The Ghoul Report

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Monsters (2010)

Review #0050
"I dare any naysayer to do better"

Before I go into more details about the general awesomeness of this poverty row masterpiece, it is imperative to set the record straight. Despite its title and premise, Monsters is not a genre film, and I believe that the absence of critical consensus stems from the fact that too many critics have analyzed it as such. Sure, there are monsters in the film, much more than many of those critics would have you believe, but overall, the film itself is not monster-centric. In other words, Monsters is not another tired tale about expendable humans running to their demise. It is rather a tale about humanity, about love, about beauty... and the beauty of monsters.

There is no critical consensus about the film, but there is one aspect, which has been universally discussed: its budget. With a price tag of about 15,000$ (less than half the cost of an SUV), Monsters seems like an otherwordly effort. Needless to say, it doesn't feature the White House being blown to bits by a huge raygun, but it still manages to craft a new world order which is entirely believable, much more so than other films of its ilk. Of course, the viewer is asked to use his imagination to fill in some gaps, but all of the important elements, such as skyscraper-high aliens, gutted buildings, huge-ass containment walls, mile-long alien tentacles, drowned fighter jets and pulsating alien pods, are all graphically depicted and shot in full view. This is no Blair Witch Project here, but a whole adventure set in a full-fledged, organic world. Director Edwards hasn't gone for the mystery-monster approach, which is fine considering that his use of offscreen space is fair at best. He shows us a lot, especially in the final scene, which could easily become a moment of anthology. So, do expect to see monsters when you walk in the theater, just don't expect over-demonstrative garbage such as Independance Day. And don't expect a stalk-and-slash, Feast-y kind of film either. What you will get instead is an inside look at the film's world from a truly human standpoint. Along with the protagonists, you will witness the many faces of a humanity in crisis, from the lofty highs of Tijuana nights to the depressing lows of juvenile deaths, sampling almost the whole gamut of human dispositions. Monsters is a self-revealing trip that you should undertake with open-mindedness, in the hopes of perhaps coming out of a better, more humane person. At least a person who can happily star-gaze while strolling in the gutter.

So, you need both open-mindedness and imagination to truly appreciate the film. Thus, I want you now to concentrate. Close your eyes and imagine a vast strip of land covering the North-American continent from coast to coast, eating a large chunk of Northern Mexico and Southern U.S.A. Now imagine this chunk of land was filled with hulking aliens walking about, infecting trees and toying with moss-covered fighter jets. These monsters can't be defeated by the army and are starting to cross the lines of defenses meant to contain them. The film begins in media res with a POV night-shot taken aboard a military truck speeding through the deserted streets of a large Mexican city. The truck is suddenly hit, and chaos ensues. You see shots of panicked soldiers firing their assault rifles intercut with shots of a towering, tentacled beast standing next to a billboard. The creature doesn't move a lot, but you can still see it in full-view. The next day, you are witness to the aftermath of this monstrous encounter: gutted buildings near collapse, army trucks zoom past and people are rushed to the hospital. Among these people is the fashionable daughter of an American media mogul on a solo trip to evade her coming wedding to some dude she doesn't care for. Sent to her rescue is a freelance photographer working for one of the father's tabloids. At first unwilling, he finally accepts to escort her back to the States. And there begins their journey across Mexico, and eventually across 'the infected zone', during which they will become enamored with each other.

Artistic economy: you don't need a huge mothership when
your audience is willing to suspend its disbelief

As with any fiction film, you will have to suspend your disbelief and accept the film's reality as it is. Considering the film's budget, you might have to do an extra effort and elude stupid questions such as "Why aren't there more monsters?" or "If the monsters are so big, why isn't the horizon within the infected zone filled with them?". Suspend your disbelief, my friends! Accept the very first law of fiction filmmaking: what you see in front of you isn't real, but you have to act as if it is. Then only can you accept a big-budget film idea executed with the least of means. Then only can you accept the idea of a country-wide infected zone on the basis of some billboards and graffitis depicting monsters, gaz masks and pulsating pods. There is a famous filmmaking motto that goes: "Five people's a crowd", meaning that, if framed correctly, five people can appear to be part of a ten-thousand people crowd. In this case, "Five monsters is an invasion". Gareth Edwards' paramount achievement is precisely doing so much with so little, delimitating 'the zone' on a map and fencing it with CGI walls to create it out of thin air, using a battered building or some rubble to simulate the path of destruction left by a monster, using one tank to suggest an entire platoon or using one promotional poster for 2-for-1 gaz masks to set the story. No excess here. No money squandered on lazy spectators who do not even want to use their imagination. But what's more important is that by tweeking the landscape so lightly, the film still takes full advantage of all local decors. Thus, despite an outlandish premise, every locale still manages to keep its authenticity. In one particular instance, real life drama beautifully interplays with the onscreen drama. There is a cemetary within the remains of a felled building, a cemetary for the victims of a monster attack. Within are people congregating around the graves, crying their dead. A bird eye's view shot of the cemetary shows us its humbling immensity. But this is no set. This is a real cemetary, with real people, living a real drama. In that one instant, we immediately feel for these characters, and thus simultaneously for the real people involved in the situation. Both the real and simulated mourning of the people before us becomes poignant. Human drama is at an height, catalyzed if you will, by a common menace that could suddenly unite the Mexicans and Americans. Drama born out of thin air. Magic. The magic of film, back on the screen.

