Fessenden II: FFC Interviews Larry Fessenden
Larry Fessenden is smart, and he's modest about that–embarrassed, even. He's generous to a fault with his time. He likes a good beer, and he made one of my very favourite films, the melancholic, ageless Wendigo. At his best, he's an artist of the sublime. At his not-best, he loses the fire in pursuit of the kindling. He respects history and his place in it–and sometimes he takes too many pains outlining the appendix when The Wasteland is waiting. His new film–his second shot at the Frankenstein story after his 1991 feature debut, No Telling–is Depraved. I'm mixed on it. The parts I liked, I loved. The parts I didn't, I recognized as the product of an artist who has perhaps spent too much of his time nurturing the work of others and not enough dedicated to establishing the sea legs for his own endeavours. Yet although there's a little rust on it, a new Fessenden joint is always cause for celebration, and Depraved is no exception.