As usual, Gus van Sant queries the nature of cinema, itself, by questioning what actually constitutes a film in this impressionistic account of a high school tragedy.
Told from multiple and repeating viewpoints, we witness to the emptiness of a Western culture apparently unable to offer a raison d'être to its young other than the relentlessly obsessive pursuit of materialism. The style is cold blooded because the acts depicted were; making this an excellent marriage of form and content.
Spending so much time simply and repeatedly observing the characters helps the audience to see the victims as people rather than as mere statistics; emphasizing the sheer horror and scale of the tragedy. The long, interleaving takes and general lack of plot advancing dialogue helps convey a sense of pure film as each person moves slowly and inexorably toward a rendezvous with their common fate.
The strongly suicidal aspect of the killings here is brought to the fore in a low key and suspenseful manner especially in comparing actual mass murder with that commonly found in violent computer games. The most troubling aspect of these crimes is that they are almost always committed by affluent Whites who, despite possessing all the privileges that accompany living in discriminatory cultures, choose to throw it all away in a spree of wanton mayhem.
The movie's very existence indicates that when Whites engage in such behavior it is considered unusual enough (even though it's more usual for them to do it) to warrant cinematic attention, since the reasons are deemed non obvious. Yet, on the rare occasions Blacks do the same, the reasons are assumed to be the result of genetic and cultural inferiority – so that the ritualized handwringing and self questioning never then takes place among Whites.
The lack of creative self reflection among Whites themselves is a serious flaw in an otherwise good film seeking to explore a difficult contemporary issue. (There is, for example, no reference to the fact that a Special Weapons & Tactics' police team at a similar incident was stood down because it could have mean upper middle class White teenagers being killed when they are unlikely to have had any compunction had they been Black teenagers.)
That there is something rotten in the state of Denmark is self evident but just what that might be is never explicitly rendered here, so we're left with our own pre existing thoughts on the subject. One of the most horrifying movies you will ever see.
Copyright © 2009 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment