Mister Lonely

Harmony Korine returned to the cinematographic circuit after a 8-year long hiatus, no longer a prolific and controversial teenager, now evolved in style, subtlety, film language and self-conscience. Apparently inspired by his own failings in life Korine delves into the wacky world of celebrity impersonators - of people not satisfied with who they are and acquisitioning the personas of others in a search for betterment and happiness. Michael Jackson (Diego Luna of "Y Tu Mamá También" fame) does the moonwalk on the streets of London, dancing and acting his part in front of passerby's while the boom-box stays conspicuously silent. Upon a chance meeting with Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) he decide to join an impersonator community living off the land on a island near the Scottish coast. There amidst Charlie Chaplin, Abraham Lincoln, the Stooges, Madonna and James Dean he finds an idyllic bubble of happiness. The catalyst for the Utopian self-destruction comes in the form of a sheep disease, which forces the motley band to kill and burn their carcasses. With it burning the feeling of safety and detachment from worry.

"Mister Lonely" also features a second thread running parallel and seemingly unconnected with the main storyline. It tells the story of a group of nuns, who believe that through the power of faith they are able to fly. Their pilot - a catholic priest Father Umbrillo is adorably played by Werner Herzog, a adequate comrade in arms for Korine given the strong metaphysical essence of his work. Albeit seemingly disparate, the two interloping stories basically deal with the same issue of striving to become an ideal - through faith fulfilling the will of god or by imitating the semblance of perfection of the impersonated celebrity.

The theme chosen for his career reboot seems like very fortuitous and ripe for the picking by a avantgarde artist such as Corine. Dealing with a relatively abundant production budget Corine pulls no stops to deliver a visually perfect movie, proving beyond a doubt his immaculate taste for picture and music, seamlessly constructing beautiful albeit absurd imagery (Michael Jackson riding a mini bike to the song "Mister Lonely", flying nuns of BMXs or face-covered yoga training). Astounding vivid and mesmeric with a strong premise the overall artistic success is pretty obvious, especially in comparison the the raw predecessors. Albeit not entirely style over substance Corine fails to balance the ideas and images with a passable story. No longer a chaotic collage of relatively unconnected scenes ("Gummo"), structured around the island community "Mister Lonely" feels overly improvisational and uninspiring, as if guided by a belief that populating the movie with oddballs (in true Wes Anderson hollowness) and quirking up the ante will suffice to keep the audience intrigued for two hours. The characters themselves are uninspiring, once the novelty of their wackiness wears off becoming a group of doubly faceless individual (neither truly the personas they attempt to recreate nor fleshed out individuals behind the mask).

The grading for Corine is somewhat generous given my issues with his efforts, much owed to the admiration of topics touched as well as some utterly magnificent scenes. To some extent the flying-nuns storyline offers just compensation for the ramblings on in other sequences. A well toned, beautifully portrayed effort with a grim overtone, featuring an unbelievable entry scene, where Werner Herzog donned as a priest confronts a man over his unfaithfulness. Apparently a true event it transcends the overall value of the movie, however capturing an unmistakable feel of Herzog's documentary endeavours and strictly pointing in which direction Corine seems intent on heading.

The biggest misstep however is a pretty ridiculous reinvention of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Wise Up" sequence... albeit with a different song and sung by a bunch of talking eggs...

MISTER LONELY is that sort of film that pleads to be loved. It has an original concept for a plot, it takes many visual and surreal chances, and it is populated with a lovable cast who seem to be having fun with the process. Harmony Korine both wrote (with Avi Korine) and directed this pastiche about people who, frustrated with reality, live their lives as impersonators of famous people. When it works it is delightful: when it gets bogged down with a self-conscious script it falls flat.

