DOWNTOWN 81 A "LOST" No-BUDGET FILM shooter on location in Manhattan a certain number of nineteen years ago.

DOWNTOWN 81 A "LOST" No-BUDGET FILM shooter on location in Manhattan a certain number of nineteen years ago, finally had its first attempt last month, at Cannes. Directed by means of Edo Bertoglio and written through Glenn O'Brien, this lighthearted document of the East Village display stars a twenty-year-old Jean-Michel Basqulat as himself, with countles hipster cameos, including hip-hop pioneer Fab Five Freddie, '80 Fiorucci designer (and the film's producer) Maripol, record-label stay Marty Thau, and Blondie chanteuse Debbie Harry as the fairy princess.

however the real star of the film is the gritty milieu of a recently made known York long gone. A division has happened in nineteen years. Now that the Lower East Side has become something of an Epcot simulacrum of itself, it's hard not to perceive nostalgic for Ye Olde Loisaida's antique bohemian realities: brazen dope dealers, trash-strewn divisions connecting burned-out buildings, artist-musician inhabitants lugging their confess equipment to gigs.

From Blowup (1966) to After Hours (1985) most numerous dramatic flicks that feature live music tease you with a scarcely any seconds of footage, and then they're back to characters, plan blah blah blah. If individual could only luxuriate in those scenes--see more of the Yardbirds, say, or Bad Brains at the height of their powers. Downtown 81 in contrast, dotes forward Arto Lindsay's pounding, strangely melodic "no wave" power trio, DNA; unimpassioned Kyle's hip-hop rhymes; James White & the Blacks' herky-jerky big band avant-funk; Kid Creole and the Coconuts' stage display which makes Bette Midler expect tasteful; Tuxedomoon's brooding proto electro-pop; and quirky Japanese of the present day Wavers the Plastics, whose music may not have aged self-same well but who sure are indifferent to look at for single in kind song.

Originally titled modern York Beat, the film has a unbind "plot" mostly revealed in campy neo-noir voice-overs laid down sole recently by poet Saul Williams, whose voice is dubbed for Basquiat's. (The dialogue tracks were forfeited years ago; as O'Brien presents it, "Our original partners had big problems") Downtown 81 pursues the young artist as he is released from the hospital, hustles a painting for rift money, and pursues both a fashion prototype and a place to crash for the night.

Basquiat is a transport to watch. He floats between the walls of the movie with cool grace and unflagging energy; he's a natural in brow of the lens and, thankfully, takes your mind not upon the plot. The camera lingers in generous takes of the dreadlocked single in kind "reworking" a Man Ray photo main division and then gracefully spraying Samo graffiti in undisturbed arcing motions. (Compare the rich and controlled Basquiat in this film with the tragic figure in Julian Schnabel's overblown 1996 biopic Basquiat.) And at the finis of Downtown 81, when the fairy princess bestows a suitcase glutted of cash on the artist, the film appears almost eerily prescient.

Mike McGonigal, a Seattle-based music editor for Amazon.com, edits the arts journal Yetl

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