Back in the pre-Sundance, pre-Tarantino, pre-DV days, before independent film became a cottage industry for latte-quaffing elitists, filmmakers who chose to pursue their vision outside the studio system were truly risking everything for their art. One such maverick who rose to prominence in the '80s was Susan Seidelman. Championing the cause of the renegade filmmaker, Seidelman made a modest splash at Cannes with her feature debut SMITHEREENS (the first American feature to compete for the Palme d'Or), before taking the studio leap with DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (remember when Madonna was just cute?). After veering off into a career cul-de-sac (SHE-DEVIL, anyone?), she finally struck gold again with the pilot episode of everybody's favorite naughty TV series, SEX AND THE CITY. Despite being as dated as skinny ties and rooster bangs, Seidelman's first effort still comes across as spunky and sincere, and Blue Underground has rescued it from a murky video purgatory to give it the respect it deserves.

SMITHEREENS is the story of Wren (Susan Berman), a gangly waif who looks like an extra from a Cars video. Adrift on the streets of New York, Wren spends her days avoiding her landlady and plastering streets and subways with photocopies of her face (captioned only with the phrase "Who Is This?"), and spends her nights sneaking into East Village clubs in a vain attempt to shmooze her favorite punk bands. There's very little variation to this pattern, but Wren's single-mindedness comes from an obsession with achieving rock-star-type fame. She doesn't sing or play an instrument, so it's never really made clear exactly what kind of fame she's aiming for; the closest we get to an explanation is her desire to eschew a banal suburban upbringing and "lay by the pool and sign autographs." If her insanely misguided pursuit of shabby, vacuous punk rocker Eric (Richard Hell, from the bands Television and The Voidoids) is any indication, Wren's greatest aspiration is to be some kind of groupie-slash-manager, despite her complete lack of cash or business savvy.

During one of her nightly club crawls, Wren meets up with classic "Nice Guy" Paul (Brad Rijn), a struggling artist living in a graffiti-plastered van. After a few days of gentle persistence, he convinces her to go the movies with him (a cheesy grindhouse horror flick, natch). On the way to dinner, Wren catches sight of Eric, and spends the rest of the evening clinging to him, much to Paul's chagrin. Thus begins an endlessly repeating cycle that you can pretty much see coming: (a) Wren ditches the sincere Paul to hang out with the clueless Eric in hopes of leeching off his sort-of fame; (b) Eric ditches Wren to hang out with other music types, including an obnoxious female manager (who pisses off the jealous Wren, leading to one of the un-sexiest catfights in movie history); (c) Wren comes crawling back to Paul, who begrudgingly takes her back; (d) rinse, repeat. There are some occasional variations to this formula - Wren tries to sweet-talk estranged family members and acquaintances (you can't really call them "friends," since Wren alienates everyone she meets) for money or a place to crash (her landlady threw her out after four months' unpaid rent) - but otherwise, it's basically a cycle from which Wren seems unable to escape. She doesn't even grow from the experience, but only seems to slip further and further downward.

As this is an independent film in the European mode (Seidelman modeled it partly on Fellini's NIGHTS OF CABIRIA), there's no sweet Hollywood ending where our heroine learns the error of her ways and finds true happiness. Still, there's lots of good music along the way (Hell also contributed to the soundtrack), and Seidelman's gritty, kitchen-sink approach skillfully depicts the poser-happy, clueless dying days of the New York punk scene.

As usual, Blue Underground has put together a nice presentation - no doubt the finest this film has looked or sounded since its premiere. Despite the graininess of the film stock, the transfer nicely captures the neon & concrete color scheme, and clarifies shots that slipped into near-total darkness on prior video incarnations. In addition to the original mono track, a 5.1 remix is available - though nothing spectacular, it does isolate the music more effectively, which helps a lot. Extras include a sparse but enjoyable commentary track by Seidelman (with Blue Underground film historian David Gregory), who offers plenty of details about the cultural atmosphere which inspired the film's creation. We also get a brief but informative featurette about the making of the film, which includes interviews with Berman (who looks quite stunning 22 years later) and Hell (who doesn't... sorry, Rich).

Serving as a cool snapshot of the early '80s NYC underground club scene - before the major labels caught wind of it and fucked everything up - SMITHEREENS would make a bitchin' double feature with LIQUID SKY (a self-consciously arty version of the same story) for '80s subculture completists, or anyone who ever thought huge checkered sunglasses were cool. I know you're out there... I can smell your mousse!