A Sad, Sick, Psychosexual Masterpiece

I know I already wrote a pretty lengthy review of Rob Zombie and his filmic output a long time ago, but you'd better settle in and get ready for a little bit more... I just came out of his latest - The Lords of Salem - and it is nothing less than a masterpiece. A disgusting, deranged, psychosexual masterpiece - but a masterpiece nonetheless.

This is a film that will divide critics, casual film-goers, fans, haters - pretty much any audience you could imagine. Zombie isn't redoing his particular brand of immature schlock cinema (as he'd done with the likes of House of 1000 Corpses and his first Halloween remake)... he's not even redoing his more ambitious, though obsessively violent schlock cinema (a la Halloween II and The Devil's Rejects)... No, with The Lords of Salem I think we have Zombie at his most personal, if that makes sense. The main character is a woman, but this is the first time you can really see all the things he's been writing about in his movies and songs - demons, possessions, psychopaths, killers, generally anything perverse and unholy - coalesce into one astounding whole.

I've always enjoyed Zombie's output, but only to a point. Even with The Devil's Rejects - by all accounts, a pretty great movie, and one of my favorites of the last ten years - there was always some particular scene or touch that got in the way. Something that could have been taken out, or edited differently to better effect... With The Lords of Salem, this just isn't true. It's not perfect, but it's nevertheless extraordinary.


The Lords of Salem (dir. Rob Zombie) - 4/5

So first, now that we're in the review proper, let's set the mood... Imagine Rosemary's Baby. Now mix it with The Shining. That pretty much gives you The Lords of Salem... at least, on a superficial level. This is a story about demons and witchcraft and losing touch with reality.

But we've seen movies like that before... In fact, within the horror genre - indeed within just about every genre - you could list tons of movies about madness and the devil and the war between dark and light.

This is where Zombie comes in and shines. It's his little touches that make the film extraordinary.

When I mentioned Rosemary's Baby and The Shining, I wasn't just talking about plot and/or stylistic elements (the idea of birthing the devil, numerous photographic references), but the also the tone and the pace. This I think is the most maddening thing for the modern film-goer: Rob Zombie takes his time. The film is about 100 minutes, and it's a slow 100 minutes. But it's his deliberateness - his refusal to ramp up the pace and indulge in modern-day cliches - that sets his film apart. That and the absolutely unrelenting, permeating sense of darkness and dread. There truly is something evil going on here; and while it may not be startling or "scary," it is nevertheless horrifying. Oh, and there's the fact that this is an incredibly calm horror movie. Witches are burned at the stake, yes, and there's one murder, but even then the film is more obsessed with what's not shown - with the disturbed and deranged experiences and psychologies of its characters - than just the physical things that happen.

This is the story of Heidi Hawthorne, a former drug user and current DJ, who has been chosen. She is the lucky recipient of a new record - yes, actual record - from a group simply referred to as "The Lords." She listens to it dreamily, at work and at home, and while she doesn't like it, she is inexorably drawn to it. There's something about the recording that gets under her skin - that sinks in further than music should.

Constantly, Heidi isolates herself... She lives alone. She seems to have no friends. Only interacts with co-workers and her landlady... She goes to support group meetings for her former drug addiction, but even there she doesn't speak. She doesn't interact. Only listens and nods politely. Who is she? ... Who is she, really?

When Heidi meets a palm-reader near the middle of the film, she makes the offhand comment that she'd like to have her palm read to help find out who she is, but she always thought palm-readers were a scam... Think through that... She wants to find and fulfill her identity, but she casually rejects those who try to help her do just that. Is this some kind of defense, or is she putting up a front? Is she just kind of naive? And what of her dearest "friend," a fellow DJ who clearly has a crush on her and whom she clearly has fond feelings for... Will their relationship ever be consummated? Does she want it to be? And what of that door at the end of the hall?

Intriguing questions abound throughout The Lords of Salem, and it's a film so psychologically rich and unusual it almost requires multiple viewings... Seriously. This isn't something to just watch for fun because you like the action or suspense, or you're kind of a horror junkie - there's a lot going on here, and the film is so mired in occult (and blatant) sexuality and sexual and religious theory, that it deserves more a treatise than a critical review. Even without the bizarre-o-sexual dream sequences (sure to draw gasps of shock and cries of "WTF" from an audience), Freud would have had a field day with the film's subtext. Fans of Zombie will recognize his fondness for Jung from Halloween II, but this time he really delves into Jung's more complicated ideas of persona and individuation - and their consequences - rather than simply quoting him.

