Bennett Jones, witer, director and star of the film I Am A Knife With Legs, wears an ‘abhole T-shirt,’ one of the trademark garments of his character Bené, at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal. (Photo by Liz Ferguson)
If you need a laugh on Thursday, August 7, 2014, head over to the Fantasia Film Festival at 9:30 p.m., and watch I Am a Knife With Legs. You can’t see a film like this one every day! Not even every year. I am a Knife With Legs is funny, entertaining, strange, silly, quirky, inventive, and lots more. The multi-talented Bennett Jones wrote the script, directed it, acted in it, edited it, did the colour correction, wrote the songs, and made many drawings. His acting role was not small, either, he took on the main part of French pop singer Bené, a man who goes to Los Angeles to hide out from an assassin. Someone has placed a fatwa upon him, perhaps because he wrote a song with the title “All Religion Is Stupid, Especially Yours.”
Beefy, his friend, manager, bodyguard, roadie, cook (etc.,) keeps Bené company in his hideout, takes part in some surreal chats and goes on the occasional éclair run. They are strange-looking and strange-tasting éclairs, as Bené points out in the trailer below.
I Am a Knife With Legs is silly on purpose, without being stupid. It is NOT one of those “so bad it’s good” films. It is quite accomplished on its own unusual terms. Though Jones is an American, the film made me think of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and John Lennon’s book In His Own Write. (Sketches by Jones are used liberally in the film.) Bené’s bad French accent might add an extra layer of amusement for Montrealers. He pronounces “assassin” like S-S-N, which leads to a running gag that just got funnier and funnier for me and the people in the audience with me.
Laughing makes us feel good – there’s general agreement on that, right? Laughing made me feel good while I was watching I Am a Knife With Legs as part of a congenial crowd. I was very much intrigued by the mind behind it, too.
When it was over I also enjoyed the banter between Fantasia programmer Mitch Davis and Bennett Jones. They were both riding a wave of energy and approval from the famously supportive Fantasia audience. Jones answered questions about the film and how he made it (over several years, in his own apartment, for about $12,000). He sang for us, and he opened his jacket to reveal an “abhole T-shirt,” the absurd trademark garment of his character Bené. I would have missed so much if I had just watched a screener of I Am a Knife With Legs. Seeing it with other people is essential, I think. Some people say “the weekend starts on Thursday.” If you follow that school of thought, I can’t think of a better way to start a weekend than at a Fantasia film.
You can watch I Am a Knife With Legs, with other people, Thursday, August 7, 2014, at 9:30 p.m, Thursday, August 7, 2014 in the J.A. de Seve Theatre of Concordia University, 1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
