Posted February 10th, 2008 by Jamie Lisk

• Straight to Video
• Director: Wolfgang Lehmkuhl
• Written by: Wolfgang Lehmkuhl
• Running Time: 90 minutes
• Language:
• MPAA Rating: UNRATED
• Cast: Stephen J. Heffernan, Robert Van Pelt

Cannibal is the kind of film that stays with you long after you’ve finished watching it. Multi-layered, and deeply personal, the film never fully explains itself, which, in the end, will probably work both for and against the film ever finding a larger audience. At times, it feels like a buddy picture, while at others it feels like a vehicle for director/writer Wolfgang Lehmkuhl to spout on about his personal particular social, political and philosophical viewpoints. Even with its flaws, though, and when it’s all said and done it’s not an easy film to dismiss. Upon my initial viewing, I found myself, for lack of a better word, lost. I felt like I had missed something, or had somehow gone astray in my viewing, but, interestingly, I now think the film was designed this way. It works on two distinct levels—what is going-on on the screen, and what is happening beneath the surface, behind the words. With Cannibal, reading between the lines is not only suggested, it’s mandatory. Every action, and every line of dialogue seems to be hinting at something else, something that‘s not so easy to discern—something that is much deeper and meaningful. The story is simple enough; an escaped convict, Walter (Stephen J. Heffernan), on the run from the law and attempting to hide out, makes his way out into the dense forest. I’m not exactly sure where, but I suspect that it’s somewhere in the vast expanse of the Pacific Northwest wilderness. After walking for several miles, Walter, tired and hungry, stumbles upon an abandoned campsite, complete with a ready-made tent and a table and two chairs. He quickly goes to work setting up a makeshift home for himself, intent on living off the land, away from everything—including people and, especially, the law. After a few days, Walter trudges off into the surrounding woods looking for food, and what he ends up finding is the campsite’s previous owner—dead. He has apparently hung himself, and judging from Walter‘s physical reaction, his body has been hanging out there for weeks. At first Walter is reluctant to do anything, but he quickly senses that the body needs a proper burial, and, in the dead of night, heads out into the woods to bury it. Later in the evening, Walter huddles up in his tent looking to rest. He suddenly overhears strange noises emanating from the forest. He is terrified, thinking somebody must be outside lurking around his campsite. He finds nobody. In the morning, while out bathing in a nearby pond, he notices somebody standing on the shoreline as he surfaces. Strangely, as he focuses, he notices again that nobody is actually there. For sure, Lehmkuhl is offering the first clues in this bizarre tale that stresses that everything is not always as it seems. The next day, a stranger stumbles into Walter’s camp, a clean-cut, all-American type, calling himself Carling (Robert Van Pelt). He’s an extremely affable fellow, who notifies Walter that he’s camping just over the hill, “on the other side.” Walter, fearing that it was Carling who has been spying on him, lunges at him with a knife. Carling manages to avoid conflict by calming Walter down—cigarettes being the incentive for peace. As the days pass, Carling slowly begins building up a trust with Walter, enticing him with food, cigarettes, and, interestingly, simple kindness. Walter seems untrusting, but, slowly, and maybe because loneliness had begun getting the better of him, agrees to let Carling come around. The audience, like Walter, is suspicious of Carling and his intentions, but as the film moves along, we begin to settle into a comfort zone. Although not to say there isn’t growing pains, as Walter is a little resistant at first. When Walter has a late-night urge to go up and finally rid himself of his new neighbor, he is surprised by his adversaries distinct belligerence. “We come from different worlds. I expected this from you, but I won’t accept it. The knife, use it or lose it!” Carling screams. Walter seems taken aback. “Friends?” Carling mutters, extending his hand. Walter eventually relents. As the weeks pass, the two settle into a genuine friendship. A friendship that consists of the two filling their days hunting, with games of chess, or with long discussions about life, death, and politics. Considering that Stephen J. Heffernan has only one line in the entire film, much of his time is spent listening intently as Robert Van Pelt delivers long drawn-out monologues. His one-sided discussions involve just about anything and everything, and at first the dialogue is so natural that we assume that much of it must have been improvised by Pelt. Slowly, however, as deeper meanings behind the rambling begin to emerge, we start to suspect that these lengthy discourses were actually very carefully constructed by Lehmkuhl to work on two levels; what we hear, and what we don’t. Carling spends much of his time debating the positives and negatives of life’s unfortunate circumstances. Things like the Columbine shooting, the politics of war, life and death, and science, are brought up and closely scrutinized. Carling’s distinct observations about life and death, and Heaven and Hell, are particularly interesting and thoughtful. When he mentions ‘a battle for the soul’ we begin to suspect that something else is actually happening, although not on screen, and that maybe his long pieces of dialogue are much more important than we first considered. Allusions to spirituality is both consistent and prominent throughout the film, starting with Walter, in the opening minutes, stumbling upon an old dirty porcelain statue of an angel out in the woods. Walter is humbled, and stops to kneel in front of it—as if searching for something in the eyes of the statue, maybe forgiveness. The dialogue delivered by Carling is rich with religious and spiritual overtones, as are Walter’s dreams, which involve a large amount of subtly astute religious imagery. Walter’s bizarre fragmented dreams and flashbacks suggest further that maybe things in the film aren’t as they seem. An early flashback, before Carling is even introduced, involves Carling. It’s strange and unexplained. Later, as the film unfolds, we are granted several other flashbacks that might lead us to believe that Carling and Walter have met before, under much different, and more violent, circumstances. Maybe they’ve known each forever, and that something else is at work here. A baptism and a death, both seemingly symbolic, in the film’s final stages, helps round out what we have begun to suspect all along—that this film is really about the struggle of the soul. Could this whole thing have been about one man’s battle to unearth his own inner righteousness, while ridding himself of his personal demons? We’re never sure, but anything is possible. Lehmkuhl never says one way or the other. I’m convinced that Cannibal will mean different things to different people, as it should. Actors Stephen J. Heffernan and Robert Van Pelt, both first-timers, offer up solid performances here. Pelt’s lengthy stretches of dialogue are delivered with a real professional zest, so much so, that, at times, it almost seems improvised—until you realize that it can‘t be. This guy is an actor! Heffernan is also good, but his performance is delivered mainly in body language and facial expressions. He is brooding and menacing enough to come across as a career criminal—and killer—and remorseful enough that the audience will have no trouble sympathizing with him in the end. By the time the scene in the pond has passed, where he breaks down and begins crying, it’s nearly impossible to feel anything but genuine sympathy for him. Cannibal is a strange and powerful film that will surely get under your skin like few other films have, or will. Hard to define, it works on many levels, and forces the viewer to scrutinize what exactly they have watched. It forces the viewer to, as I said earlier, “read between the lines.” Wolfgang Lehmkuhl is a true artist, who has created something truly personal and powerful. I expect big things from him in the future. I personally hope this film can find an audience.