Thank gawd for my Cinema/Chicago membership which gave me a pass for the screening of this movie! oh so good!!!
it's quiet and unassuming but you relate because Harvey Pekar (the main character and whom the movie is about) could be any one of us....hell I found myself thinking that if i didn't start getting my act together i would be him....not a pleasant thought. Well be him before he started writing his comics. He's such an unusual person.....he's not a 100% loser....he's like 98% loser with 2% genius that just explodes out because he's finally found an outlet for it.
The movie doesn't take any pains to hide the realities of who Harvey is either.....they show him in all his loser-ish glory. From selling records that he's bought at garage sales to others or collecting them for himself to having an apt so small that there is barely any room for Joyce (his i think 3rd wife) when she moves in. His dead-end job working as a file clerk at the Veteran's Memorial Hospital that Harvey hates yet is reluctant to try and find work anyplace else. His serendiptious meeting and friendship with R. Crumb of the independant comic books fame is what propels him to eventually chronicle parts of his life in comics and find an outlet for himself.
The movie is intercut with scenes that seem like a home movie they're so personal.....Harvey sits and talks about the events as they unfold during the movie....sometimes with his wife Joyce or friend Toby.
The frankness and honesty of the movie is sometimes off-set by the cartoon backgrounds that are sometimes intermingled with the live action stuff that adds a very surreal quality to Harvey Pekar. It's like a quick visual reminder that even though it's real and all true.....it's so bizzarre at times that it seems almost fictional......you just can't believe that some of the things could actually be true. And that fact that many and probably everybody wrote him off as a curmudgeonly lazy-@ss just gives his story more poignancy and depth because as he faces the waning years of his life the desperation to "make a mark" in the world in some way just unleases the potential that he probably had all along.
The fact that I relate so well to Harvey Pekar really freaked me out for like 2 seconds before I realized that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing...as long as I learned what not to do. He's quite the eternal pessimist....or as I like to think of it....a realist. He knows what he likes and is generally angry not just with the world but at times with himself because he is not very dilligent or ambitious. His regrets fuel his misery and anger and has shaped the path his life had taken.....however much he wishes it had been different.
As Harvey faces cancer the heroism shines not because of what he's done but the fact that he survives......he didn't cope very well but he survives.....and surviving no matter how you got there still counts. And the fact that Harvey Pekar lives makes me think there's hope for me yet!
So yes I do consider Harvey Pekar a hero....not because of anything he did or has done or is doing......but just because he exists. For me Harvey Pekar validates the notion that something can very much be made of nothing.....even if only to 1 person or for even a brief amount of time. And without the overly sickly sweet sentimentality either! At least....not on the movie's part.....on mine.....well....I haven't figured a way around all of it just yet......but I'm working on it!
