The Mend

THE MEND               C+                  

USA  (111 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  John Magary

Otherwise known as squalor and self-loathing in New York City.  While this is undoubtedly uncompromising indie filmmaking, it joins a field of miserablist outsiderism, like Mumblecore, that distinguishes itself by being outside the mainstream of conventional filmmaking, eschewing any narrative approach or the idea that characters onscreen need to have some redeeming quality.  Instead it seems to thrive on its own intentional discomfort that some identify as comedy, but more likely adheres to a state of continual dysfunction.  Much like Andrew Bujalski was predicted as being the second coming of a new generation of American indie filmmakers by Amy Taubin in Film Comment, perfectly capturing the ambivalence of the slacker lifestyle, describing Bujalski “as a poet of demurral, hesitation, and noncommitment in whose films there are as many minute variations of meaning implied by the phrases ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I mean’ as there are said to be words for snow in the languages of the Inuit.”  Others have made their own predictions about the future of the indie movement, but if this film proves anything, it is that intentionally alienating audiences comes at a cost, and that is that few will actually show up to see it, and fewer still will “like” it.  What it does have going for it is an abstract musical soundtrack and sound design by Judd Greenstein and Michi Wiancko that has been woven into the fabric of the film like some sort of expressionist mosaic, where the idea that it doesn’t fit is felt throughout, yet that is predominantly the intention.  In this way it can be said that this film in its finished product is exactly what the filmmaker intended.  Of that one has little doubt.  Where it struggles is with the idea that all provocation is good, so that one is not accused of complacency.  This is a film filled with unlikable characters, a trend that may have started with the lead character in the Coen brother’s Inside Llewyn Davis (2012), who is such a fuck up with everyone he encounters that audiences begin laughing at just how pathetic he really is.  This film was written with that idea in mind, where like watching cartoons, some in the audience will find it hilarious to watch just how excruciatingly screwed up these guys actually are, incapable of dealing with even the most trivial moments without alienating everyone around them with revoltingly obnoxious behavior.  Without an actual story, the film is instead a series of these unfortunate incidents strung together over a period of time, where each sequence is presented with meticulous scrutiny, where little is left to the imagination. While it has the feel of life happening spontaneously, it is instead scripted down to every last detail, where there is some question whether anything about this method is actually interesting.  Some contend they are mesmerized, but they are likely to be in the minority, or high on weed, as most will simply tune out. 

Perhaps a better example of this is David Gordon Green’s Manglehorn (2014), which features a truly miserable lead character as portrayed by Al Pacino, yet the performance is outstanding, where audiences are riveted in their seats wondering what craziness he’ll pull off next.  That is not the case in these low budget productions that don’t have the luxury to hire Al Pacino, though many have given similar high marks to Josh Lucas in this film.  While it is admittedly different than what he’s normally asked to do, that doesn’t mean it’s better, and one could argue that it’s a new low.  A barely revealed yet central theme of the film is the social effect of smartphones on the modern generation, where they spend so much time connected to electronic gadgetry that they’ve forgotten how to communicate with other members of the human species.  While this is ostensibly a relationship film, showing how little effort is exerted in actually trying to remain in the good graces of others, thinking instead that it’s too much effort, so one always ends up alone with their smartphone, as if that’s all they really need to get by.  Remaining connected even while taking a shower, it’s one of the few films that actually shows the debilitating effects from a dependency on smartphones and how it interferes with one’s striving for love, where like Joaquin Phoenix in Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), one falls in love with the smartphone instead of an actual person, as there’s too much energy involved dealing with the staggering unexpectedness of human deficiencies when people aren’t what you think or expect they are, but are something else altogether apparently too difficult to figure out.  Computer technology, other than the occasional connectedness interruptions, is exactly what we think it is, remaining as devoted and predictable as the loyal lapdog.  One of the common elements of Andrew Bujalski or Mumblecore films is the extraordinary ambivalence of the characters who have trouble committing to anything, even an idea, much less another human being.   So these films often show people stumbling around in the throes of various states of indecisiveness, where uncommon attention is paid to each minute detail involved in the present moment, where not much of anything happens, as each episode is some variation of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot lovable losers, Vladimir and Estragon, chatting endlessly as they wait in vain for something significantly important to happen in their lives, all triggered, apparently, by the existential absence of faith in God, so what on earth is there to believe in?  Undoubtedly the answer lies in paying attention to one’s self.  And therein lies the biggest difficulty with these films, where one grows exceedingly tired of the juvenile, self-absorbed nature of these exceedingly vain and self-centered human beings.  If the director is trying to hold up a mirror to society, it may no doubt reflect their own circle of friends, but it hardly matters beyond that short reach.  It in no way reflects America, but it may provide insight into a certain segment of indifferent, middle-class, white, educated, and overprivileged twentysomethings that are relatively bored with their lives, feeling they are entitled to and deserving of love, but aren’t willing to exert any effort in the event it’s not simply given to them. 

