Southland Tales plays like the nightmarish counterpart to Dude Wears My Car - linked by Sean William Scott it similarly dabbles in Apocalyptic scenarios, other dimensions, memory loss and seemingly share many of the 'sci-fi' costumes from DWMC.
It is clear after several minutes that we are witnessing some incredibly personal vision from Kelly, every performance is nuanced in a way that is impossible to understand - in the hands of another director such as Lynch the overly dramatic tongue-in-cheek delivery might have worked in the context and world that he creates - indeed many of the actors and characters here seem pulled from the world of Lynch but then dumped in sub Troma nonsense reminiscent of but not as fun as 'Surf Nazis Must Die'.
Whatever the intentions of Kelly - whether or not this is deeply satirical or a comment on the current state of World/North American Social politics doesn't matter - the characters are literally laughable - the politics naive and at every moment ill conceived. Kelly wields ideas with brutish self-involvement. Conspiracy theories, love affairs, racial tensions, the lasting affects of war on soldiers and civil unrest the very things that seem to be what Kelly is looking to explore and understand yet they are rendered in a manner that can only be described as hammy - any potential for us to empathise or understand any of the characters is destroyed by Kelly's direction.
The Marxists have a laughably bad understanding of politics, their violence is (intentionally ?) comic and we cannot believe that they believe in what they are doing.
The Rock appears ridiculous. Gellar is unconvincing and irritating. USIDent a particularly unsuccessful and uninteresting 'Big Brother' run by people sporting cheap-as-chips see-thru anoraks (i'm sure there's a point to them).
The saving grace in this film is Sean William Scott. He seems to still be in DWMC - confused and on the trail of what the hell is going on - we share in his confusion and his performance seems spot on - eternally questioning everyone's ( and perhaps even Kelly's) actions.
I could be wrong but unless I have missed something huge - some hint at how one is meant to read this film - this film simply disappoints. Southland Tales is a bizarre and terrible example of contemporary film-making. There should be a message on the end of every copy of Donnie Darko "Do Not Feel Obliged to See Southland Tales".
Now we have to wait until the next Richard Kelly type director comes along to save us from Kelly himself.
It is clear after several minutes that we are witnessing some incredibly personal vision from Kelly, every performance is nuanced in a way that is impossible to understand - in the hands of another director such as Lynch the overly dramatic tongue-in-cheek delivery might have worked in the context and world that he creates - indeed many of the actors and characters here seem pulled from the world of Lynch but then dumped in sub Troma nonsense reminiscent of but not as fun as 'Surf Nazis Must Die'.
Whatever the intentions of Kelly - whether or not this is deeply satirical or a comment on the current state of World/North American Social politics doesn't matter - the characters are literally laughable - the politics naive and at every moment ill conceived. Kelly wields ideas with brutish self-involvement. Conspiracy theories, love affairs, racial tensions, the lasting affects of war on soldiers and civil unrest the very things that seem to be what Kelly is looking to explore and understand yet they are rendered in a manner that can only be described as hammy - any potential for us to empathise or understand any of the characters is destroyed by Kelly's direction.
The Marxists have a laughably bad understanding of politics, their violence is (intentionally ?) comic and we cannot believe that they believe in what they are doing.
The Rock appears ridiculous. Gellar is unconvincing and irritating. USIDent a particularly unsuccessful and uninteresting 'Big Brother' run by people sporting cheap-as-chips see-thru anoraks (i'm sure there's a point to them).
The saving grace in this film is Sean William Scott. He seems to still be in DWMC - confused and on the trail of what the hell is going on - we share in his confusion and his performance seems spot on - eternally questioning everyone's ( and perhaps even Kelly's) actions.
I could be wrong but unless I have missed something huge - some hint at how one is meant to read this film - this film simply disappoints. Southland Tales is a bizarre and terrible example of contemporary film-making. There should be a message on the end of every copy of Donnie Darko "Do Not Feel Obliged to See Southland Tales".
Now we have to wait until the next Richard Kelly type director comes along to save us from Kelly himself.