Southland Tales

Renais, Bunel, Godard, and Lynch; these are all filmmakers who use the medium to challenge and provoke audiences. They often times subvert genres, norms, and cinematic conventions and give us provocative, brain-nutritious cinema. Though their movies tend to alienate a large portion of viewers, they still create their art, with their audience in mind, knowing full- well that at the end of the day, a connection needs to be made between the film and the people.

Richard Kelly's DONNIE DARKO, while clearly the work of a not-yet-matured filmmaker, gave us the promise of a budding artist whose intentions might have been similar to those aforementioned filmmakers. Unfortunately, after seeing his follow-up, SOUTHLAND TALES, I believe his potential has either been stilted, stalled, or misperceived. In fact, viewing TALES and DARKO back-to-back, his second film comes across as utter regression.

TALES felt like the longest, most expensive student film I've ever seen. At just under three hours, it's a sprawling mess. Oddball for the sake of being oddball, cryptic for the sake of of being cryptic, tonally confused, structurally struggling, I think, no matter how they "clean it up," it will be impossible to salvage.

There's nothing on screen to make you care. To make you invested. There are no stakes. Actually, there's no plot, just a bunch of incidents which are all happening at the same time seemingly to justify why these characters would criss-cross. The characters are so thinly conceived, you find yourself looking at the scenery (all in LA), trying to name the street, beach, or building. The imagery is repetitive and banal. The themes are jumbled and stated over and over again by on-the-nose voice-over from Justin Timberlake.

Watching this was like watching a movie by a severely Autistc filmmaker; in his mind, this all works and has a rhyme and a reason but to me, the viewer, there was absolutely no way to access it. This is not for my lacking of intellectual depth or intelligence. I was awake, aware, acute, and ready to absorb this film. Only, the film wasn't ready to engage me.

Next time at bat, Mr. Kelly should look to the masters he was trying to emulate and see that beneath their audacious sometimes even experimental surfaces, there are real stories and real characters at play.

Well, what is there to say that hasn't been said, and so why am I saying anything at all? I find it rude to require viewers to read prequel materials to even begin to understand a story they are investing time in. Also, the writing was a huge disappointment after Donnie Darko. I stuck with it, but it was just awful. this is the sort of thing that appeals to folks who want to feel like they are special because they "get it". This makes them feel like they understand an artistic effort in some way that less intelligent people aren't capable of. In fact, they are just willing to waste time buying into the "artist's" cult of personality.I should know, I bought into Donnie Darko in this same way. To me, the big difference is that Donnie Darko stood entirely on it's own as a very good piece of entertainment. It was not nearly so self indulgent and was enjoyable with no knowledge other than what was presented in the film. Finding the back story just added to a more thorough understanding and enjoyment of the film.

With Southland Tales I was confused a great deal of the time. I was not really able to enjoy the culture bashing due to the really bad dialog and inability to connect many elements of the story. So, if you like bad dialog, poorly developed characters (more like caricatures), a screwed up story that makes no sense without reading the prequel and a badly directed and edited film, watch this, or maybe The Box (another Kelly debacle). Enjoy!

You can get a pretty good idea of Southland Tales from a quick description of its characters. Dwayne Johnson plays Boxer Santaros, a movie star in Richard Kelly's all-too-near dystopian future. But it's not that straightforward. Johnson plays The Rock playing Boxer Santaros, while Boxer is playing the role of a character he's researching, one Jericho Kane. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays an ageing porn-star with a business portfolio that includes energy drinks. And Sean William Scott? Well, he plays a cop's amnesiac twin brother, as part of a neo-Marxist scheme to overthrow the government. Or does he? And you thought Donnie Darko was confusing. Welcome to Southland...

The year is 2008. Justin Timberlake - did I forget to mention him? He plays a drugged-up Iraq war veteran with a huge scar on his face. Who sits in a huge chair with a huge rifle, guarding "Fluid Karma", an ultra-valuable perpetual motion wave machine that is the new form of power since oil has become rare and therefore massively expensive. Politics, anyone? Anyway, JT (who might be telepathic) narrates over an introduction comprised of graphic novel slides and MTV-meets-FOX news bulletins that guides us from our present to the "present" of Kelly's 2008 Southland. The passage of time has not been kind to the US; a nuke has gone off in Texas, and the country has become a police state. The most "recent" clip reveals that Boxer (played by Dwayne Johnson playing The Rock) has disappeared without a trace, which is where the movie begins. Or does it? By this stage, you just might have gotten the impression that Southland Tales is a bit of a mess. And you'd be right. Kelly's attempt at a politically-charged all-encompassing comment on the world that can also appeal to the youth of today does ultimately fall flat, but that's not to say it's without its merits. The satire's often sharp, and the way the movie skips from genre-to-genre (dystopian conspiracy to Scooby Doo farce to musical to action movie) works surprisingly well without jarring too much. The music, while not perfect (I'm pretty sure Black Rebel Motorcycle Club won't have the kind of comeback that allows them to host LA's 4th of July weekend party next year...) creates some of the movie's more memorable moments, such as JT's Killers dance number and the captivating three-way dance toward the end.