The question one always has to ask with these films is what’s the point?  Does this have any effect on my life?  Haven’t young adults always felt alienated and disconnected from their parent’s generation?  So what’s so different now?  These films would have you believe there’s a different element of hopelessness involved, as if there’s so many choices to be made that the easiest thing to do is to simply make no choices at all and do as little as possible, leaving as much open space as possible for doing whatever you want.  This lack of commitment or moral responsibility is a throwback to the Me Generation where all people want to think about is themselves.  That is perfectly reflected in this movie, which is comprised of small fragments of their lives, in no apparent order, where everyone wants to talk about themselves but no one wants to listen to others.  A couple toys with the idea of getting married, as Alan (Stephen Plunkett) has created the perfect vacation trip to Nova Scotia or parts unknown with his girlfriend Farrah (Mickey Sumner) for the sole purpose of proposing marriage.  Immediately prior to this major event, Alan has an all-night party in his apartment that seems to go on forever, where his annoying brother Mat (Josh Lucas) shows up, putting a damper on the event for anyone within earshot range, though the highlight is a visit from a psychedelic friend of their father Earl (Austin Pendleton), a throwback to the 60’s revealing all kids of icky information about the kinky sexual habits of their mother and father, driving Mat into drinking excessively to the point of passing out, ignored the following morning when Alan and Farrah head out on their new adventure.  Meanwhile, Mat remains a constant parasitic fixture in their apartment, a lowlife and leech with no ambition whatsoever who’s perfectly comfortable taking advantage of the hospitality offered by others, until quickly wearing out his welcome when he’s forced to inhabit another warm body and sucks the blood out of that creature as well.  This is how he survives.  Leading the life of a bum, his depravity and slovenly habits kick in with no one around to tell him what to do, so he doesn’t do anything except drink excessively and criticize others to the point of exhaustion.  When Alan returns unexpectedly, as things apparently did not go according to plan (no explanation offered), he settles into his brother’s biorhythm of doing as little as possible, staying out all night drinking while passed out sleeping during the day.  Inevitably the two get on each other’s nerves and argue about their differences, where their frustrations rise to a boil, spilling over into their empty and meaningless lives, where they’re each incapable of doing the most basic things in taking care of themselves, refusing to exert an ounce of energy to wash dishes or clean things up, instead living in a cesspool of their own making.  This regression into childhood where they’re waiting for their mother or some significant other to clean up their messes for them feels typical of an overly pampered generation who has had everything done for them, as they’re overly consumed with only doing what they want to do, even if that means doing nothing at all.  While there is excruciating detail built into the absurdity of each moment, the musical dissonance heard throughout accurately reflects the emotional discord felt throughout, where nothing is ever communicated except anger and dysfunction.  In the end, as in the beginning, there’s some question as to whether they’ve arrived anywhere.     

Upstream Color

UPSTREAM COLOR        C+                       

USA  (96 mi)  2013  ‘Scope  d:  Shane Carruth

Despite all the hoopla about this film, and more particularly the filmmaker, this is not a marked improvement over his earlier film PRIMER (2004), one of the low budget marvels of the last decade.  Waiting 9-years to make his eagerly awaited second film, there is a cult audience clamoring for something implicitly deep and complex from this film, perhaps another sci-fi puzzle film, but they won’t find it.  Instead it’s simply an obscure, largely experimental piece that attempts to be more than it is, as whatever narrative there is remains obfuscated by a sketchy design that remains elusive at best.  The problem is whatever themes or subject matter he is attempting to explore just never rise to the level of interest, as characters nearly sleepwalk through their roles, never generating any relevant dramatic connection.  Before he was a film director, Carruth was a math major, becoming a computer programmer developing flight simulating software.  As his two films suggest, guys heavily into science don’t always make the best communicators.  In fact, one might think there is a pervading style of filmmaking where at least part of what it’s about is the difficulty in communicating, for instance teen angst films, or Heath Ledger in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005), where he takes the hesitant and inarcticulate nature of a young cowboy to an artform, or the many variations of supposedly naturalistic dialogue from low-budget Duplass brothers or Andrew Bujalski mumblecore movies, a fringe movement about post-college or early adult white people with problems that never really connected with mainstream audiences, as they’re not really about much of anything.  Damned if that doesn’t plague this picture as well, where its intentional ambiguity remains a puzzle not worth exploring.  Even if there is a coherent story here, the question is what difference does it make?  How does a film like this have any relevance in our lives?  Wanting this to be about something, like say the enveloping fear and paranoia of THE PARALLAX VIEW (1974), is not the same as making a profoundly affecting film, where the underlying focus sticks with you for days and weeks afterwards, perhaps even a lifetime.  Interest in this film fades quickly.

