The Brown Bunny
The film opens with a motocross race shot from high above the racetrack. The racers careen around the track and the sound goes in and out as the racers get further from the camera. The camera focuses on one racer in particular, number 77, as he tries to keep up in the race. He is far from first, but is still in the race.As the race sequence draws to a close, we cut to racer #77, Bud Clay (Vincent Gallo) as he puts his motorcycle into his van and catches his breath from the race. He loads the bike into his van and gets behind the wheel.He drives to a gas station, and we discover that we are in New Hampshire. He gets out to fill the tank, and we see him doing so through the window of the service station, where a young girl sits, presumably reading, behind the counter. He finishes pumping the gas and goes inside to pay. Bud notices her necklace and comments on it. The necklace says Violet on it, and she says that she made it herself. She asks him if he was in the race, and he says 'yes'. She then asks him where he's off to, and he says he's going to California for the next race on the circuit. She says that she's always wanted to see California, and he asks her to go with him. She agrees, and they head to her house so she can pack a bag to go.Outside her house, Bud and Violet they kiss and he tells her that he likes her very much. He tells her to hurry and she runs inside while he waits. After about a minute or so of waiting for her, he pulls away, without her. No explanation... he just drives away.Bud is on an interstate headed to California. Through the vantage point of two cameras we alternately see the road and Bud as he drives. Soon he has pulled off the road into a town. He drives through the town, eventually stopping at a house. He walks to the house and tells a middle aged woman who answers the door that he used to live next door, and that the woman's daughter, Daisy, lives with him in Los Angeles. The woman invites him in.Bud sits at the kitchen table with the woman and a man, presumably her husband, and they talk. He tells her that he's going back to California to see Daisy and that she (the mother) had been to visit them, but the woman does not remember Bud at all. She asks if he and Daisy have any children and he tells her that they don't. Next to the table is a brown colored rabbit in a cage. The woman says that it is Daisy's bunny, and Bud admires the bunny for several moments. Bud then says goodbye and gets back in his van and drives off.He drives a good deal more, with Gordon Lightfoot's song "Beautiful" playing over the shots of the road. He comes up on St. Louis and decides to get off the highway. He stops into a pet store and looks at the birds, the fish, he plays with a kitten and some puppies, finally leading him to the bunnies. He asks the clerk how long bunnies live for and the clerk tells him they only live for about five or six years. He takes a particular liking to a brown bunny, but does not take it with him. He just admires it for a little while.He stops into a restaurant, has some food, uses the bathroom, and then gets back on the road for more driving. He drives a little while and stops at a rest area. There is a woman (Cheryl Tiegs) seated at a picnic table near where Bud parks. She looks lonely. We see embroidered on her purse that her name is Lilly, and Bud walks past her to the Coca Cola machine. He buys a Coke, and she watches him the whole time. He walks past her to his van and she continues watching him. He stops before getting in his van and goes to sit next to her. He holds her face, lovingly, and tells her "it's okay." They begin to kiss and they both cry while doing so. After kissing her for a bit, he gets back in his van, leaving her there.More driving. A lot more driving.During his drive, he thinks of a time when he and Daisy (Chloe Sevigny) were together in the van and he cries about this. His next stop is in Utah, where he gets a room in a seedy motel and has a shower. From there he heads out to the Bonneville salt flats where he takes his bike out of the van and races for a while. The shot follows him for seemingly five minutes until he is out of sight on the horizon. We then see him back in his van heading out from the salt flats.More driving.Bud arrives in Las Vegas. He drives for a bit, and at each corner, a woman approaches him asking him if he's looking for a date and he blows them all off. The third woman to approach his van has on a necklace that says Rose. (Note: all of the women's first names that Bud has picked up is named after a particular flower). He tells her he's not looking for a date, and pulls off. He then circles the block and comes back to her. He tells her that he wasn't looking for a date, and asks her if she'd like to have lunch with him. She says that she has to make her money and steps away from the van, but the next shot we see is of her in the van with Bud, eating french fries. They drive around for a bit, and Bud pulls down a side road. He gets out and tells her to get out the van. She does, and he presumably hands her some money, gets back in the van, and leaves her there.More driving, and finally Bud arrives in Los Angeles. Bud pulls into a garage where he's greeted by three mechanics who help him get the bike out of the van. The mechanics hook the bike up to a diagnositic system and check the bike out for him. One of them asks if he's heading to where the race is tonight, and he says that he's staying in L.A. for the night.He gets a room at a local Best Western and from the hotel he gets in his van and drives to Daisy's house. He parks the van in the driveway and goes to the front door. He rings the doorbell twice and knocks, but no one answers. A next door neighbor yells, "there's nobody there!" The neighbor threatens to call the police if Bud continues hanging around. Bud gets back in his van and seems to have given up, but he grabs a piece of paper and a pen and writes Daisy a note which he puts on the door, then heads back to the hotel.At the hotel, Bud calls the front desk and tells them that he's expecting a phone call or that a woman named Daisy will be looking for him, and he tells the front desk to let her up. He goes into the bathroom, and when he comes out, Daisy is standing by the door. She says "hi" to him and talks but he has no reaction to what she is saying. She says that she has to use the bathroom and goes in leaving him on the bed. In the bathroom she smokes crack, making no attempt to hide the fact that she is. She comes out and Bud is still sitting on the bed. She asks if she should go to the store to get something to drink and he says that he doesn't drink anymore. She asks if she can sit on his lap and hold him the way they used to. After asking him several times, he agrees and sits on his lap, holding him close. She gets up to get some water and says she has to use the bathroom again, that she "Drank too much water" before coming over. In the bathroom she takes three more hits off her pipe.She returns to the room and he's seated on the other side of the bed. She asks him why he's being so cold, and not talking, and he doesn't respond. He lies on the bed and she lies next to him and talks to him about how much she's missed him and how glad she is that he's back. They kiss a little, and then a lot more. He tells her to take off her shirt, and she is reluctant at first, asking him to turn off the lights, or if she can get under the covers and he says no. She takes her shirt off, and he removes her pants and her bra. He stands up, and undoes his belt.(Warning: I'm not going to go into too much detail, because, let's face it, it is what it is. We see his manhood, she does the "deed" A full blowjob. It's graphic, but much of it is focused on his face, or on a shot from behind them, so it's not the kind of coverage you would get in say... hardcore oral sex porn. While she is doing the deed, he asks her if she's done this to any other guys, or if she's fucked other guys, and she keeps denying that she did.)When he's done, he puts his piece away and collapses on the bed, crying, sobbing, saying: "Why did you have to do it?" She lays beside him and they jointly tell the following story, which we see in flashback....Apparently there was a party at the very same house where Bud looked for Daisy. Three guys at the party offered Daisy what she thought was weed, but was more probably crack. She smoked some and Bud yells at her, that she shouldn't have done that because she is pregnant. He said that because she smoked and drank that she lost the baby, and she says that she is an addict... she couldn't help it. Eventually, the alcohol and drugs made her pass out and the three men took her into a bedroom and raped her. As they raped her, Bud saw them doing so but did nothing to stop them. She asks him why he didn't stop them, but he doesn't answer. He just says that he left, he ran away, and when he came back later that night there was an ambulance there. He asks her why there was an ambulance, and she says that... she died. She tells Bud that she vomited while she was passed out and she choked on the vomit and she died. We see Bud kissing the dead Daisy's forehead in the ambulance in the flashback. When it comes back to the hotel room, Bud is on the bed by himself, sobbing. Daisy is nowhere to be seen.The next day, Bud is driving in his van to the race, and the film ends on a freeze frame of his face driving in the desert.
romantic, avant garde, flashback