Beyond Clueless

"Beyond Clueless" is a dizzying journey into the mind, body and soul of the teen movie, as seen through the eyes of over 200 modern coming-of-age classics.

Unfortunately, this "documentary" consists of nothing more than plot summaries. No actors or directors talking about the films, no film critics trying to analyze them. Just Fairuza Balk talking over the top of film clips, apparently sharing the opinion of one writer (though even this is unclear).

It was great to see such films as "Idle Hands", "Ginger Snaps" and "Doom Generation" appear beyond the more mainstream high school films. Even "Jeepers Creepers", which has little to do with high school at all. (Though they are spot on to call out the gay theme.) So that was nice, even if the film as a whole is rather worthless.

And why the focus on the 1990s? There is something to be said about teen movies of the 1990s, to be sure. But this film never made it clear about how they differ from the 1980s, 1970s or any other decade. What was the point of this selected focus?

This movie pretends to be a documentary- in the description offered at the Sonoma International Film Festival, it listed a "superstar cast" of people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Jake Gyllenhaal, when it fact it is merely a boring series of clips from movies those people were in. It's like watching a book report on teen movies. Fairuza Balk narrates in a flat voice with zero inflection that makes me wonder how she ever became an actress. The film makes no attempt at a central thesis, has no original footage or interviews with experts in any capacity, and should not be afforded any sort of attention whatsoever. Please do not spend money on this drivel.

I tried very hard to like this film, but to no avail. I think I expected "Beyond Clueless" to offer an analysis on the effect that the films it featured (1990s and 2000s high school movies such as "Mean Girls" and "The Craft") had on its audience, or provide an argument that the frequent two-dimensional portrayal of teenagers represents adults' undermining the validity of authentic personalities of high schoolers. But no. Apparently the director refers to this film as "an visual essay"- however, the term "essay" infers that there will be an argument presented. There was no argument or original ideas in "Beyond Clueless", merely the summarization of plot points and archetypal characters frequently re-used in high school movies. While the visuals were interesting and entertaining, the film is basically like a really long trailer for both popular and obscure 1990's and 2000's teen-centric films.

Out of the 18 movies I have so far watched at this year's Bergen International Film Festival, Beyond Clueless var the most powerful experience.

The documentary might be describes as a seamless, intuitive flow of poignant moments from well known and somewhat obscure high-school films (in all genres: drama, comedy, horror, etc) narrated with a heartfelt approach to considering the deeper content of these works. As such, it elevates the genre from the cheap and somewhat ridiculed slots of popular culture to become insightful inquiries on what it means to grow up, to go through puberty and to become an independent person. As a 25 year old, my experience of the movie was a violent rush though a huge spectrum of emotions, both unsettling and ecstatic, somewhat like that of being a teenager again, but having my entire teenage life pass through my senses in the duration of a regular movie. What I experienced was possibly some of the most genuine catharsis I have had at a cinema.

The narration was eloquent, intriguing and beautiful. As an MA in comparative literature I am qualified to assess the quality and validity of interpretations and analyses such as those that the film was making throughout the entire spoken monologue, and I must say that I was very much impressed with the writer's ability to make his views quite clear and coherent without succumbing to subjectivism or far-fetched theorism. At a few occasions the narrative and the accompanying images would intensify to a point where I was struggling to follow the line of reasoning, but this was certainly not the case most of the time.

My only disclaimer would be that since the documentary focuses on movies from the 90s and early 00s, it probably won't speak to your heart unless you grew up in this era. The director if fully aware of this though, as I heard him talk about it when asked at the Q&A after the screening in Bergen yesterday. Without a specific focus and certain limitations, the movie would never have been able to make such a deep dive into certain themes, and would easily have become a more general and perhaps vague film-historical survey.

Finally, a serious take on a genre that no one takes seriously. I never even went to an American high school, and yet I feel as if my teens and adolescent years (a vital portion of my life) have been legitimized and made meaningful. If you're a nostalgic sentimentalist in their twenties, like me, you don't want to miss this.

Save yourself and find something else to watch. This "documentary", excuse me, "essay film", as director Charlie Lyne calls it, was so terrible that I feel it is my duty as a human being to warn others to avoid it at all costs.

The director just stitched together 200 clips from movies somewhat related to adolescence and then pretended that simply describing the plot of each movie counts as deep analysis. The viewer is dragged through five insufferable chapters in which Lyne spends about 30 seconds on each film and then brusquely switches to another one without you even realizing it, so you're just confused most of the time. And the montages dotted throughout the film are just a jumble of random scenes weakly connected to each other and set to angsty music. It's like Lyne said, hey, I found a bunch of movies with scenes of people swimming in pools, so here's a five minute montage of that! And now here's a bunch of clips of people dancing around a fire! Ta-dah, film theory!

Anytime Lyne does attempt any kind of actual analysis, it fails. He forces these deep analyses on movies that don't merit them. He also uses this ominous, horror movie-esque soundtrack throughout the film to add an in-your-face layer of angst to the whole thing. Most times it's laughable because it doesn't match the tone of what's actually happening in the clips, like in the "Euro Trip" section. I mean, it's "Euro Trip", not "28 Days Later", so chill.

Also, please know what you're getting into. The description for this "essay film" should advertise that it's about horror/slasher teen flicks, because that's where the majority of clips in this film are from. If you don't like gore, don't watch this. There's little critical reason for including the bloody sequences from "Idle Hands", "Jeepers Creepers" or "Final Destination". There's also a desperate-to-be-subversive montage of violence that makes no sense in the context of the film and is just unnecessary and immature.

The whole thing reeks of a desperate attempt by its director to be hip and angsty. But in his attempt to be deep, Lyne instead succeeds at making the movies he chose to include seem even more superficial and shallow.

And to top it all off, the narration by Fairuza Balk is terrible. Her voice drones on and on, with this know-it-all, smug tone that matches the attitude Lyne probably had making this movie. She sounds like that pretentious self-proclaimed genius that sat in your Film Theory 101 class who thought that everything that came out of their mouth was just beyond the comprehension of mere mortals.

This film just misses the mark in so many ways. I don't know how it was so popular in the festival circuit, but I really do hope this is not indicative of the future of film analysis. Because with this film, Charlie Lyne is just beyond clueless.