Real life drama merges with onscreen drama: the protagonists visit Louisiana.

Refreshingly enough, Monsters is a very humanistic film that cares for its characters, which is fine considering how sudden doom often compromises exposition in such films. Here, there are only two protagonists and their evolution is not tragically cut short by their demise. Also, there are no flat, one-liner-spewing bit players to litter the scenery with corpses, nor is there a tiresome comic relief. Again, no waste. No ink squandered to pen life into expendable cannon fodder or obligatory characters. In fact, every character, or group of characters in the film has a purpose, to each reveal an aspect of humanity and help the protagonists grow and understand Earth as the crossroad of many worlds. Monsterscould thus be more aptly described as a road movie in which the travelers amass wisdom like moss on a rock, wisdom disseminated all around, in the dialogue with others as well as in the understanding contemplation of our common fate. And when the protagonists take time to observe it, even the monstrous 'menace' reveals itself as something entirely more beautiful and intriguing than what it first appears to be. Likewise, all Others appear threatening until we decide to try and understand them. The truth is that, whether from North of South of the Border, whether from down here or up there, we all have to share this humble earth. Insofar as life here goes, extra-terrestrials may just as well be our brothers and sisters. Like the two protagonists, who are alien to each other at first, but slowly fall in love, we too come to fall in love with the creatures.

Finally, a few words on acting. As far as it goes, the film rests almost solely on the shoulders of the two leads who do a decent jobs of creating not archetypes, but average types. They are helped a great deal by a strong script which is nicely paced, intelligent and full of tasty lines that perfectly flesh them out. Near the end, it does get a bit lazier, but then it is entirely redeemed by the visuals. What's truly amazing in the acting department is the almost seamless acting of non-professional locals scattered through the film's world. These "authentic" people grant the film its authenticity inasmuch as the locales contribute to the overall social realism of the film, they interpenetrate and thus create greater meaning.

As it stands, Monsters is a film that actually benefits a lot from its diminutive budget. Not only does it generate a rare form of social realism, forced if you will, by location shooting, but it also prevents any narrative excess. The film is a lean, mean machine. It does its thing without squandering anything in the process, nor without conceding any of those "greater" ideas which it is full of. It contains an uncompromising, and uncompromisingly beautiful vision realized with almost no waste at all. There are not too many characters, natural sets, natural lighting, non-professional actors and lots of suggestions and despite all this, all the A-list film ideas contained within are all fully realized. Gareth Edwards gives us a great present with this film, but he also asks us something in return: to participate in the adventure by creating in our minds what he couldn't onscreen. And let me tell you: the audience's imagination can go a long way, not only for this particular film, but in all things fantasy. If movie audiences in North America weren't so lazy and unimaginative, Hollywood could turn out major fantasy films at 25,000$ apiece and thus create a truly competitive film market, and not remain the un-American oligarchy that it is today. What's more is that we wouldn't have to suffer any more super-boring, overwritten Batman films, nor would we have to marvel at two-hour long TV episodes such as the last two Bourne films. People wouldn't wet themselves at the thought of a new Tolkien, Rowling or Meyer adaptation and films like spendocrat James Cameron's Avatar would be recognized for what they truly are: bourgeois efforts in unneccessary filmmaking.

***1/2 One of the greatest achievements in contemporary genre filmmaking.

Footnote 02/14: Removed half a star from the rating. I mean, 4 stars for what is essentially a sappy romance between two idiots? Got carried away again...

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

A brilliant, Psycho inspired poster fit for a brilliant film.
But is it really?