The deliberately exaggerated performances are, for the most part, very good, with Johnson capturing the action man (playing an action man - going through a crisis - playing an action man) role very well. The way he switches from the kind of guy who pours beer over himself as a form of refreshment to jittery neurotic mess is both funny and engaging, allowing you to see a little of the man beneath the steely facade.

Unfortunately, this is as close as you'll get to the characters. While the overplaying is amusing, it excludes you on an emotional level. Donnie Darko worked so well because it drew you in, but Southland seems to deliberately keep you at arm's length lest you miss out on some of Kelly's political messages. For all its mystery, intrigue, and action, it feels a bit soulless, and goes out with a whimper as opposed to the bang it so desires.

Southland Tales is an ambitious film, but a messy one, and while it may not work on the kind of level it's aspiring to, in a movie climate where so many films play it safe, at least Kelly tries. Very flawed, but entertaining nonetheless.

...after you have landed an indie hit? If you had a gazillion of incoherent opinions about the world and your homeland? If you are mad, confused and overwhelmed about/by the politics and the society? If you have watched too many movies and wanted to integrate your influences all over the place at any sacrifice? If you wanna sell your -in the core- interesting, exciting, weird but overall half-baked ideas that were maybe influenced by some bizarre dreams you had or just popped into your mind after you had too much LSD? Well, you might go and shoot something like Southland Tales. Of course everyone has his own opinion and no one should judge artistic devices and expression since it's entirely subjective and there are no rules to it. So arguing over tastes and opinions is really senseless. But having read many reviews mentioning "real genius" and "a masterpiece", I would like to respectfully disagree. To me it felt like a missed shot at achieving something big, something which was supposed to be an avant-garde and unprecedented work so it would become a cult movie. And when it got horribly out of control, all you can do is trying to patch the whole thing up and sell it so that the intented result was exactly this: "a profound sci-fi satire, an artistic mindfuck".

Too many wildy combinated ingredients doesn't make the soup taste any better. Intention and execution are really two different pairs of shoes.

This movie, maybe more than any other I've seen, is a commitment. If you think that 144 minutes is a lot to commit to a movie, the running time is only the tip of the iceberg.

In the DVD cut of the movie, a lot of things are obscured: what the big picture is, why characters are motivated to do certain things, why multiple identities are a recurring theme, why certain characters/actions are necessary.

What is in the DVD cut is an extensively detailed alternate world. Unfortunately, to make the actions in that alternate world make sense, you basically have to either watch the movie multiple times, or at least know what you're dealing with.

There are at least 4 layers to everything that's going on: 1) political/social commentary on contemporary American society and the apocalyptic undercurrent therein; 2) sarcastic/caustic pop culture references (Philip K. Dick is a big one, but also subtle things... for instance, the Rock was Sean William Scott's protector in "The Rundown" and plays a similar role here); 3) a self-consciousness or self-referentialism: actors cast against type, some similar themes to Donnie Darko, actions that play out in the film are largely based off of the AWFUL screenplay written by one of the characters (as seen in the graphic novel prequels); 4) the actual plot of the movie, which has deep ties to the Book of Revelation, and makes much more sense if the graphic novels are read first.

These layers are pretty consummately intertwined. This is part of what makes this movie to be compelling enough to make me want to put in the necessary effort. Its imagery was provocative, and because Richard Kelly has created such a densely layered world for himself, putting in the time actually is incredibly rewarding.

It should also be said that this film, like Blade Runner or There Will Be Blood, does not let its plot set specifications on its scope, or what it's about. If you hone in on what the director thinks its scope/purpose is, it's much easier to appreciate.

I'm not sure exactly how to rate this movie, since as a stand alone movie it is a failure, but if you take the time to get inside Kelly's mind, it's worthwhile. So. My advice? View it as an investment or don't view it at all. Don't throw it on for an evening's entertainment. If you do, you might be entertained, but you'll probably be confused and angry.