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First printed at www.movingpicturesnetwork.com

Reviewed by Elliot V. Kotek
(from the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival

Directed/Written by: Michael Tully
Starring: Robert Longstreet, Brian Kotzur, Rachel Korine, Onur Tukel and Michael Tully

Distributed by Sundance Selects, “Septien” opens with credits consumed by graphic cartoon images, as disturbing as they are interesting. In the film, one brother (writer-director Michael Tully) returns home, newly bearded with tattered clothes, after 18 years in the ether, refusing to comment on his whereabouts and leaving the audience clamoring for clarity.

He’s only one among an odd cast of characters, and in addition to the brothers, the relationship of the others in and around the household is curious: Is the gay father figure their father? Is he their “mother” figure? What did their mentally challenged friend find buried in the forest? And how is the bearded returnee — otherwise known as Cornelius Rawlings — so good at tennis and so adept at sniffing gas?

The limited information that beckons us into the film is finessed with a sort-of mastery by Tully and team, and this reviewer found himself willing to ride “Septien’s” tide into the troubling trauma of past clouds, wondering if the emotional weather would clear.

Photo courtesy Sundance Film Festival