'Mister Lonely' (beautifully depicted in the opening sequences under the credits as a child who cannot be what he is told to be) is a young man who takes on the persona of Michael Jackson (Diego Luna), performing dance movements on the streets of Paris as a busker. He encounters a like person who lives impersonating Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) and before long the two are off to a Highlands commune in Scotland, populated with full time impersonators such as a foul-mouthed Abraham Lincoln (Richard Strange), Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), The Pope (James Fox), Father Umbrillo (Werner Herzog), Sammy Davis, Jr. (Jason Pennycooke), the current Queen Elizabeth (Anita Palenberg), Little Red Riding Hood (Rachel Korine), James Dean (Joseph Morgan), Madonna (Melita Morgan), and flying nuns among others. The story is less a plot than a celebration touched with a bit a angst of how the unnoticed people in the world find a source of belonging by embracing imagination.

The film is choppy and loses some of its potential allure from the editing. The cinematography by Marcel Zyskind captures some truly beautiful moments and the musical score by Jason Spaceman with the Sun City Girls adds a lyrical air to this surreal romp. For lovers of Harmony Korine this movie will please. For viewers with limited attention spans (running time is 112 minutes) the film begs indulgence. Grady Harp

As a long-time fan of Harmony Korine--his films (sans script for KIDS), his photographs, his music videos, writings, music, and (let's face it) "performance art" known as his inimitable interviews over the years--I, as with so many others a part of the HK cult, have been waiting almost a decade for the return of this erstwhile enfante terrible who amazed the most important modern filmmakers alive along with the rest of us with his stirring explosion onto the independent film and art scene back when we ourselves were all but kids.

I can't say that I was necessarily disappointed with MISTER LONELY, but there are definitely as many aspects about it that I did not like as those that I enjoyed immensely. When I did my best to corral a few friends into the screening, everyone inevitably asked what the critics had said--strangely enough--and all the reviews seemed to say the same thing about the film: "a beautiful and meandering mess." Not only did that sound exactly like the kind of film I wanted to see, but it pretty much nails the film to the letter.

Unquestionably, the film is stunning in visual beauty.

Harmony has a preternatural knack for the visual form; he is in essence a photographer who thinks himself a bit better of a storyteller than he is. His stories are surely fascinating, but certainly being a raconteur of sorts is his least strong talent. His concepts are always fantastic, but his execution can become irritating and frankly gimcrack. Even in his interviews, when he goes on a tirade about talking to Orthodox Jews who are dentists and play basketball, calling him a sinner, you chuckle and can almost see the image in your head of such a scene... then you grow bored and wish he would just answer the damn question about where he got his idea for such-and-such a film, etc.

As most other reviewers on IMDb and in the press have stated, you could see this film for strictly the "nun footage" alone. Those specific ethereal scenes certainly are a true breath of fresh air, and of course Harmony also has a terrific ear for the discovery and use of the best music to go along with his dreamy "surreal realism" style.

The two largest problems for me with this one: 1) The dialogue was at time so sappy and sentimental that it made me wonder how such a contrarian critic such as Mr. K could come up with or employ such hackneyed and cloying material (especially an "epilogue" sequence of sorts involving talking eggs that is probably one of the worst scenes in all of American film history), 2) The acting could have been punched up a bit, especially with Diego Luna who had the physical style of Jackson down pat, but just couldn't pull off the voice, the "hee-hee," or an acting performance that transcended a frightened, timid child of 13 (and, yes, I did catch that this was somewhat the "point," but the whole film's ensemble seemed a bit too pedomorphic this time round... rather like the characters, dialogue, and even narrative of Bret Easton Ellis' last novel in which you almost want to grab the guy and say, "Hey, you're better than this. You're not a kid anymore. And your characters aren't kids anymore. Time to move on and evolve.")

The Chaplin character was also such a wooden villain, so despicable in every way, that I believed his development suffered the same kind of flatness one would see in a late 90's romantic-comedy.

It will be difficult for me to recommend MISTER LONELY to even my most staunch artistic cineaste friends; but, I'm personally glad I saw it, and--again--there was imagery that I will never see anywhere else.

Looking forward to his next piece.

A vast departure from anything Harmony Korine has done, Mister Lonely is certainly a film one has to think about. Like all other Korine films, there is a lot going on. Sometimes we have to accept that certain decisions of his have meaning and certain ones do not, the just exist. This film also simply exists, but we can't watch it without getting curious as to what it is actually trying to say.

