The brilliant, gifted ventriloquist Nina Conti may be better known these days for the ritual humiliation of audience members, as she gets people up onstage, slaps weird masks on them and makes them say ridiculous or filthy things, but back in the day, her act was much, much darker: a kind of psychological cleansing that just happened to be a comedy act with a foul-mouthed monkey puppet.
This funny, touching documentary film from 2012 is essentially Conti trying to come to terms with the recent loss of her lover and mentor, Ken Campbell. For some context: Campbell was an oddball comedy genius, whose approach to theatre in the sixties and seventies was more akin to “happenings”, or Fluxus/ performance art events . He’d happily stage bizarre work that lasted for 9, or even 22 hours. And you thought Eugene O’Neill was rough going! Comedy, the stage and the artistic process for him was all about thinking sideways, and finding your inner idiot. He became romantically involved in old age with Conti when she was just in her twenties. “With sex and everything” , as her puppet Monkey adds, a trifle superfluously.
But if it seems he got the sweeter deal there, he did bequeath all of his puppets to her, including one who resembled him, and basically launched her entire career. Attempting to get some closure, and to say thank you, Conti travels to Kentucky to visit Venthaven , a museum for “bereaved puppets” whose owners have passed away. (Monkey, again: “Only in America…” ).
While she’s out there, she meets some fellow eccentrics, each with their own puppet, at the World Ventriloquist Convention. Some are just kids, but all are undeniably talented and have unique voices. She interviews some of them, and the common quirk they all seem to share is feeling like an outsider, shy or generally unseen. Paging Dr Freud…
Ruminating on her trip, and strange path in life in general afrer a few beers, a drunken Conti in her motel room, who’s wondering whether she should quit, talks to some of Ken’s puppets, including a creepy – looking one who “admonishes” her for the trip: “It’s tantamount to psychic necrophilia!” So, there’s only one course of action left: a purging. One last hurrah. She’s going to leave one of Ken’s puppets to Venthaven, and stage Monkey’s death to see how she’d feel without him. No spoilers when I say it’s emotional…
What a strange, haunting little film this is. It’s a beautiful meditation on loss; love, genius, insanity, things unsaid, but ultimately, as Conti discovers, it’s about finding your real voice after a long period of self-doubt.
Hit The North 