We all know the story: mad surgeon kidnaps three tourists in order to merge them together into a centipede by severing their kneecaps and sewing the lips of two to the assholes of the other two. A fine little premise that has already taken the film a surprisingly long way from its home country of Holland. Roger Ebert even published a (surprisingly positive) review of the film, which he awarded no stars rather out of shock than out of loathing. Believe it or not, the film has also inspired an online, Atari-style game from Newgrounds. It might just be a simple reworking of the classic Centipede, but I think it perfectly exemplifies the widespread, and somewhat misleading enthusiasm generated by the film's oddball premise. In our beautiful information age, where the love for novelties spreads like wildfire, something like this was bound to happen. Because although the web is perhaps the only truly democratic medium left in the world, its main function seems to remain the shoulder tap: "Hey, kid. Look at this shit!". And what the global village actually entails is worlwide public humiliations for some, and instant celebrity for others, no matter how undeserving. In this state of affairs, The Human Centipede is a world-renowned gimmick first, and a 92 minutes film second. Rarely has it been appraised for what it really is: a very conventional torture porn entry whose steam comes not from the celebrated centipede concept, but from Dieter Laser's manic performance as the main antagonist.

Obviously, the film was sold out for the sole representation programmed this year at Fantasia (a second presentation was added later due to the overwhelming response from Montreal gorehounds). People really want to see this stuff! It's just too intriguing, especially if you've got a vivid imagination. It keeps you up at night, wondering how a creature like the human centipede could function, if at all. This is without pointing the obvious fact that such a construction necessarily implies a lot of shit-eating. That said, you cannot survive on eating shit alone. It is impossible. By definition, shit is food residue from the digestive process. It is food that has no nutritional value anymore. Now, the film doesn't explicitly imply that the whole centipede should actually survive, but the antagonist certainly seems to think so. And this goes against the "100% medically accurate" gimmick packaged with the film. What happened is director Six actually consulted a surgeon back in the Netherlands about the feasibility of uniting three people ass-to-mouth. And the explanations of the mad scientist are supposedly the result of that consultation. And it serves the film very well. In fact, the high point of the film is without a doubt the slide show scene. In this scene, Dr. Heiter exposes his plan to his captives using detailed anatomical drawings showing every step of the unification process. And he talks in boring and repetitive technical terms as if totally uninvolved. This scene is much more evocative than either the actual operation scene or the aftermath because it "shows" you more. It shows you anything you can instinctly imagine when confronted with the mere possibility of such an enterprise. You start imagining yourself tied to a bed with medical straps, facing the most horrifying perspective of all. After that pivotal scene, the film was bound to go downhill, starting its slow slide away from that dramatic high into the familiar territory of "captivity" films. Because while the centipede gimmick is the main reason why spectators flooded into the theater, it is also the main narrative device of the film. Now I wouldn't go as far as saying that the second act is tedious, but I will just say this: it is almost totally deprived of tension. After the operation, only the tiresome grotesquery of the creature is showcased. And since the three victims are so unsympathetic, their ordeal is merely pathetic.

OH SHIT!!! (pun definitely intended)

Some observers have mentioned that "horror fans don't care about medical accuracy", which is right most of the time, especially when considering how viscera usually look in gore films, not to mention in Herschell Gordon Lewis films. But in this instance, I would argue that it does matter. For one, I was particularly intrigued by this gimmick, not because I actually thought that the film could be 100% medically accurate, but because I wanted to know how Six could manage to pass it off as 100% medically accurate. It turns out he does a pretty good job of it, tapping, as almost every filmmaker does, in the public's gross lack of medical knowledge to suggest such an otherwordly operation. And this functions as quite a potent scare tactic: to convince the audience that they could actually find themselves in the protagonists' situation. Unfortuantely, what you also find out from the film is that you'd actually have to be quite stupid to get caught in that situation...

