'Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy Footed Mutha' is aging hipster's 'Sweetback' lite

"Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy Footed Mutha" is probably Melvin Van Peebles' most personal film since "Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song" in 1971, which is a mixed blessing. It's nice to have Van Peebles, who grows more charismatic with age (77), back in the center of the action after projects like the French-language curiosity "Bellyful" (2000) and the formulaic corrupt-cops television movie "Gang in Blue" (1996), where his on-screen presence was secondary at best. It's disappointing, though, to see that his work, while it's become more polished, has remained essentially self-indulgent and superficial despite the big themes of racism and identity that it takes on.

"Ex-Doofus" (playing Tuesday through Sept. 14 at Northwest Film Forum), which is a largely seamless, coherent exercise, doesn't look much like the rough-edged "Sweetback," but it still resonates with that earlier film. Once again the soundtrack is filled almost entirely with music, composed by Van Peebles in styles ranging from jazz vamps to blues songs to gospel to Broadway-style light opera. Once again Van Peebles' protagonist finds himself on the run, trying to escape across the mountains, except this time his pursuers are African soldiers rather than Los Angeles policemen. And once again the road to freedom is paved with the naked bodies of compliant women who can't keep their hands off an African-American stud, even one who in this case is well past 70.

In the film, which is one long flashback recounting the life of its title character, Van Peebles is both narrator and actor, playing the doofus at all ages: child in a Chicago tenement; teenager washing dishes in Harlem; young man traveling the world with the merchant marine; older and wiser man (hence "ex" doofus) returning to New York and the woman he loves. There's some charm and sly humor in scenes of Van Peebles at the dinner table being lectured by a mother (Tamiko White) who is 40 or more years his junior; there isn't (not for me in any case) in the sequence in which he tries to feel up a succession of young women in dark theaters.

The coming-of-age-on-the-road story, with its echoes of Mark Twain and Chester Himes, is told in a kind of poetic cartoon style — the Fleischer brothers appear to have been another muse — with much handmade manipulation of the images. (Van Peebles' credits include director, writer, composer and editor-painter.) It's partly based on "Waltz of the Stork," a musical monologue Van Peebles performed on Broadway in 1982, and recycles some of that show's songs. While it doesn't seem particularly autobiographical, beyond the Chicago childhood, it's clearly a narrative that the artist has had rattling around in his head for a long time.

"Sweetback" was both a miracle of good timing and, regardless of any other calculations that were involved, an act of bravery, a slap in the face of the movie business and white American society. "Ex-Doofus" is a better film in every technical sense — people who had trouble sitting through "Sweetback" are likely to find "Ex-Doofus" tolerable and even pleasantly diverting — but a lesser one where it matters. Van Peebles has led an amazing life, but this aging hipster's fantasia doesn't do it justice.