"MANOS" The Hands of Fate (1966; w/p/d Harold P Warren)

Aka Family Fugue.

Mike, Margaret + Debbie lost on vacation (departure from routine + linear time in dreams) in desert (barren unconscious [as filmmaker’s imagination] + arid, bland relationships btwn family members) in big ’60s car (interrupted journey: American Dream gone bad), dad hesitant to ask directions (patriarchy in particular now at loss, failure of roadway to adhere to plan changing socio-familial landscape; author-as-star problem also w/ director who, legend has it, was no help to cast/crew); all sing "Row Yr Boat" to pass time (vocal round: fugue-state; mind/system breaking down) till cops pull them over (conscience/superego dogging ego) for out tail-light (1: connection to outside world; 2: unseen problem "behind"/in past; 3: rear-origin of erstwhile fertilizer-salesman HPW’s former [+ future] product, vacation similar burnout).

Pass makeout couple (erotic issue for marrieds whose daughter literally comes btwn them [to get warm – in desert]) cops soon hassle (superego at odds also w/ id, eros desire to ascend beaten down by higher authority [directing "hand" of title]), no longer there when family doubles back for directions (too-late recognition of eros – originating-opposite of HPW’s end-product profession – as way out of dilemma); follow sign for Valley "Lodge" ("stuck" at nadir) back to where previously lost (trapped in syndrome à la vocal "round") + find shack not there before (both psychic burp + previously missed detail: replacing missing lovers w/ anti-erotic Thanatos) overseen by misshapen Torgo (inner Grotesque, huge knees disabled transport à la car/directions aka impotence).

Decide to stay night despite Torga’s protests that "Master" (corollary to cops) "wdn’t approve" of daughter’s presence (she signifier of erotic activity), he nevertheless bellboying luggage (carrying "baggage," T receptacle/projection of emotional weight); as mom + dad admire portrait of "Master" (mind) + hellhound (body) separated by red Hand (soul, title "Manos" god who rules [psychic] territory: Spanish "hands" [masturbation – opp opening comic lovers – T result of too much], Greek "sparse/loose/rare" [desert location + minimalist production], root also of "manure" [ultimate mythico-religious self-img/i.d.]), T advises that Master (Manos, Mike + Margaret sim syndrome, all caught up in same i.d. save for dtr Debbie + pseudo-son T) "left this world" (mental-spiritual entity) + "no matter where we go, he is w/ us always" (essential, inescapable part of self).

Ineffectually directs them to bedroom (lack of erotic interest) as poodle Pepe/Peppy escapes + is killed (dream-separation from physical world, followed soon after by similar failure to start car: impotence) while Mike investigates howl outside (report from own disembodied body); meanwhile, Torga gropes Maggie (pathetically, most touch in film [besides lovers] desperate + vague) while insisting "The Master wants you 2B his wife" (his fondling oedipal incursion on not-the-mother [psychic construction enabling transference of child’s erotic interest from mother to other], thinly-bearded slave adolescent limping twd maturity) + "The Master wants you, but he can’t have you" (same time Mike can’t get "car" started, eliciting string of "Damns": hellish inability to effectively relate to anything but end-product), bringing 1st of film’s many smacks (wimpy violence often resulting in blood dir’s own ½-hearted effort to produce meaning/emotion).

Mike returns (howler "Hey Torga, where’s the phone?" met by "Master wdn’t approve": primitive dream-disconnection from world + inability to relate) + Deb disappears, reuniting Mike+Margaret in search for her (hyperbolic closeup of held hands rare display of affection/connection + body-confidence, possible only in absence of intrusive girl [Mike’s rudimentary fem-self] disdained by "Master"); outside, she reappears (paradoxical product of communion) w/ portrait-dog (not-the-dog "subtle body" of dreams; disturbing img of petite blonde + Doberman nascent Girl Pwr + intuition of sexuality, animal’s progressing from painted-iconic to flesh dreams’ incarnation of archetypal symbols + ideas) she found "in a Big Place" (the boundless unconscious, girl-child mediator btwn realms) "full of weird people" (repressed/unrealized psychic material) + leads them there (thru door off living rm Mag peeked into in search: own barely investigated mystical pwr + potential), where Master reclines on altar (mythologized dreaming Self in whose mind drama plays out: own dormant capabilities) surrounded by gauzy "wives" (fantasy of sexual potency) draped on pillars (like I said), shocked Mike locking wife + dtr in bdrm for protection (blurring erotic focus to include previously shunned child maturation of the child w/i).