Heidi is constantly having bad dreams... Her life is kind of a bad dream. She's constantly waking up, dozing off, getting up to get water, crawling back to bed... At first, things are innocent enough - she walks her dog, she watches old movies, she listens to Rush - but that damned record... It just keeps playing, calling to her, and it just completely perverts whatever life she had. (Latch onto that word: "perversion" is a big, big theme in The Lords of Salem. Religious perversion, sexual perversion, social perversion.)

And then there's that door, and her landlady's sudden sisters, and the darkness on the other side.

HOLY MOTORS (or, It's About Time!)

Holy Motors (dir. Leos Carax) - 4.5/5

Repulsive, transgressive, unpredictable, sentimental... Leos Carax's Holy Motors is all these things and more. A raw, visceral celebration (condemnation?) of cinematic tropes and tricks, it's the only movie of recent memory that can inspire revulsion and even tears within just a few minutes.

Ostensibly, Holy Motors is about an actor moving from job to job (or "appointments," as he and his chauffeur refer to them), and all his joys, successes, heartbreaks, and failures throughout the course of a single day. A similar description could apply to James Joyce's groundbreaking novel, Ulysses, but a more apt comparison would be to his follow-up, Finnegans Wake (except for the part about the actor).

After all, it's not like this is simply about what you see and what you hear... except when it is. This isn't about "plot"... except when it is.

Holy Motors is about attitude, joy, emotion, aggression, love, sexuality, familiarity... About how a lot of us just spend our days shuffling along from "appointment to appointment" - changing our roles, our appearances, and our behaviors depending on what's expected of us and what we expect of the world... But that's too simplistic and "artsy" a description.

It's also about chaos, the unexpected, and doing something because you want to, because you can, because you know it's right, or because you know it's wrong. When you get right down to it, a number of things in this film almost make you laugh because they're just so preposterous... and then a number of things DO make you laugh because they're just so preposterous... and while you could easily dismiss the film for being weird for weird's sake, there's a lot more at play here than that - and you know it. There's a confidence here, a swagger sorely missing from mainstream movies. Carax and his team had a clear vision, and they went out and put it on screen. For good or ill, they pulled it off.

If you decry Hollywood for not taking chances, then - please - watch this movie and all its chances.

What other movie can make you laugh, gasp, and tingle? think about your place in the world, in the universe... in your own life? can ramble along, tearing through everything in sight with such anger and ferocity... and then leave you heartsick, longing for love, and caught up in a musical number? In many ways, Holy Motors is about manipulation - how we manipulate others and ourselves, and (on a more basic level) how storytellers manipulate their stories and their audiences simultaneously. It defies cliches, and then indulges in the very cliches it defies.

(Also, this doesn't really fit with the rest of the review, but something has to be said for the work of lead actor Denis Lavant. Playing eleven characters is a daunting task for any actor, but he pulls it off incredibly. Aside from some interaction with his chauffeur and a female analog late in the film, this is essentially a one-man show. Not only does he play different characters, he creates an entirely different physicality and appearance for each one. They move differently, they talk differently. It's really something extraordinary.)

I loved this movie within about two minutes of watching it, and while I can't say other readers will, you've at least got to admire the guts it took to make it.

A Little Perspective

Back during my undergrad, I was heavily involved in the online film community. IMDb primarily, but other web sites as well. Point being: I'm no stranger to hyperbole, both from myself and others... But there's a disturbing trend going on at IMDb, and I need to say a little something about it.

Just check out the Top 250... Something seem a little off to you?

First, entirely too many "modern" titles (ie, post-1975 - yes, I'm using Jaws as a demarcation point); second, entirely too many "fanboy" titles (all the various sci-fi/fantasy trilogies); and finally, most disturbing, there's way too much Christopher Nolan. (I thought about wording that differently, but hey - let's just say what I mean to say.)

Now, I've got nothing against Nolan per se, and I've enjoyed most of his movies, but... seriously? In the Top 100 alone (though Batman Begins is right at 105), he has five titles! ... Christopher Nolan has only made eight feature-length movies! Do you mean to tell me that Nolan, who's really only been around since 2000 with his much lauded Memento, is one of the best filmmakers in history? The only single director I see with more titles is Stanley Kubrick, and the only one with a better "batting average" I notice is Quentin Tarantino.

This bugs me, and kind of annoys me...

