Boba_Fett1138 This movie sucks you right into the mind of a schizophrenic person and takes you on a roller-coaster ride, that for hims is called his average normal life."Clean, Shaven" is a low budget movie but also one with the qualities of a big picture. Had the movie been one that was directed by a better known person and had starred a big name as the main lead but had been in its quality exactly the same, the movie would had been of course a far better known and also way more appreciated one.It's a movie that deserves some more recognition, fore "Clean, Shaven" is simply a movie that got done very well. The movie does a great job at telling the story mostly from the schizophrenic point of view and you experience basically what his experiencing. This movie is probably as close as you will get at experiencing what it is to be schizophrenic, unless you really have schizophrenia yourself of course.The movie also has a main plot line but in all honesty that just didn't always seemed important and relevant to me. For me the movie could had basically been about everything and would had been just as good. "Clean, Shaven" is simply just a movie that is all about the experience and you are being sucked right into it from the start.The movie only stars some unknown small time actors but you really have to give Peter Greene all the credit for doing such an awesome job with his character. Perhaps is performance is also 'thanks' to the heroic addiction he suffered years from.A great, powerful and effective movie experience!8/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

velvethighpeace One of the most impressive film debuts of American cinema in the last twenty years, 'Clean, Shaven' (1993) recalls the mastery of filmmakers like Robert Bresson and Terrence Malick. It is a bleak and painful journey into the realm of mental illness, but also a bold, humanist and poetic piece of cinema. Special mention should be made to the use of sound, here more than ever an essential element in the film and one which stands out to the point of being a fine work of art in itself. Lodge Kerrigan's next films -'Claire Dolan' (1998) and 'Keane' (2004)- have delivered all his debut promised and have placed the director among the most important auteurs in American cinema.

tbyrne4 I have spent a reasonable amount of time around schizophrenics and I can safely say that this is the clearest and most empathetic portrait of that illness I have ever seen. Harmony Korine's "Julien-Donkey Boy" is a brilliant movie and is accurate but it doesn't record the horror and sadness and isolation as well as "Clean Shaven". Korine's film is also much more light-hearted. David Cronenberg's excellent "Spider" is (as all Cronenberg's films are) more about David Cronenberg and his recurring themes (re-birth, degeneration, transformation) than it is about schizophrenia.BASIC Plot line: Peter Winter is a young schizophrenic recently either released or escpaed from a mental institution. He keeps a shotgun in the trunk of his car and the film hints that he may be behind a series of child murders, although this is left vague. Peter desperately wants to see his daughter. The girl's mother died and Peter's mother put the girl up for adoption, fearing she would turn out to be schizophrenic as well. The bulk of the film is Peter's trek to find his daughter and the police's search for the child killer.This is an absolutely captivating and brilliant film. It makes superb and beautiful use of sound. The viewer is thrust into the mind of a schizophrenic. We are constantly bombarded with images and sounds that Peter is hearing. A jumbled mass of static squelching, radio dialing, sonic squeals, abrasive voices, airplane wooshes, white noise, etc. Trees fly by. Black and white photos drift past. The film is a mad image collage, constantly shifting and moving. It's a torment. We understand that to live the life of a schizophrenic is to live in hell. Truly.In the center of the chaos is Peter Greene's beautiful lead performance. Tragically handsome, with bright blue eyes and blonde hair. He looks like the all-American boy. Except for the insane light shining in his eyes.The final scenes, where Peter finally gets to speak to his daughter, broke my heart. The young girl who plays the daughter has one of the most hauntingly sad faces you'll ever see in a film. When she asks Peter if her mother is really dead, the blank longing in her face will haunt me forever.The last image of the film will always stay with me. It sweeps away any vestiges of creepiness the story accumulates and forces you to realize that schizophrenics are human beings as well. Simply because someone has a mental disorder does not mean that they are not human. The last image shows Peter's daughter trying desperately to reach out to him, because their time together was so precious but so short.This film absolutely broke my heart. Extraordinarily sad.

Silence Shows about mental illness can be moving. Loaded with moral ambiguity Clean, Shaven can open your eyes to what might be. Not a show for the weak. Of the many points of view brought to light none can be seen as mainstream. But that's good. What LHK chooses to show is as interesting as what can only be imagined exists in these twisted lives. Definitely motivates me to head north of Maine - in a car - or maybe a boat. Trees, wires, stark grays - just a little heaven.