someone in a bubble-wrap shirt. The leafblower wanders down a beach. The leafblower refuels his vehicle. Maybe in some meta-symbolic fashion DeJoseph was making a point along the lines of: "Look how wasteful of resources this film is, like the leafblower himself." Maybe not.

--Michael Bertin

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