Blog Post #279: "Go Speed, Go!"

To help mark the occasion of the theatrical re-release of the Wachowski sisters' 2008 postmodern masterpiece Speed Racer, here's an excerpt from Gabriel Rhenals' 1st book 20 Years a Filmmaker:

66. Inspiration (May 2008)

“Yeaaaaaaaaah!!!” screams a commentator, joining a chorus of exhilarated media correspondents from their reserved stands in the massive, Grand Prix stadium.

Speed Racer, having recovered from a dislodged main conductor by putting the car into fifth gear and jump-starting the engine, desperately races to catch up with the leaders.

“It doesn’t matter if racing never changes,” says Racer X in a flashback as Speed skillfully drifts down a length of track at top speed. “What matters is if we let racing change us,” Racer X keenly advises.

We then see Speed Racer as a child, amusing himself with a flipbook animation fashioned out of the corner of his grade school test booklet. In it, two race cars collide into each other and explode. Speed provides some vocal sound effects as he flips through his crude animation.

“When I’m in a T-180, I don’t know. Everything just makes sense,” Speed recalls as he continues to fly past the competition.

“No hesitation! Nothing fazes him! No one seems capable of stopping him!” says one of the two official announcers as Speed’s intense dash continues.

“He’s on a mission,” intones the other announcer with curious discernment.

“With a quarter lap to go, Speed Racer is back!” the first announcer exclaims as Speed closely trails the two leaders. “Two cars between him and destiny,” the announcer adds.

The villainous Mr. Royalton, standing to lose everything if Speed proves victorious, cries out in agony as he watches the final moments of the race on a jumbotron, “Stopppppp himmmmmm!!!”

As Speed nears the lead, he is flanked by two cars and the trio of racers soon engage in some car-fu. But this is child’s play for Speed.

“Here we go again!” utters one of the leaders.

Having toyed with them for a bit, Speed then backs off for a moment as the two drivers stay ahead. He then prepares for a final move as his family and all of the media personnel rise from theirs seats, everyone in anticipation of a major coup de grâce!

In a stunning move, Speed drives onto the adjoining, slanted track wall reserved for advertisements and gains a lead over the two remaining drivers. But he’s not finished with them yet!

Not a moment later, Speed engages his car’s spring feet and uses the fantastical, hook-like feature to grapple each of the two cars and slam them into the left and right barriers, respectively.

With tremendous inertia, the two launched vehicles tumble over and over along the track barriers until both twisted heaps of metal collide into each other and explode! By the force of the explosion, Speed is launched into the air through the mess of airborne debris and at such incredible speed that it warps our aptly named protagonist’s very perception of space, causing the red and white checkered floor of the finish line area to bend around his car in an utterly sublime and unforgettable peak moment!

With the laws of physics soon restored, Speed’s race car screeches to a stop atop melted tires - to the cheering and flashbulbs of thousands!

Speed Racer had won the day!

I left my solo weekend matinée screening of the Wachowski sisters’ Speed Racer a changed person. In the wake of a serious mental health crisis that had me recovering at home in Miami after being withdrawn from University of Central Florida, it was the perfect antidote to my unfortunate slump and retreat from the world.

Beyond Speed Racer’s compelling story and characters, the film’s bold, aggressive visual style and its inspiring, intensely cathartic finale had super-charged my creative drive (no put intended) in a way that few films ever had. The film immediately shot up to the number one spot on my list of favorite films of all-time!

It is no coincidence that days after that screening I set my sights on a new short film production. This return to filmmaking after my grave mental health woes was also spurred by the announcement of a short film contest being held by an online forum dedicated to owners and enthusiasts of my model of video camera, the Canon HV20. The assigned theme was technology.

I immediately began my writing process.

This new project, later titled The Nap, would be a simple yarn about a wife’s harrowing experience using her car to pick up her sister from the airport after her husband had made some mysterious modifications to the vehicle.

Inspired by anxieties about a potential peak oil crisis, the film would touch upon themes of clean energy and oil scarcity, in addition to the requisite theme of technology. Even though my previous short Rough Cut had been a far more experimental effort, I decided to apply a more conventional narrative form to this project. While The Nap was initially intended to be a silent film constituted of visuals and music alone, weeks into production I would re-work the film to include spoken dialogue.

The Nap would be the first short film of mine to be shot in high-definition. So taken was I by the unabashedly digital nature of Speed Racer, I experienced a newfound appreciation for the dramatically improved crispness and dynamic range afforded by HD video. With this new format came a new frame of mind: I wanted my new short film to have an immaculate HD digital sheen and proudly flaunt it!

In keeping with my tendency to cast non-actors, I recruited my parents in the lead roles and began a production that would last about six months.

Despite a challenging mental health episode that had left my life in shambles, Speed Racer had worked its magic. As Speed’s father Pops expresses earlier in the film, “…something just clicked. Like a light being switched on inside of me. After that, I never had trouble remembering how I liked my eggs.”