Thursday, April 15, 2010

Heart of the Steal

The Deadly Art of Survival (1979)
directed by Charlie Ahearn
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

The Deadly Art of Survival is a lot seedier than Wild Style but takes place in the same fun places: basketball courts, billiards halls, and disco dojos. The bad transfer of an 8 mm experiment in filmmaking still gets the spirit of martial arts movies right, meaning even the bad guys have a good time. They sit in bathtubs and soak their newspaper by accident or don ninja costumes in order to steal the hero's front tire, his hat, or his sandwich.

Ahearn may have made the film to help his friend Nathan Ingram draw attention to martial arts as a viable activity for poor kids in the Lower East Side, but there's plenty of funny small-time hood stuff and a great use of mirrors. Mirrors let the audience see the protagonist or villain as he sees himself; slip a gun or an old flame into the frame and it's almost like a dream. Plus Ahearn adapts picture credits to reflect the nature of his collaboration with Ingram. Instead of a title sequence, Nate the Great addresses the camera in character while showing off his brand of taekwondo. Not enough kids, maybe, but a great double-bill with The Foot Fist Way.