Garbage Rex: A Dickensian Fairytale with More Story to Tell

Steve Hunyi’s 18-minute Garbage Rex has a certain surreality to it, as if operating under the influence, that gives it a psychological edge. It is the film’s most inviting quality, followed by the titular character, the garbage collector Rex. 

Contrary to convention, Tal Profs’ Rex—a casual caretaker of a few homeless people—is not the protagonist of the film. That position is occupied by Tate (Michael Strelow), a man who used to be homeless, but now hopes to make a documentary about those who still are. These two characters embody the fissure running through the film. Going by appearances, Tate is all modern reason and practicality, a vigilante Alice tumbled down into Wonderland; Rex is one of its many magical, mysterious, slightly unnerving characters. In truth, however, Tate’s voiceover musings place him squarely within this shadowy world coloured nearly exclusively in blue-gray, haunted by ghosts of the past, blending tenses without concern. 

Hunyi attempts a Dickensian London. Its characters are grimy, the sun never cuts through the bleakness, horrors of poverty reduce people to abused body parts—they themselves become junk. And perhaps it is no wonder that Rex, with his medley of scrap, bothers to watch over them.

This dark fairytale-esque world is introduced to Tate and the audience by a young man, the cherubic, wide-eyed Patrick (Dario Giuseppe Roberto). Though homeless, he is not addicted to drugs, yet under the control of the antagonist dealers nonetheless—Blonde (Diogo Sales) regularly rapes him. Which brings us to the questionable choices of having Tate, a white person, launch  a crusade against drug dealers like Blonde and Bearded (Peter M. Smith), both PoC and whose faces are part of the spectacle and effect; Blonde has the added trait of being a homosexual rapist. Since this is a proof-of-concept, one can hope that the feature will improve on it with more complex writing. This damp Wonderland certainly deserves an audience.  

The climax uses the film’s stylistic flourishes, slipping into the past for a second before it delivers a surprise for Blonde. Its true effect comes a few seconds later with an ever unfazed, ever unsettling Rex and a tinkling score to emphasise in its last notes that Garbage Rex, more than vigilante fable, more than thriller, is a fairytale.

Watch Garbage Rex Short Film Trailer