Swiss Army Man

I like it, it's fresh and different. Sometimes it's good for the soul to watch a quirky movie.

The Jury Prize for Best Directing caused more than a few controversies at this year's Sundance Film Festival with some audience members walking out, while others complained about the film's uncouth behavior. What might get lost in the mix is how impressively this unique and uncompromised debut feature can be seen through completely opposite lenses.

One way of responding to SWiSS ARMY MAN could be to contagiously laugh at the screwball actions of Hank (Paul Dano), a man stranded on a desert island with a dead body (Daniel Radcliffe). Another way would be to question Hank's reliability as a narrator and view this surreal, spiritual spiral as an existential journey into complete madness. Either way, Daniel Radcliffe's performance as a dead body is the kind of profound achievement you might expect from a Harold Pinter or Samuel Beckett play.

Swiss Army Man is not just the most infamous film at Sundance this year; It is the perfect Hollywood calling card for first time filmmakers Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinart, as well as being a completely neo-sincere film. Movie lovers should put aside all of its buzz and just experience it for themselves. Love it or hate it, it's one film from 2016 that most definitely will not be forgotten.

Review taken from 2016 Sundance Film Festival wrap up.

.. is actually a very good description of this movie. Like many others I imagined it to be some kind of cast away with a corse for the volleyball but it was suprisingly different. At this point you should know that farting is an essential plot device in this movie and that it is actually used to underline it's statements. If you cant get over this fact don't even watch it, because it is very heavily featured.

I can't help myself fealing kind of weird recommending this movie because it's just plain akward and even uncomfortable to watch at some instances. The cinematography is very good and the metaphoric value every set build has for the story is strongly admirable. After about thirty minutes of runtime I came to appreciate the movie for what it is. A character study and a reflection of human behavior, traditions, norms and values, which is mostly presented through dialogue between the two characters. Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano play they're characters in such an astonishingly believable and sweet way, that you can take them seriously at any time during the movie even though the plot is as ridicoulus as one could imagine. I think this is a piece that many will grow to appreciate after some time and it is definitely going to become a cult classic.

"You can't just say whatever comes into your head. That's bad talking." Hank (Paul Dano)

Swiss Army Man is not Weekend at Bernie's, despite the animated corpse, Manny (Daniel Radcliffe), nor is it Cast Away with its benign Tom Hanks character and soccer ball Wilson. Rather it is as imaginative and unsettling a fantasy as you will see in your recent memory. The corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) eventually talks (albeit perhaps in Manny's mind only), and as the above quote suggests, maybe too much.

Marooned on an island, Hank is suicidal to the degree that he tries multiple times. Life has not been agreeable especially in his now lost situation. Enter corpse Manny, whose initial introduction is a body still filled with flatulence. Okay stuff for pubescent boys in the audience who can identify with the humorous properties of farts.

However, as in all good allegory, this film is conscious about the figurative relevance of those bodily functions, even boners from a dead man. As you already figured out, this body carries the weight of allegorical implication, mostly confirming that even in the body's basic functions, there is life affirming activity, enough for a seriously homicidal like Hank.

Swiss Army Man has a bunch of utilitarian functions, like the titular renowned knife, to counter the absurdity of life so well documented in the detritus Hanks finds in his lost condition. Cheese Puffs become almost sacred to a hungry castaway and erections are publicly appreciated as evidence of life, especially among the dead.

Dano and Radcliffe are the modern buddy-film icons, clueless about the value of life at its simplest but smart enough to figure it out. The ubiquitous smart phone, with its waning power, has the brief power to engage even a corpse with images of lust and maybe love, fleeting as the images might be.

A foraging bear reminds me that Hank is not as vulnerable as Leo's in Revenant, yet dramatically showing the wit of the two buddies for saving themselves. Nature is always a danger, but survivable if buddies are willing to count on human nature to get them through.

Swiss Army Man is not as oblique as Samuel Beckett's absurd dramas but feels much longer; however, it is Beckett with a sense of humor. It has an accessible figurativeness to please even the most unwillingly interpretive audience.

See this film to help you understand that even the basest human activity is better than the void to which we are all called.

It was a very different movie, very very different.

It was interesting to see Daniel in such a movie.