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I watched Natural Born Killers yesterday, and was at once quite impressed by the film itself, yet left emotionally unmoved. The film seemed designed solely to evoke one emotion, disgust at the media culture that glorifies Mickey and Mallory. And yet, at the same time, I felt like, particularly in the first half of the film, Stone was doing exactly what the media that he was complaining about does.
The film is meant to criticize the journalistic culture in which serial killers are humanized, and dwelled on, as entertainment, as people struggle to find out how someone could do these things, and whether they have any regrets. Yet, the entire first half of the film does this very thing. By having both the killers be children of abusive parents, Stone is making excuses for their killing. I have no problem with humanizing killers, I think The Invisibles does a great job of that, but, what Stone does hear is in fact the very thing that the shallow media he is criticizing is doing. He seems to be looking for the easy answer, and then portrays Mickey and Mallory as cartoons, rather than really human characters.
I preferred the second half of the film, with the prison riot, becuase, even though it went way over the top at times, it actually succeeded in doing a much better job of bringing to the fore issues about how the media deals with these issues. I loved when Wayne Gale was wearing the tie around his head like a bandana, and just the entire atmosphere during the prison riot sequence was so deliciously over the top and out of control.
Overall, while I think it works wonderfully as a film, particularly in that second half, Stone ends up making Mickey and Mallory the only characters that the audience really cares about. Their love is the only true emotion in the film, and as a result, Stone is guilty of the very thing he's supposed to be mocking. Still, it's a dazzling feat of editing and music, to create a completely unique film. |
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