Fact is, our two heroines are so dumb that their actions have to be seen to be believed. First, they don't speak a word of German despite the fact that they are touring Europe. Typically American some might say, but dumb nonetheless. Then, they seem to want trouble: trying to locate a nightclub (in order to hook up with some "cute" guys), they get stuck in the woods of all places, the woods! Last time I checked, nightclubs tend to be located in the city. Anyways, the two girls eventually get a flat (how original!), and of course, they don't know how, nor are they willing to try, to change a tire. Instead they try to call for help, but guess what: they get no reception on their cellphones. When a car finally rolls by, you first think that it must be Dr. Heiter out to claim the girls, but no. An old, overweight and grumpy-looking German stops his car parallel to theirs and rolls down his window. The girls would have been saved at that point if they had only known a few elementary words in his language. Instead, they act as the two American turkeys that they are and try gesticulating an explanation. Amused, the old German starts poking fun at them, making perverted suggestions to the girls whom eventually pick up the German word for "fuck" and thus barricade themselves inside the car, watching their "friend" roll away while making obscene gestures. At this point, there seems to be only three valid options for Lindsay and Jenny: either try and change the goddamned tire without breaking their nails, wait it out inside the car or follow the road on foot towards civilization. But the two girls choose a perfectly good alternative instead: cut through the woods towards ?. And I do mean ?. When they finally reach Dr. Heiter's house, they make few other stupid mistakes, and eventually find themselves trapped in a makeshift operating room in the good doctor's basement. Honestly, this whole exposition scene is a laugh riot. At every stupid mistake, audience members went nuts with hilarity, which isn't something you should expect from this type of film, which has basically a very straight-faced approach to the material at hand. In my opinion, this here is a case-example of lazy screenwriting: using stupidity and clichés to propel the narrative. It does, obviously, add sort of a campy gloss to the film, but in the end, putting nail polish on a dirty nail will not make it any cleaner. Personnally, I was wholly relieved when the two girls finally had their mouths sewn to two anuses for they could no longer annoy me with their vacuous whining. And considering the fact that most people seemed to agree with me, we ended up rooting for the vilain, which somewhat defeats the purpose of an horror film, to make us either feel for the victims or identify with them.

In all fairness, our rooting for Dr. Heiter also has to do with the quality of actor Dieter Laser's work, which is probably the film's strongest asset save for the basic "centipede" idea. Apart from this guy, whom has appeared in over fifty TV and movie productions, the cast is entirely made up of unknows. And it makes a lot of sense too. You won't see any A-lister eager to play "the centipede's middle piece" in a low-budget Dutch horror film. So don't expect miracles from the two female leads, or from their male counterpart who spends the entire runtime shouting at Laser in Japanese. However, you should enjoy Laser's exquisite turn as the egotistic, misanthropic mad man. The German-born actor holds the entire film on his shoulders, whether when calmly explaining to the girls how he "hates human beings", angrily running after the escaped Lindsay, trying to convince a hard-ass cop to have a drink of (spiked) water, or dancing with a mirror while kissing his own reflection. As for the victims, they are not much more than expendable fodder. And although their ordeal might disgust us, we never really get to sympathize with them. Especially in light of the fact that their total muteness, and limited movement, in the second act tends to nullify their presence as actors.

Dieter Laser manages to create a complex antagonist, at once a
dedicated animal lover, violent sociopath and clinical surgeon.

All in all, The Human Centipede is merely another run-of-the-mill, campy gross-out film meant to cash-in on audiences' initial curiosity. The screenplay is mostly sloppy and borrows heavily from other, better torture porn films, leaving the entire success of the project squarely on Dieter Laser's more-than-capable shoulders. I must admit that the centipede gimmick makes for some pretty amusing moments, such as when the Japanese guy first has to shit and Heiter spurs him on with large gestures ("Feed her!", he says with delight) or when the escaping centipede has to climb a spiral staircase and the stitches around the girls' mouths start popping, but in the end, the film offers no more horror than you could imagine from the synopsis. It is a fun festival film, or a kind of collector's item that you keep in your library just to show unexpecting friends: "Oh that! It's actually a film about a mad doctor stitching three people up ass-to-mouth". Personnally, I was made aware of the film from a friend who had heard about it from the radio of all places. The interviewee had apparently told the reporter that it was "one of the sickest films of all time". And that's in this very insidious way that the film managed to generate a buzz. The film is actually nowhere near as sick as more serious, or more sexually-oriented horror films such as Singapore Sling or A Serbian Film (who seriously overshadowed The Human Centipede at this year's Fantasia filmfest). Nonetheless, my curiosity was so strong and my imagination so wild that I instantly decided to order my own copy online. During the following week, I actually lost sleep imagining how I could be transformed into a human centipede. When the DVD finally showed up at my door, I held it up with shaky hands and made sure I didn't eat too much prior to watching. Less than halfway through, I was eating cherry pie right from the tin plate. I felt stupid then to have trusted what some bourgeois radio interviewee who probably knew nothing about horror cinema had to say about this film. I felt betrayed not by the film itself, which remains an honest effort from a broke-ass director, but by the buzz around it, which seems entirely made up by self-important Internet critics and outraged media personnalities. Truly, The Human Centipede is worth watching if you're into that kind of stuff, but it is in no way a must-see. And it is definitely not the sickest film of all times. More on the funny side, actually. So don't believe the hype. Never do. Just grab some friends and some beers, put on the film, and take your Dr. Heiter banners out.

**1/2 Don't believe the hype: it is only Laser who makes this above average.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

A Serbian Film (2010)

"Imagine you were a psycho-analyst and Serbia waltzed into your office demanding a consultation. Uh-oh..."