As best as one can determine, there are two opposing wavelengths occurring here, where one is a high degree of sensitivity and thought, where you’re able to sense things others don’t see or hear, almost like an autistic sensory level, where one’s capacity to reflect upon altered states of existence, or a unique “otherness,” may be completely mystifying to some, but certainly early on we see many gathered together, including at various times both Kris (Amy Seimetz) and Jeff (Shane Carruth) drinking what is believed to be a special (parasite infected) purified water, something to help achieve a state of wellness, where one hopes to feel better than at any other point in one’s life.  The downside is the sacrifice or price paid to achieve this sense of heightened elevation, real or imagined, where you have no memory of what happened and leave yourself open to unscrupulous operators, achieving a near hypnotic state like a cult brainwashing effect where people can take advantage of your vulnerability and steal all your money, leaving you paranoid and in fear, but also angry and demoralized by the entire process afterwards.  But at least initially you want to believe, like the strange Russian sci-fi film Target (Mishen) (2011) that promises everlasting youth, only to ask yourself later, but at what price?  Unknown to each other at the outset, Kris and Jeff are mysteriously drawn to one another, perhaps unknowing why, though Kris is so incommunicative and unapproachable that one has to wonder what’s the attraction?  She wears an enormous large-sized headset at all times in public, listening to who knows what, but obviously to keep other people away.  Nonetheless Jeff persists, as if by supernatural calling, where he believes they are drawn to one another, perhaps to help one another understand what they’ve mutually forgotten, helping each other piece together missing memories, even though they barely talk.  This leads to an intimate relationship, as if by osmosis, where it’s certainly not their unbelievably poor communication skills, where they talk over each other’s words and ignore one another with regularity.  What changes is Kris gets pregnant, or at least thinks she does, as her conscious existence is seemingly tracked by the parasite she swallowed, which ends up at a pig farm.  It’s actually Kris’s pig that gets pregnant, unbeknownst to her, where Kris grows irate when they take the little piglets away. 

There is no explanation for this transference of human consciousness, which goes through yet a third life cycle when the pig farmer wraps several chosen pigs in a sack and drowns them in the river, where the parasite passes through their bodies in a bluish fluid that is released upstream causing exotic orchids to grow.  From these orchids is extracted the original parasite that begins this strange life cycle all over again.  What is certainly bizarre is the state of inexplicable anger mixed with utter indifference by the humans used as guinea pigs, where they do not seem to be in control of their own human faculties, still affected long after the parasites have left their own bodies.  Now if aliens had passed through these bodies, like the high powered, heavy metal infused THE HIDDEN (1987), an over the top, sci-fi story that packs a punch, then you’ve got something to generate interest for decades to come.  But in this dreamy saga of lost souls, roaming the earth in a state of listless apathy, where the true meaning of their lives is apparently stolen by a series of unscrupulous business transactions which happens to block the ethereal wavelengths.  When Kris takes to swimming, spouting gibberish poolside as she dives for stones on the bottom of the pool, Jeff is able to decipher her apparent mad ramblings as quotations from Thoreau’s Walden, of all things, a springboard to freedom if ever there was such a thing.  If it wasn’t so goofy, it might actually be entertaining, but it’s not, as the entire film is cast in such a darkly somber mood, as if the whole thing was the invention of rabid conspiracy theorists who see the end of the world near through genetic mutation.  Damn the scientists and mega corporations for spreading toxic poisons throughout the world altering the face of humanity.  The best thing in the film is easily the atmospheric score written by Carruth, who writes, directs, edits, acts, composes the music, and self produces his own film, an ambitious compilation of responsibilities for what is ultimately a dreadfully impersonal, drearily sad reflection of the human condition in the modern age, where swindlers and snake oil salesmen, aka the capitalist conglomerate enterprises maintain a greedy, monopolistic control over an easily hoodwinked populace looking for a quick and easy fix.  The idea of violating the natural order of things is nothing new, hardly revelatory, and never digs deep enough to matter.  Not sure what the characters are listening to on their giant headsets, apparently tuning out the rest of the world, and the audience with them. 

