An Improvised Melodrama on Analogue Video
In 1980, director Bill Gunn, known for the cult horror film Ganja & Hess, collaborated with author Ishmael Reed on a micro-budget video project. Titled Personal Problems, it is an improvised melodrama in two parts about Black lives in New York, originally intended for television and shot on analogue video. The result is rough and ready, with a muddy sound mix, but it crackles with energy and life.
Ahead of Its Time
The film anticipates the era of smartphone filmmaking by decades, even though the camera equipment used was likely the size of a briefcase. The opening titles to part one are so basic they resemble a modern VHS-fetishist gag by someone like Harmony Korine. The boozy scenes and overlapping dialogue invite comparisons to Cassavetes or Altman, but for this reviewer, it recalls Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm. One scene in a hospital emergency room features a stern administrator asking a young man in agony endless form-filling questions, creating genuine comedy as the bureaucracy delays treatment.
A Nurse at the Center
The story, though branching into numerous subplots and sidebars, revolves around Johnnie-Mae, a nurse at a Harlem hospital played by nonprofessional actress Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor, a poet and food writer. In the opening scene, she is interviewed about her life, family background, and interest in writing poetry, appearing calm, articulate, and strong—qualities that fade once the drama unfolds. Johnnie-Mae is married to Charles (producer Walter Cotton) but has an affair with jazz musician Raymon (Sam Waymon, brother of Nina Simone), a situation she reveals to two friends at a boozy, uproarious brunch.
Family Turmoil and Consequences
Charles, whose main interest seems to be watching The Guns of Navarone on TV, has his own indiscretion, revealed so briefly it feels like a dream. Johnnie-Mae resents sharing her cramped home with Charles's elderly, troublesome father, and later must also house her dodgy brother Bubba and his girlfriend Mary-Alice. Their criminal dealings lead to a dramatic arrest in broad daylight. As Raymon's fame and success grow, the relationship sours, and in the film's second part, the father-in-law's declining health sparks an explosive confrontation with Charles's sister.
An Open-Ended Experiment
Where is it heading? Everywhere and nowhere. It is a slice of life—two slices, in fact. The second half quickly recaps the first before moving forward, hinting at its TV origins, but Personal Problems lacks both the extended storytelling of longform television and the enclosed narrative of a feature film. It simply rolls on for two and a half hours, an experiment in open-ended performance made with experimental, pioneering flair. Personal Problems is in UK cinemas from 31 July.
