Southland Tales
Writer-director Richard Kelly is an odd bird to get a hold of artistically speaking. On the basis of his two feature films- this one and the 2001 cult phenomenon “Donnie Darko” (loved by many, merely admired by me)- he strikes me as an odd melding of David Lynchian surrealism and Stanley Kubrickian alienation. It’s an intriguing combination that did stick out in the memory after watching “Donnie Darko,” but with “Southland Tales,” Kelly’s focus is disjointed as his film continues on for a punishing 144 minutes that taxes your patience even as you sit on the brink of becoming fully immersed in his world.
Instead of suburban middle America, Kelly’s alienating universe is 2008 Los Angeles, which serves as a microcosm of a country on the brink of chaos. After two nuclear blasts in Texas in 2005, the government has locked down the borders not just between countries but states, requiring inter-state travel passports for a citizenry in anarchy. War has stretched further into the Middle East, the Patriot Act has been tightening the noose around Americans further, the internet is now tightly monitored by the government by a right-wing think tank known as IDENT (whose head is played by Miranda Richardson, given nothing to do but sit in a chair, watch several different streams of channels, and bark the occasional command to kill), oil is now such a rarity, and alternatives are so scarce in California, that the government’s bright light of hope for citizens is in an energy source known as Fluid Karma, created by a scientist (Wallace Shawn, with his distinctive voice and spin on a character undermined by a truly hideous outwardly appearance that looks like a characature of such a character) in league with the controlling Republican party.
The upcoming election is a heated one; the last thing Republicans want is victory for the left, where extremists are throughout California as a part of a movement known as neo-Marxism. But things aren’t smooth sailing for the party; their big-name action star backer Boxer Santaros (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson)- married to the Vice Presidential-hopefuls bitchy daughter (Mandy Moore)- has gone underground with a bout of amnesia after seeming to be abducted by neo-Marxist sympathizers. He’s next found hiding out with pop culture porn star Kyrsta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a feminist crusader whose popularity is crystalized in support of Proposition 69.
To continue on in hopes of explaining this plot would take another few paragraphs. The important thing to know is that Seann William Scott plays two brothers, one a police officer being held captive by the neo-Marxists, the other a twin in league with the neo-Marxists- both brothers hold the key to the end of the world- and Justin Timberlake is Pilot Abilene, a Gulf War veteran who provides the mood-setting narration for the film. But there’s oh so much to tell.
I’ll let the film do that job; even when it doesn’t make a lick of sense, it can do better with summing things up than I ever could. Kelly’s mosaic of characters feels like a Tarantino or Altman film as directed by David Lynch. By the time the film ends, you’ll likely fall on your face trying to make sense of it all. Don’t bother. Kelly isn’t so much interested in telling a story as capturing a mood of anxiety and the time-capsule of America post-9/11. Though no reference is directly made to the event, it’s specter haunts every frame of the film and the story itself, which is an odd combination of dark comedy, political satire, social commentary, and surreal thriller. It’s this feeling of unease (punctuated by the evocative, must-own score by Moby) that makes “Southland Tales” so compulsively fascinating to watch even when the incoherence in the story keeps your finger on the button to eject the DVD.
Because of its’ emphasis on mood over story and character, the performances are difficult to rate in a usual fashion. It should be said that all the actors- from stars like Gellar, Johnson, and Scott to bit players like Amy Phoeler, Jon Lovitz, and an unrecognizable Kevin Smith as a master hacker- embody their characters believably and keep you interested in where things will lead for each even when you don’t feel like you should care anymore. I enjoyed every performance on an aesthetic level, although I hardly feel like anyone’s doing their best work.
Watching the film, with its’ apocalyptic vision of the near-future, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Kathryn Bigelow’s underrated 1995 thriller “Strange Days,” written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks. It tells a similar story of politics and paranoia in the days and hours leading up to New Year’s Day 2000. Say what you will about the film, it’s visceral storytelling and passion drove you to a place such films rarely take you. Richard Kelly’s dares for a similar atmosphere with “Southland Tales,” which is certainly a visionary and uncompromising film of a society headed towards self-destruction. But while he has all of the ingredients for such a heady work of art, hubris and ho-hum storytelling sense keeps the film on a level of failed experiment.