Richard's Wedding

RICHARD’S WEDDING        C                    

USA  (88 mi)  2012  d:  Onur Tukel                 Factory 25 [us]

Something of a rival to The Color Wheel (2011) for the most unendingly miserablist dialogue, but not nearly as inventive, both featuring annoying, unlikable, and somewhat nauseating self-centered characters that talk endlessly about themselves, that place themselves at the center of the universe where little else matters, where their petty problems and opinions become magnified by their need to express often revolting views that reflect a gross insensitivity and shallowness about their superficial nature and the Me-generation culture from which they spawned.  Unfortunately, most of this feels downright pathetic, where the uniformity of miserablism hardy feels natural, but becomes something forced upon us by a director who’s trying to tap into the Mumblecore movement.  Andrew Bujalski, whose sound mixer Eric Masunaga allegedly coined the phrase Mumblecore, where the term was first used publicly by Bujalski in subsequent interviews, at least worked with Richard Linklater on WAKING LIFE (2001) before he made his first film FUNNY HA HA (2003), creating an entire film about people who can't ever make up their minds, who exist totally in a world of ambivalence.  Poorly lit and barely audible throughout, shot on shoddy 16 mm film with a screen look that amateurishly resembles home movies, the film was cleaned up for a DVD release.  In keeping with the use of non-professional actors, using an extremely low budget with cheap, on-the-fly production values, this is another film that delves almost exclusively into the narcissistic nature of middle class white culture, featuring opinionated, overly self-righteous characters that haven’t a clue about their place in the universe, but spend their lives deriding and mocking others for making any kind of effort at all, exhibiting a kind of self-styled fatalism that’s more an excuse or rationalization justifying doing as little as possible.     

Starting out with just two characters, writer/director/lead actor Onur Tukel as Tuna is an insufferable bore, yet this doesn’t prevent him from spouting off to the point of bragging about his individualistic and carefree lifestyle, refusing to believe in marriage or long term relationships, making self-serving platitudes about himself that he thinks makes himself more interesting to others, but they’re simply an endless stream of thoughtless generalities that reflect his arrogant and offensive nature.  Walking down the sidewalks of New York with him is Alex (Jennifer Prediger), who tries to keep the guy in line, continually forced to point out his rudeness and social deficiencies, where she serves as an example of someone in a trusting and committed relationship, continually challenging Tuna’s short-sighted and more hedonistic views.  The extended series of tracking shots through various neighborhoods in the city, similar to Linklater’s choreography of conversation through Vienna and Paris in his lushly romantic couplet BEFORE SUNRISE (1995) and BEFORE SUNSET (2004), feels more remarkable than anything the two friends have to say to one another, continuing on a subway ride to a party at a friend’s house, Russell (Darrill Rosen), where they are the first to arrive.  Russell, an instant millionaire from a successful computer design, turns out to be the biggest blowhard in the movie, obnoxiously making the most racist and crudely offensive comments, which he believes supports his misanthropic views that the world is going to hell, that no one cares anymore, and humanity sucks.  Despite his rambling monologues, all he ever talks about is himself, easily one of the more loathsome characters on the planet.  As more friends arrive, what becomes clear is how Tukel is force feeding the stream of miserablism, where he continually uses utterly tasteless, off the wall views on sex, drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, race, rape, and racism for humor and shock value, diminishing any hint of believability or naturalism.

Moving outdoors into Central Park, the party reconvenes for a wedding between Richard (Lawrence Michael Levine) and Phoebe (Josephine Decker), which seems hastily arranged, particularly when they discover they have no minister to perform the services, where the friends stand around and start picking at each other instead, where by now the theme of inappropriate behavior has been pretty well established as even the wedding couple starts nitpicking about their differing views on the upcoming ceremony.  It all runs together after awhile, where the characters are near indistinguishable and nothing anyone has to say actually sticks as memorable or enlightening.  Instead, it is the small snippets of musical interludes selected by musical supervisor Devoe Yates that offer a change of pace, where the endless chatter finally shuts up, and at least for a brief moment in time there’s a quiet pause that feels like such a relief.  Alex’s cousin from Harlem, Louis (Randy Gambill), a down on his luck recovering drug addict, is a licensed minister (from the Internet) that fits the bill, where just as they send for him, Alex receives a call from her boyfriend who wants to end their relationship, where she is dumbstruck by the news, believing in the permanence of what they had together as perhaps the only thing that separated her from the riff raff and losers that surround her that she could call her friends, becoming demoralized on the spot, turning on everyone with a wrath of criticism and negativity, showing no patience especially for that lying weasel who calls himself a minister, where the entire festivity breaks down in utter mayhem as a cloudburst overhead finally drenches them all in rain.  More random moments than an actual movie, there’s little directorial creativity exhibited, a kind of haphazard use of characters, very little spontaneity, some humor, and a long and exhaustive use of dialogue that is largely inane and superfluous, leaving little to recommend here other than the all too brief appearance of Jonas Mekas’s daughter Oona (Kristin, the charming blond in the green dress) and the utter weirdness of another character named Taco (Dustin Guy Defa).