Indy film shot in Pepperell
debuts in Arlington theater
By Don Eriksson
Posted: 12/26/2008 08:41:27 AM EST

Staff Writer

PEPPERELL -- The latest film for independent writer/producer/cameraman John Hartman, of Denver, Colo., shot throughout New England including Pepperell's Keyes Conservation Land, debuted in December at the Regent Underground Theater in Arlington.

The cast of "Bridge Crusader" includes Pepperell resident Mark Boyajian and his daughter, Tannis, then a North Middlesex Regional High School student, and Nashoba Publishing photographer John Love, who dies in a medieval battle scene shot in Pepperell. Boyajian has a brief speaking role, delivering a convincing Scottish accent.

Filming was done from 10 a.m. to dusk on Oct. 7, 2007, and again a week later on the local conservation land, which the producers said accurately represents the 12th century French countryside.

"When we saw the clearing (on Keyes land), we couldn't believe it," said Nashua-based actor Eric Robert Eastman, who plays the lead role. "It's perfect. John works out of Denver but they don't have this colonial stuff going on, wooden bridges or the
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foliage we have. New England has history and it looks like Europe."

Co-produced by Zee Zarboch (www.groovyfilms.biz), the low-budget "Bridge Crusader" (total cost $30,000) is Hartman's third feature film. It's 84 minutes long, four more than needed to be classed a feature, he said at the Arlington premiere. Another of his films is "Karma Writer," and he has shot several other short films.

"The plot is a story of one man's quest through time to find himself and the woman he loves beginning in the 12th century Crusades (the Pepperell scenes) to the hippie-dom of the 1970s," Hartman said last year.

He uses a restored Swiss Bolex 16mm calibrated camera, unusual in these days of digital photography. Hartman chose it because he is a student of German expressionism. He called the camera his "$7,000 wind-up toy."

It is the camera work, capturing what Hartman's obviously artistic eye sees, that moves the plot more than the film's sparse, mystical dialogue. His work is a textbook example of the effects one can produce with a single camera.

Eastman rides a chopper (cut-down motorcycle) in his 1970s incarnation as a wandering photographer of covered bridges. He learned to ride well enough so as not to endanger Hartman's life as the filmmaker hung from the saddle, supporting the camera inches above the road at times.

An amazing assortment of hand-held camera angles provides a far more intense experience than one could expect, given the small number of cast members who "fought" in the Pepperell fields and woods.

A complete lack of music adds realism to the battle scenes. They admirably reflect the effort, confusion and stark simplicity of hand-to-hand combat. Hartman added to the effects by climbing trees, laying prone on the ground and running after his actors as they moved.

Characters are reflected from the chrome of the motorcycle's headlight, through the windows of centuries-old New England farm buildings and in mystical, foggy scenes.

One scene in particular stands out. Eastman's character, Eric, at one point attempts to photograph a ghost-like image of the woman he seeks to meet by focusing a hand-held camera onto a round mirror extended in his other hand as he spins in a circle. The apparition of the woman flits across the mirror and disappears.

Some scenes are shot underwater or through it.

"John is a visionary," said cast member Victor Gonzalez, an actor from Roxbury.

When combined with sound effects and a haunting musical score, Hartman's "vision" is fully developed.

Some scenes could be shortened in order to move the plot more quickly, however, and one or two could be cut. There could be a smoother transition in spots, created by more dependence on explanatory dialogue than camera work, but, given the extraordinarily low budget, the entirety is outstanding.

According to producers, "Bridge Crusader" may be shown in Pepperell sometime this coming spring.
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