Michael Bilandic’s new film Hellaware revolves around Nate (Keith Poulson), a wannabe photographer whose talent is undercut by his rich kid malaise and distaste for what he derides as the “incestuous” nature of the art world. Convinced that the only way he can overhaul his lackluster life is through professional acclaim, he sets off for Delaware, bent on photographing a teenage rap-rock group called Young Torture Killaz. Bilandic’s lucky: if he weren’t so obviously born to direct a fish-out-of-water story, Hellaware would feel pretty tired.
Instead, it’s a Faustian parable about the exploitative nature of art and the lengths to which people will go for success. Bilandic illustrates New York’s decadence and isolation from the rest of the country with ease, folding that distinction of class even further into the whole world of YTK’s ICP-ish Dark Carnival, so that when Nate and friend-with-benefits Bernadette (Sophia Takal) first arrive at a Young Torture Killaz concert, the disparity between the Manhattanites and the Delawareans is painful. Urban vs. rural, rich vs. lower middle class, rap vs. rock: it’s all pretty obvious until one thinks, “What kind of people would actually go to an ICP show?”
Their clothes are different, the way they carry themselves is different, the way they speak is different; everything is strange and foreign for Nate and Bernadette. Bilandic lends both the Killaz and the New Yorkers such starkly strong points of view that the moment of their first contact transcends the film’s originally obvious satire and sings with something palpably deeper about region and class conflict.
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