I was told that A Serbian Film featured unspeakable acts that pushed the envelope farther than I could ever imagine. I was told it would fuck my senses and rape my soul. And by God, it did. And I'm not the squeamish type, nor did I squirm during the film. Nonetheless, it left me with images that will haunt my dreams forever, images that have already started to disturb my perception of reality. You see, there were things I wouldn't have expected from even the most depraved genre filmmaker and this film showed them to me without flinching. I guess I underestimated how twisted the Serbian soul really was...

In a dark warehouse lies a mattress surrounded by cameras. On the mattress, the unconscious body of a cute young boy is wrapped in sheets so that only his ass is showing. Then, in a demented, drug-fueled frenzy, his father crouches behind him and proceeds to savagely rape him. At first, the father has some difficulty inserting his gigantic porn star penis in his son's virginal anus. So he pushes, pushes... and pushes, until the sound of tearing flesh fills the theater, leaving the audience in the awkward position of estimating the damage done to the young man. With that awful sound of tearing flesh, we are reminded of the famous rape scene from Irreversible. That latter scene now appears way softer because no matter how repulsive it was to see the gorgeous Monica Bellucci succumb to a low-life scumbag, we somehow felt that she could handle the trauma, or at least, that she understood what was happening to her. After all, we're talking about a full-grown woman here, a voluptuous woman at that, one with an anal passage of regular width. As for the kid from A Serbian Film... let's just say that we aren't suprised that he remains pale and mute for the entire final act.

"Pain and pleasure... indivisible": this time they mean it.

And even this, this repulsive father-son rape is almost enjoyable compared to what we witness in a previous scene of the film: a monstrous act likely to infiltrate your head like the worst of migraines and certainly something you will never forget. A newborn... raped by a fat ex-soldier who actually delivers it right before submitting it to the worst abuse ever. The new mother lies there on a stainless steel table, grinning at the sight of her baby being used as a flesh mitt. The baby's cries are ghastly. The tighter the asshole, the bigger the pain, I guess... After the film, I called a friend to see if he was coming for the late-night showing of Re-Animator. Annoyed by the fact that he decided to sit it out, I left him with the comforting idea of newborn porn. "The guy actually delivers the baby, and rapes it right afterwards", I told him. He sounded repulsed, then asked: "Was it in a war context?" "No", I replied, "sick porn context". He then gave me a truly heart-felt "yuck", and so I wished him goodnight. What this goes to show is that we can only make senses of the atrocities contained in A Serbian Film in the light of war. For the film is after all a very primitive cry from the depths of a very broken mind, forever stigmatized by war. But it is packaged in such a way as to be immediately intelligible and involving for us, North-Americans who know nothing of war. Thanks to the common ground provided by genre cinema, we can thus walk the traumatized landscapes of the Serbian psyche with relative ease and the prospect of unspeakable horror becomes all the more realistic.

As its title suggests, A Serbian Film is all about the collective Serbian unconscious, and believe me, this is one of the darkest place where you will ever venture. It is a place where even beautiful things such as sex and family are undermined by a dark current of death and hatred, a place that exhibits the scars of war as perpetual reminders of an inner monstrosity that will forever jeopardize normal existence. Almost everything in the film functions on an unconscious level, or at least in some altered state of being that lies beneath the surface of a world that has apparently regained some sense of order. This is made abundantly clear by the varying quality of film stock used to film different degrees of reality, by the use of flashbacks and drug-induced fantasies, all of which suggest that there is something disturbing but very much alive living under the surface.

Protagonist Milos begins the film as a retired porn star who shares his life with a lovely, motherly translator and their beautiful blond son. On the surface, he seems to be living a normal life in a normal household. Of course, his professional past is tacked onto him and the signs of his alcoholism are scattered around his house, but we initially see those only as exposition devices, not as signs of a darker self ready to awaken. The film opens on a scene from a low-budget, 70s style porno entitled "Milos, the Dirty Stud" starring a much younger protagonist. This is normal porn, the kind of porn average guys jerk off to. A little violent maybe, but playful overall and featuring joyful sex that appears pleasing to the woman. Watching the film in a lush, well furnished living room is the wide-eyed son of Milos. Right off the bat, we are thus confronted by two levels of reality: the cheaply-shot, badly-acted, and shady "flashback" of Milos' past life and his present life, shot on pristine 35 mm stock in gorgeously detailed interiors. Under the apparently normal, even luxurious life of the Serbian protagonist, there lies a dark secret that is bound to taint the next generation through mediatic representation. The dark, tormented memories of Serbia are almost like the porno tapes hidden in the father's library: they are bound to be discovered by a curious son. Then, they can be explained in mundane terms so as to spare the child's feelings, but prevent further investigation at the same time. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you try to conceal them, those memories will never really go away. They're an integral part of Serbian life...

