Otto; Or, Up With Dead people

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a boy of no wealth and some distaste. My name is Otto. I unlive in Berlin sometimes, sometimes farther north, depending on mood. Then again, I only have one mood: dead. Undead. I find it difficult to make an unliving because I am homeless."

Otto is the new movie by alternative film director Bruce LaBruce. At the screening I attended at the BFI he introduced the movie himself. He described it as a first in a number of ways; it was the first gay zombie movie, and it was his first myspace movie. In a sense these two things are not entirely disconnected from each other in the film as the zombie is used as a metaphor for everyman, and in particular the future everyman: as Bruce says himself "...an allegory for our troubled times".

It's only in the last few months that I have overheard couples arguing about their partner's friends on facebook; hearing the feeble excuses that they give for being friends with particular people, due to the fact that 'x' left a cursory comment on their 'wall'. I have known people that have received 'comments' on myspace the next day after a night out saying how much that 'x' liked their shoes on the previous evening. I know, creepy. Otto seems, in some ways, less socially dysfunctional than these people. Although he does have the rather antisocial habit of devouring things...

As a whole, the movie is a lot more than just a comment on this zombified post-MTV post-myspace culture. The main feeling I left with was sadness. Although in a lot of ways a comedy, underneath this humour it was a sad reflection on the state of future everyman, and it seems in Bruce's eyes, queer everyman.

Rick Owens was responsible for the costumes and the soundtrack included a friend of mine Susanne Oberbeck AKA No Bra.