Nolan is talented, but he has a very narrow skill set. The dialogue is usually pretty bad... and I don't mean mediocre or average - I mean bad. Exceptions here and there, but for the most part too much exposition, too little humor, no personality... He really should not be a screenwriter. Visually speaking, he's a paradox: the lighting is generally dark, moody, atmospheric (which I like), but the shots themselves - the compositions, the mise en scene, etc - are incredibly simplistic. Even when the camera moves, characters tend to occupy the center of the frame, only moving to the side for traditional cross-cutting during dialogue scenes. Everything is incredibly sleek and polished, but that's not the same thing as visual innovation/ingenuity/tension; he's mistaking size/scale for aesthetic.

Jim Emerson has written extensively about Nolan's (lack of) visual aesthetic, but you don't need to be a film essayist or critic to notice it - just watch his fight scenes. What has always amazed me with Nolan, after making so many action movies, is that he is still utterly incompetant at directing action. Most action scenes are covered up with polished editing, or obsessive cross-cutting, but the action itself is poorly choreographed, a bore to watch, and you can almost never tell what's happening!

Examples abound, but the best one I can think of is the fight scene with Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (I'm referring to the first one, but the same could be said of both)... Let's just think through this for a few minutes... The scene is a big deal. Batman is supposed to be broken down. Not just defeated, but easily defeated. Nolan is obviously trying to make the scene as simplistic as possible: lots of long takes and wide shots meant to show off the actors and their choreography; it's almost entirely hand-to-hand; and the only sound comes from the fight itself... If there was ever a moment for a film to be visually exciting, this is it! ... and yet, the scene falls flat... and you find yourself wondering when, if ever, it's going to end...

There a few reasons this scene fails: (1) It's poorly choreographed. In this day and age, with mainstream successes like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and countless others, if you want to show off your fight scenes, you really have to show off. This looks more like something we would have seen during the seventies in a drama - ie, the actors aren't stuntmen or even action stars, so they don't want to bother themselves with complicated movements: they'll just trade blows for a while until someone wins. (2) It's boring. There's nothing at stake here! Earlier in the film, Alfred implies that Wayne's ego is getting too big (ie, he assumes he'll handily defeat Bane if he has to, he's underestimating this new foe, etc); when he starts getting pummeled, he starts getting desperate - he uses tricks and various gadgets... This makes perfect sense, but it doesn't amount to anything. We don't feel his desperation, we don't feel his pain, so it just seems like the actors are doing this because the scripts requires it, not because their characters demand it. (3) It goes on too long. A good fight scene is like a good movie: it requires an arc. There's a clear start, climax, and resolution. The fight obviously starts and stops, but it doesn't build to anything. There's no "defining moment," if you will. That moment should be, obviously, when Bane finally defeats Batman and humiliates him, but aside from some punishing sound effects, it just feels like more of the same. By the end, we should be looking at Batman the way Catwoman is: feeling utterly depressed and helpless, wondering if he'll live. But none of that tension is there, because the scene just goes on too long without any sort of emotional resonance.

Now... don't think I'm a hater, either. Nolan is the only current filmmaker I can think of who's at least trying (though not always succeeding) to make dumb action films palatable for a smart audience. He's also pretty good with the "broad" strokes of a film - ie, the basic storyline or arc, and general character motivations. And while we're at it, you've got to give it to him for being methodical and logical. His storylines are incredibly dense and complicated beyond necessity, but each piece clicks together fairly nicely; I'd like to see him whittle something down for the sake of simplicity, but that's not what he's interested in... Nolan's greatest strength, however, has always been his way with actors. He consistently gets strong performances, and I think that's why his movies have done so well with the critics. If you look at something like his Batman series, the storylines and scripts are not so different from other, typical Hollywood blockbusters (more refined maybe, but not necessarily better, at least on the page), but the acting elevates the material. I commend him for that.

....

I'm sorry if this seemed like an assault on Christopher Nolan, but I'm just saying - let's be realistic here. He's a good contemporary filmmaker, but he's not one of the best; and if his career thus far is any indication, he'll never be one of the best. My feeling is he'll be remembered primarily as a craftsman who elevated action movies to the level of opera, but that's about it.

I know part of the danger of "popular" lists like the IMDb 250 is that most people don't know what a good movie is, but that's also what makes it interesting: you can really see what resonates with the public, even if you don't think it should. I would rank my list entirely differently, but a good number of titles from the IMDb Top 250 would wind up on my own "greatest movie" list, so really it's a matter of preference.