Ray Pride

The first selections of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival have been released, and at first glance, despair seems to reign: gloom is the new black. Fittingly enough, Davidson Cole's shot-in-Chicago 2002 Sundance entry, "Design," is making its local debut this weekend. Boldly stylized, its working-class milieu sets it apart, along with its mix of black comedy, tragedy, surrealism, photographic meditation and a beautiful, dismal, bruise-purple and sallow-green palette. A photographer (Edward Cunningham) loses his girlfriend (Kipleigh Brown) over an apartment full of stalker-ish photos he's taken of dozens of women unawares. Another character (Cole) is a warehouse worker with the worst case of bad luck. Daniel J. Travanti is on hand as a sodden cuckold who struggles to keep his door-to-door sales job. The pieces come together, and "Design" is less like David Lynch, which some reviewers compared this debut to, than to some of the more existentially minded Eastern European directors. Cole takes a character to the end of his rope and then dangles him over the abyss. There's no chance for him. In its ambitions at least, "Design" suggests the powerful influence of Kieslowski, but a Kieslowski without a whisper of God's grace. 111m.

"Design" plays Friday and Monday at the Siskel Film Center. See Short Runs for details.

(2003-12-02)

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