| RATING: | 100% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
A gateway into John MALKOVICH’s mind is discovered and people are charged US$200 for spending 15 minutes inside it. When Mr MALKOVICH discovers this, there is hell to pay.
This highly-original movie is about individual carpe diem and, when not having done so, vainly wanting to be someone else instead. It is also about trying to look at life through others’ eyes and, thereby, trying to control them. That this can never work is the source of the plotting and character development: Wanting to be something you are not, because you are unsuccessful, and wishing to have success without effort - as this seems to be how others achieve it. But this can only lead to either being a puppet or a puppeteer - not someone in ones own right.
There are also issues of the lonely desire to discover what it is like to be the other sex. And the neurotic need for control of others as a substitute for their not wanting to be in your company - rather than acceptance of others or even tolerance. Ultimately, fear-of-death and a wish for immortality pervades the entire drama - especially the kind of immortality that can only come from passing-on ones genes to ones offspring.
All of the performances are excellent, especially Catherine KEENER as a polymorphous perverse. She is genuinely fascinated by the sexual possibilities of the discovery of a way into John MALKOVICH’s mind, even while being emotionally-disturbed by their intriguing nature. Cameron DIAZ and John CUSACK convincingly play the central, unhappily-married, couple surrounded by a fate and circumstances they lack the will to make work for their own benefit. Moreover, John MALKOVICH and Charlie SHEEN are very game actors who play their so-called parts with aplomb. (MALKOVICH: Spike Jonze wants me to be in a movie called Being John Malkovich! What part does he want me to play? AGENT: The clue’s in the title, John!)
The only minor flaw this film possesses is that it is too clever for its own good and so partly obscures its own themes. Yet it is well worth watching more than once since it is probably the most original, bizarre and weird (yet matter-of-fact) comedy ever made - albeit with shades of Alice in Wonderland.
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