Later in the film, after many trials and tribulations with mad artist and current employer Vikmur, Milos wakes up badly bruised and pissing blood. Upon looking at his alarm clock, he realizes that he has black-outed for two days. The only things he is left with are fragmented memories of his bloodied wife wielding a knife at him and other such horrors. Slowly, he begins piecing up the puzzle and finding proof of further atrocities through the material shot by Vikmur on DV. He also revisits the places where those atrocities took place and remembers even more. Thus, through a series of modular mises-en-abîmes (flashbacks, DV tapes, and on-site traces), the protagonist realizes the full extent of his monstrosity. By accepting the offer made by Vikmur (who only promised reality), Milos effectively decided to stare into the abyss. And guess what the abyss did.

This poster cannot fail to remind us of the Cronenbergian maieutics,
a process amply illustrated in his filmography by the symbol of the
broken head.

As far as mises-en-abîmes, there's an argument to be made for the poster of the film, since it contributes so much to the metaphor of the collective unconscious. It shows the bored face of Milos in a uniform grey, but this face is broken to show the other face of Milos, a redenned face distorted by a sadistic grin. This is the hidden face of Serbia, but also a typically Cronenbergian motif. Behind the boring facade of the bourgeoisie, there is a dark, visceral humanity ready to awaken. Be them hatred, rage, lust, sadism, these are not at all inhuman traits but profoundly human ones. Sadly, A Serbian Film is not about the loss of humanity, but the recovery thereof. The recovery of deeply-seeded feelings and thoughts, things that can't and shouldn't be forgotten. Because the problem is precisely the deeply human nature of war, and genocide. Of course, there is always some kind of exterior incentive to provoke those feelings. It can be nationalism, or in this case, drugs. But in the end it doesn't matter because the butchers butcher only out of human emotion. Milos is handed a machete, but he is not told to chop off the head of the actress kneeling in front of him. He does so because he feels like it. Deep inside of him. He did not think either before he anally penetrated his son. No. He just did it because an asshole was in front of him while he was erect. Late in the film, Vikmur basically tells Milos: "If it gives you a hard-on, you should do it". In other words, you should follow your reptilian instincts because they are the only real aspects of the self. Most people can become animals at the first chance they get. But most people are not offered the chance to freely murder out of spite. And this is why A Serbian Film is so important. Because it shows you what people are willing to do for their own pleasure, but under the illusion of a grander purpose. I mean, if you were put in a room with four sixteen years-old runaways and told you got do anything you liked with them, would you listen to your cock? If told you could kill your annoying neighbor and fuck his lovely wife in all impunity, would you do it? If promised a thousand virgins, would you fly a plane into the World Trade Center? Why do guys like to fuck virgins anyways? Is it because they want to go where no man has gone before or because they like tight pussies? Pushed to the extreme, either one of these reasons could justify newborn rape. So it is all a question of context. But what's important, and disturbing, is that social order can only go so far to repress our basic instincts, which will arise at the first opportunity. And this is all particularly relevant to Serbia. And to Yugoslavia in general. Because people there have witnessed firsthand what humans are capable of when given extreme latitude. They have seen families united in death and babies crucified on doors whereas we have only seen as far as the Internet allows. We have channeled our violence into the passive spectatorship of many eclectic things: sports, world news, but most of all, genre films. And by using the many facets of the genre film, A Serbian Film brilliantly confronts us with our own brand of violence. Being pornographic in nature (but not hardcore, thankfully), the film also questions our relation to pornography and the extremes (pedophilic and violent) to where we would eventually want it to go.

But even smarter than all this confrontational symbolism is how the director contains his horrendous story within the comforting familiarity of the thriller genre. Thanks to ample foreshadowing and very predictable plot twists, it is possible to anticipate events at every turn. Which is to say that everybody in the theater could easily envision the ending way before it actually happened. But what's interesting is that they all decided to stay, they all wanted to see Milos rape his wife and son. As far as the experience goes, watching A Serbian Film is akin to seeing Michael Haneke's Funny Games through to the end despite the intimate knowledge of its catastrophic ending, which happens very early in the film. Bluntly put, it is only desire which keeps us glued to our seat. Just like it is desire who made Milos kill and rape. Any other explanation is just wishful thinking. And as an audience, we fully realize this fact. Because as much as we want Vikmur and his minions to suffer a gory demise, we quickly realize that this very desire makes us no better than the killers. In the theater, there were wild applause when Milos assaulted Vikmur and smashed his head against the concrete floor, as is standard during shows at Fantasia. However, the theater soon became silent as more and more villains were brutally slaughtered, one of which through the rape of his eye socket. This kind of violence is so repulsive that it makes us unable to cheer. And at that point, we cannot fail to understand our own involvement in the film. It may be passive at first, but it becomes tangible as soon as Vikmur's head hits the concrete. We thus recognize our blood-thirst for what it really is: the basest human reaction to the atrocities in front of us. The seed that grew and blossomed in each war criminal.

In closing, a few words about penises... and the action genre. Considering the incredible amount of murders by cocks contained in the film (three, if I'm not mistaken: an eye-socket rape/murder, cock-choking, and the implicit rape/murder of the newborn), we could very well make a feminist argument for the film. In here, penises are very clearly equated to weapons. It is not a coincidence then, that the protagonist is an ex-porn star whose large member has the ability to rise or fall at will. This makes him the perfect soldier for the army built by demented artist Vikmur, who wishes to use this penis to hurt and humiliate his victims. Such a metaphor works surprisingly well, not as a simple critique of pornography (which might be the most simplistic reading of the film) but as a tie-in between the humiliation, domination and suffering caused by Serbian weapons (guns and knives who are phallic in nature and usually wielded by male soldiers) and the actual rapes that took place during the war. Sort of a twister of guilty war memories designed to exorcise the inner demons of the nation. In this film, penises kill... literally. As they did metaphorically during the war. But what's more is that those penises are also the phallic weapons of action films. Think about it. You've got this retired champion (of porn) turned alcoholic who wishes he could go back to his days of glory. Suddenly, he is offered a lucrative gig (by a freaky crazy guy) with which he can a) pay the bills, and b) regain his self-respect. So he goes into training, jogging away like the old Rocky Balboa, and practicing his erections, getting ready for battle. This is actually done in a little montage that you'd swear had come out of any North American sports film. That's the hook. The very familiar come-back story. It's Rocky preparing to go against Mason Dixon, and delight us with all his manly prowess. Then, the film basically shifts to the thriller genre, in which penises are also weapons. Murder weapons. And now, you have to wonder: "Whose cock is it which is chocking Milos' old girlfriend?" and "Has Milos really raped his family to death?". When you think about it, the main instruments of violence in the film are cocks. Plain and simple. Personnally, I saw a noticeable decrease in the quality and quantity of my erections in the few weeks following the film. It was as if I had suddenly found myself walking around with an assault rifle in my pants, the baby-raping kind of assault rifles... I even got to thinking that I had lost my masculinity for good. That's the kind of effect you can expect A Serbian Film to have on over-sensible, intellectually-confused, and terminally wimpy feminists such as myself.

See mad artist Vikmur. Now, imagine him fatter, with white hair and no mustache...

All in all, A Serbian Film is not for everyone, espectially not for those who would pretend that our world is fine or that life is beautiful. It is the kind of film that pleases its audience just as the revelation of disturbing childhood memories would please a shrink or a blood-splattered murder scene would please a criminologist. It is a a disgusting trace of bitter memories that just won't , nor should fade from memory. I can hardly tag the film as entertaining, but I can't deny its intelligence and relevance either. For me, there is something that always seemed clear: people don't care about anything except themselves. They will forever ignore the pain of others until they are personnally involved in it. People can only be awakened, it seems, when punched in the face. Then, and only then, do you have their attention. The fact that A Serbian Film was the talk of the festival is a good thing as it should awaken movie-goers to the more atrocious aspects of human sensibility as well as enable them to question the nature of their gutsy enjoyment of violence as a typically human reaction. You may like or dislike the film, you may see the brilliant and complex thriller I saw or you may just see a stinking pile of exploitative garbage, but no matter what your opinion is, you're unlikely to stay indifferent. And that's exactly what Spasojevic wanted. And he did a damn good job of making sure. Well done, brother!

****
The film's brilliant use of mises-en-abîmes makes it a great narrative effort while its extreme imagery makes it a relevant document pertaining to the Serbian soul. A true knock-out punch of a film.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Final Destination (2000)

Review #0053

First, I saw Final Destination 2, which featured a memorable opening accident, fun gory kills and half a brain. It was a great stoner's movie. Then I saw The Final Destination (see review here), which also featured a great opening accident and a few fun kills. But for me, it was too much. I really didn't need such a film, especially if you consider the extra bucks I had to pay for a mostly uninteresting transition to 3D. Finally, after denying many bargain bin copies a home, I finally picked up the original, thinking there just might be something to it, something to warrant a whopping three sequels , all of which shared almost exactly the same plotline.