The film is about a lot of ordinary people who are celebrity impersonators. The film mainly follows Michael Jackson (Diego Luna) and Marilyn Monroe (Samatha Morton), but there are other ones, such as Charlie Chaplin, James Dean, Little Red Riding Hood, Abraham Lincoln, The Three Stooges, so on and so forth. And they all live together in a desolate mansion and they own sheep, who eventually get infected.

The impersonators live on their own and clearly have aspirations about what they're doing. They don't have much of an audience, although they like to think that they do. Since this is a Harmony Korine film, we can't expect the storyline to carry the film. There are a lot of other elements at play here and the story is merely the background or the canvas for which he uses to paint all over. There is clearly some Malick and Herzog influence at work here and its nice to see dashes of the Harmony Korine we've all come to know.

Unfortunately when the film concludes we're not exactly sure what to take from it, or we felt while we viewed it. While there were certainly some gorgeous shots and some haunting and lasting images, its difficult not to feel that as a film, not everything worked. With a film like Gummo, Korine was able to explore a vast amount of characters and dialog among the backdrop of a fictionalized Xenia, Ohio. Here, we have the celebrity impersonators as well as a priest and a group of nuns in a plane.

What seems to be at play here are a combination of Korine's views of famous American figures, his brief thoughts on religion and fate and who we are as people. As Roger Ebert pointed out, there is this tragic feeling beneath the surface in regards to humans. Are these impersonators going nowhere in life or is this all they can get out of life? Should they learn to love this or shall they die seeking more? These questions are evoked but not completely answered and its nice to think about these things.

Werner Herzog, who actually plays the priest in the film, has the brightest presence and elevates the film whenever he's in it. The actors don't have too much to do, other than stand there and impersonate whoever it is they're impersonating. We can't relate to the characters themselves but merely just the idea of them, and perhaps that makes the viewing experience a little less pleasant. Why is Chaplin acting the way he is towards Marilyn? Why does Buckweat pretend to raise chickens? Do these things have meaning or do they not? What stops this film from being a complete mess are the ideas behind it and the images contained within it. While this can safely be acknowledged as an original and provoking experience, it offers little in entertainment value to the viewer and if anything, complicates our ability to process the film. It is worth watching just for the beautiful moments, such as a nun falling out of the sky and Marilyn Monroe standing in the forest, holding her dress down. But does that shape an entire experience? Not necessarily. There are things to admire here but it's hard to completely admire the picture as a whole.

Since no one makes movies like Harmony Korine, I'm not sure what the standard for critique is. So suffice to say it's really beautiful, unsettling, rambling, and actually kind of spiritual. Love his movies or not he is an honest filmmaker with a true sense of the surreal and the poetry that lurks in the strangest details. The casting is brilliant and the structure unique and pure Korine. The premise is the wacky goings on at a retreat for celebrity and historical impersonators tucked away in (where?) the Scottish Highlands. They are rehearsing a "play" of some kind. It makes for some beautiful moments.

This story is told against another story of nuns who want to jump without parachutes from an airplane to prove the possibility of miracles (as legend claims did happen once) Needless to say this has ripe opportunities,especially when you have Werner Herzog playing the pilot. (Korine says the scene with the man waiting for his wife to return to the airport is an actual caught conversation. THIS you have to see to believe). At the screening I attended, an very odd fan's comment to Korine was simply; "Nuns floating dead on a beach. Awesome image man.Dude you rock". Korine says the two stories are really the same thing. Hmmm - I guess so.

Putting the great, great Samantha Morton together with Herzog, Richard Strange, Leos Carax (Pola X), Anita Pallenberg, Diego Luna, and James Fox - matches any casting coup by John Waters. The story may be criticized as forced and ridiculous, but Korine is willing to take bold chances, to mix it up and. with the help of great actors and wonderful cinematography he create of a work of real cinema poetry.