Torga demands Mag for self (flowering of oedipal desire – "You have all the wives you need" – "I won’t have to come here anymore + dream of you" growing out of masturbatory stage [attachment to immobile negligee-clad objects; cf "hand" staff he brandishes, motif echoed in set design by (appropriately) "Master" Tom Neyman] + into independent relation) then gropes Master’s ur-mother 1st wife + heads out to subdue Mike (triumph over not-the-father, Mike incapacitated by own voyeuristic id, tying to tree slave to phallus à la wives, feminizing him); Master awakes (on Mike’s getting KO’d: pwrful dream-self arising like erection while ego out of commission) + prays to "Manos, Thou of Primal Darkness" (archaic, archetypal Self which unconsciously directs fate, pan from face to fire hell of own mind + burning w/i, hand design inside cloak immensity of influence [relation of imgs soon made explicit]) while drinking makeout couple again rousted by cops (erotic intoxication thwarted by policing Reason, Self never allowing self to ascend/transcend).

Calls for wives to arise (independent ego out cold, weak, multiple "fem" self also rouses), who proceed to argue (in layered, mantric tape-loop à la "Row Yr Boat": compulsive replaying of theme mind "troubling" over issue) over fate of daughter (incestuous attraction as twd own solipsistic unconscious + imagination, Master’s disapproval inner parent inveighing against it), only eldest demanding she live (ripened wisdom/compassion: Mike’s feeling-self, desire for dtr to "grow up 2B a wmn" man’s desire for fem-self to come to fruition), spurring epic catfight (conflict btwn positive + negative anima for preeminence).

Master accuses Torga of visiting "tomb" (oedipal confrontation, "tomb" as womb dead-end street for manure salesman) + kills by feebly groping him (Master’s all-pwrful touch + dir’s own clumsy hand) while different wife breaks from brawl long enuf to kiss + slap Mike (still asleep, confusion btwn seduction + offense à la debate over daughter, not-the-wife’s assault conflicted relation to own anima); Master halts fight (à la cops/lovers: conflict beneath surface eros) + demands sacrifice of both #1 wife + Torga (retiring attachment to mother-img retiring child-w/i as well) while Mag screams Mike awake (dbl threat to anima rousing ego to action, absented long enuf to allow issue to come to head), he inexplicably busting down door (sexual incursion, reclaiming manhood [while it lasts]) while resurrected T has hand burned off (elimination of voyeuristic masturbatory self-img).

Master slaps Wife #1 bloody (overpowering the Mother who wants to preserve [inner] child) + family flees into desert (freed – to nowhere – by not-the-mother’s submission) where Mike shoots snake (using phallus against phallus, conflict now not catfight’s pos-vs-neg anima but pos v neg animus) then Master + dog (mind + body, to accommodate transcendent soul/sleeper), attracting cops (noise à la alarm clock rousing conscious self to wakefulness).

Abrupt cut to 2 wmn (vs earlier neckers: frustrated erotic play btwn opposites [fe/male, un/consc, art/sales, creation/waste] resolved into harmonious anima) caught in rainstorm (conflict now w/i fem persona, anticipating upcoming wmn’s mvmt) in convertible (à la opening family, father-figure having erased self from picture) finding shack + "Michael," caretaker of the place "while the Master is away" (returned to altar: dormant, wives now including Mag + verboten daughter – sexualized in gauzy robes – incorporated w/i incestuous unconscious); rote, ½-hearted "The End?" hopeful, absence of male in new setup suggesting end to "round" of masculine domination + exploitation on confrontation w/ Sisterhood (I keep telling myself), downpour in place of opening desert fecundating previously desolated landscape once masculine ego submits itself.

Like Dungeon of Harrow, a genuine piece of outsider art.