Did I find a solid basis for the series? No. I found instead an intriguing, but flawed offering that shares virtually all of the sequels' weaknesses, including a criminally poor "surprise" ending that ultimately defuses the whole thing and leaves the viewer totally unfulfilled. Interestingly enough, this ending is virtually identical to that of #4, which really makes you wonder how many Final Destination films were needed considering how unwilling the filmmakers working on those sequels were to update the under-developed premise of the original.

Uh-oh... We're toast!

As I said earlier, Final Destination is an intriguing but ultimately lazy film that fails to really capitalize on clever basic ideas. The opening sequence is simple and effective, showing us the inevitability of death through the perpetual motion of the fan in the protagonist's room. Then a smooth, albeit a little clumsy exposition scene introduces us to a classroom full of typical high schoolers boarding a plane headed for Paris. What the carefree youths ignore is that they are all supposed to die on that plane, according to "Death's design", which remains a hazy narrative device throughout the film. Fortunately, thanks to a highly dubious "out of body" experience through which the protagonist can foresee the tragedy, he manages to prevent a group of peers from boarding (and thus dying). But what he eventually comes to realize is that you cannot really cheat death, for the Reaper will necessarily come back to claim his due. When later exposed to a diagram showing the route of the faulty fuel line that caused the plane explosion, he manages to figure out the "order" in which the survivors will be reclaimed. Left with no alternative, the viewer is forced to believe such "rules" that keep popping up as cement to build a believable plotline out of a strand of shallow gimmicks clumsily tacked together. Truth is the key "premonition" scene, which is repeated in various forms in all of the sequels, is technically flawless, a lesson in tension-building thanks to awesome editing. Only trouble is the film goes downhill from there, thanks to increasingly lame plot twists, paramount of which is the exemplary bad ending.

The main flaw here is the total absence of a reason why the protagonist is allowed to foresee the accident, and save some characters but not others. Had he been saved by a "higher power", wouldn't it seem fair that this "higher power" have some kind of motive for such an intervention? Maybe we're expected to believe that this is merely the latest of God's elaborate pranks... At any rate, it seems pretty slippery to discuss the mechanisms of life and death so brazenly while dismissing all spiritual elements regarding fate and purpose. Personnally, I really wished there would've been some kind of lesson here. Hell, even Saw's dubious sense of morality had some relevance to the story. Here, every plot point is as superficial as can be, being a mere gimmick that fuels the story a few scenes. And every time the possibility of a grander scheme surfaces, it is swiftly drowned by the very narrow needs of the scenario. For one, I thought the funeral sequence held some special significance regarding the fate of the survivors. I felt it was the moment for those characters to ponder on the meaning of their existence and the incredible chance they have been given. It was a chance to include some meatier statement about life than "I'm freaked out to be alive." Instead of that, this scene functions merely as a half-assed segway toward the next scene wherein the first survivor dies. Later, when Kerr Smith's character decides to face death head-on as he drives on the wrong side of a one-way street, you'd expect some statement about individual volition in the face of fate. But no such reflexion ever comes to fruition as all the characters are mere cogwheels in a sick play whose conclusion is predetermined. And in the end, we discover that death is no different than a typical slasher, caught also in the web of teenage-oriented ineptitude dished out by lazy screenwriters out to make an easy buck. It's a shame too, because so many important spiritual issues are thus ignored, and what could have been a serious, adult film ultimately fails to tackle real issues that could've been relevant to real people, and so it remains a juvenile and superficial effort in body count horror.

Sexy Ali Larter, Devon Sawa and Kerr Smith stare death right in the face.

To summarize things, Final Destination is ultimately just a lowbrow teenage slasher. The unique, intriguing premise and mythological implications about death are soon revealed for what they are: mere plot twists that offer surprise, but no catharsis. The result is very disappointing, not because the film is that bad, but because of how the filmmakers fail to follow through on the film's intriguing premise and its promise of grander, deeper dramatic implications. Of all the angles from which to adress the arduous, and quite necessary question of Death's design, they took the least interesting one, that of the cheap thriller. It's a real shame. And in the end, I will suggest you watch Part 2 instead, which is basically the same thing, but without the ridiculous pretension of being serious horror. And by the way, naming your characters after famous boogeymen and horror movie producers does nothing but prove that one can read theater marquees...

2/5 A unique and influential scenario is marred by unsatisfying plot twists and an overall lack of substance.