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But even so, like Flyboy said, all such themes and moral dilemmas, never add to a coherent whole. No part of the film never "insists", never solidify on any particular thing on no part of it whatsoever. No part of the film connects with an entirety or even speaks with some other part. Or it seems, at least…
The "child abuse theme" becomes a good example of everything on the movie that's "there", but it's NOT. It isn't quite there. There's no "depth". There are only characters that had to deal with it one time in their lives, pretty much always out of the screen. I kept thinking if any "theme" was always only suggested and worked only through subtle and invisible ways, but i can't get anything by that road. It still seems like a regular story with the hyped themes just mentioned or blabbered one time or another.
I find it hard to believe that such hype around the film would be completely void. 'Till now, the film is pretty much void to me. "Devoid of either the delirious flash, dazzle and bang of great Hollywood pictures, or the more esoteric delights of the arthouse at its best." But I TRULY believe there's something wrong with the way I'M watching it. It just can't be... I'm not even sure if I agree that those were the "greatest actings of american cinema in the last years". I think they're all fine actors (i think Sean Penn is the new Brandon, for god's sake!  ), but i formed no relationship with these characters at all. There wasn't the slightest suspension of disbelief, they were all just Sean, Tim, Kevin, Lawrence etc etc...
I can see little things that might be strokes of a old fart who's a matured and subtle genious. That "heavenly bullet"; the wash of the bloody rag in Tim Robbin's sink (that water must be going to the Mystic, right?); and there's something truly great about that damn river, truly mystic concerning the plot; the music is superb; that shot were Sean Penn's daughter comes in her car, and the camera sits in the backseat, as if something is always coming behind us when we least suspect (reminds me of that "Vive La Fear" by G. Morrison).
One cool thing, but still doesn't add to anything coherent, is all the hidden little skeletons in the closets. Little things along the film that had no significance, but after all is revealed, it's quite disturbing (the relationship between Sean Penn and Just Ray's son Brandon; The hockey stick in the little mute's hand right after the daughter's killing as if nothing had happen; Sean Penn trying to get over his old "self" and past...). These things add up to some points of view I heard that the film is a Tragedy, but it doesn’t seem to clothe the entire territory.
And I don't know if Bacon is the moral referece in all this. It seems we adopt Lawrence's point of view as voyeurs in a story-neighbourhood that we don't really know or belong to. Maybe the primordial moral axis is the law enforcers. But i don't know, this work seems to me a nihilist and cynical film, where we lost our trust in religion and in the law (the priest and the cop at the beginning), but walk far away from anarchism and stands more on the grounds of "gangsters" trying to get some autonomy from institutions that they no longer trust, and takes things by their own hands (King Penn and the Savage Brothers...).
(PS: THAT WAS ONE OF THE THINGS I GOT IN MY VIEWINGS, BUT STILL, NO COHERENCE IN THE WORK AS AN ENTIRITY)
It might be a subtle film. Or it might be just pure apathy. Jimmy kills Dave as a mistake, but the film doesn’t show any sign of “wow that was a fuck up…”, nor either shows itself for nothing, no leading at all. I can’t seem to point if it’s blank with apathy or subtlety beyond most artistic sensibilities; or even a right wing sensibility…
It’s not so much about moral ambiguity since there’s no moral on any part, not by the film, not by the characters nor the plot (since the narrative don’t dwell on them that much). No moral dilemmas, no poetic justice, not even a suggestion of a suppressed poetic justice. It’s almost a brutally nihilistic storyteller going on about things unfolding in a way that doesn’t make “sense” or any significance (and the storyteller seems to suggests that it doesn’t have to make sense. Things happen, no whys, hows or anything; and we shouldn’t be even asking for them). But that makes a damn weird Oscar-hyped film.
(OTHER THINGS I GOT WITH ONE OF TOO MANY VIEWINGS)
But I still feel completely damn wrong. |
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