At the Movies: South Land Tales

(May read like Greek if you haven't seen this film)

I suppose there are dozens of angles I could use to approach this sprawling, weird "tale."

First, I will say that it opened my eyes to talent that I once would have dismissed. Watching the star power of Sean William Scott, who flexes some nice subtle acting chops here, Duane (The Rock) Johnson and Justin Timberlake was something of a pleasure.

Second, an independent voice in the director Richard Kelly who boggled my imagination in high school with his film Donnie Darko. I'm tempted to put him in the arena with David Gordon Green, Gus Van Sant and Paul Thomas Anderson as uncompromising, lyrical directors. But Kelly has some focusing to do. But he's got the lyrical part down, and that's important.

This film has a doomsday plot that's, like Darko, hard to follow, and probably takes a few viewings for the average viewer to nail down.

But it's not really worth it. The movie takes so many chances visually, comedically, etc. The audacity, the nerve that this film has is incredible. I still can't believe it got made. And I don't exactly recommend it for all. It got boo'd at Cannes and it made no money (this it shares company with every other movie made which concerns the current war in Iraq).

The only angle I can focus on I think is the Iraq one, because it is the one plot thread that is grounded in some serious realism. Justin Timberlake and Stilfer (I'll take the liberty to call him) got back from Fallujah. This immediately resonated with me because I met at Chicago O'Hare airport a careful speaking black man who was a veteran of that foggy battle, or "push." He drained 3 margaritas during our short talk.

"Full Metal Jacket shit," I remember him telling me.

And when the shit is fucked up, why not be an anarchist in terms of addressing this issue on film terms. Kelly has a get-even tale in store for his characters, and it's the first movie i've seen that has fun with the war in a way that's still pretty indignant. It may be my favorite of the pictures though I haven't seen Kimberly Pierce's Stop Less yet.

One of the veterans in the film uses a kind of Soma (there are Huxley and Orwellian plot constructs at work in this film it can probably go without saying), and another character is a Soma, dreamy and numb, and he's been thwarted through time in a real scientific time portal kind of way. But any young man who sees the shit they see over there, are they not funneled into a weird portal that will warp their sense of time and place for the rest of their lives?

Southland Tales exists in a place that's science fiction, but not really. And this very contemporary part of the film made it very alive for me.

The film has a lot of crazy ideas and they are delivered in a plot that fails gorgeously. I'm willing to bet this film will endure as a kind of cult classic.

And the soundtrack kicks ass with its Moby, Pixie's B-sides and John Cale-d out National Anthem

At it's core, it's about our boys over there and the ones who make it back here, here being a place full of equal risk, violence, turmoil in this film.

Timberlake is a third man kind of character, you hear him but you don't meet him until near the end. That's when Mr. Kelly delivers a master stroke, a music video (a medium comprised of our language), a dream sequence that manages to speak for the young man's angst for this 5 years and going war and the young man's determination to fight against this war. JT is lip synching a song that's not his, and I can't reveal the song here.

He has made a kind of rock star sacrifice, showing the kid's got some serious pop culture savvy brains. His lip synching, the way it is presented for 2-3 minutes in this film, transports you out of the realm of plot and maybe even film. I'm pretty sure that for this 2-3 minutes film we are seeing art. That is this scene does what art is supposed to do. Says the things a lot of us feel, forget we feel, and then remember we feel it intensely when the art in question shows it to us, puts in our face. It's essential.

And the director doesn't care where it came from, he put it there and stood by it the way a good pimp stands by his ho. And since pimps never commit suicide, I trust Richard Kelly will keep making interesting films.