Directed, produced, & written by Chris Dowling 16 min.
What I keep wondering while watching The Plight of Clownana is if I should be taking away some deep, life lesson. Certainly, Ishamel the Clownana, a dancing half-clown, half-banana store mascot thinks so. Narrated with deep sincerity by writer/director/producer Chris Dowling in a poetic fashion more often heard at a eulogy, Ishamel is struggling with the meaning of life, and what value one man can have. And each time I watch Clownana, I momentarily try to connect this to my own life. What is my life worth? Am I equating my value with something that I do? Am I competing when there is really no competition? Am I missing the opportunity to work with others on something greater? And then I remember I’m watching a man in a banana suit and such philosophizing is trampled under the dancing feet of the Clownana.
While it is uncertain if The Plight of Clownana is successful in imparting any pearls of wisdom, there is no question that it is successful in making people laugh. This is one funny short film. I watched it with an audience at the Dragon*Con Short Film Festival and by the climax, it was hard to hear the film over the roar of the crowd.
Ishamel, portrayed by Danny Addams as if he lived at an Up-With-People concert, has imbued his job as an ice-cream hawker with great meaning. He dances and his world is good. But it all falls apart when the Sexasaurus Boutique produces its own dancing mascot, Dildo Man.
The situation, while basically humorous, would have been wasted on most first time directors, but Dowling doesn’t let the plot drive the story. He got me to like Ishamel and his misplaced enthusiasm, a character who can proclaim earnestly, that “Bananas bruise on the inside.” It is that enthusiasm, that innocent pompousness, that makes the film so amusing.
Shot with 1970s style panache, the quick cuts and zooms meld perfectly with the music. The nostalgic feeling is intensified when The Clownana prepares for the dance-off to Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling.” And that leads us to the big payoff. The dance-off between The Clownana and Dildo Man brings in ribbons, matches, and the complete absurdity of the banana guns, but it is the dancing midgets garbed as testicles that defeats Ishamel and makes The Plight of Clownana one of the top short films on the circuit. It won the Audience Award for Best Short Film at the Newport Beach Film Festival, and I can see why. My only reservation is that this is a film best seen with a group.