***
This review may contain spoilers ***
Just because one
comes out from a movie like this saying, "I could do this", doesn't
mean it's a bad thing. The simplicity behind it -- pretty much no character or
story arcs, and wordless at times -- is what makes this a good film.
If you go into the
theater knowing there isn't much to the story other than people wallowing
around during the time of the 1999 Seattle WTO protests, you'll appreciate the
movie for what it is. If you're expecting Apocalypse
Now or Lord of the Rings, you'll
find this film boring and dull. It's not that you wouldn’t get it; it just
wouldn’t be your cup of tea. The last
thing the world needs is for something else to get criticized because it was
simply “not what you expected”.
Naturally, that’s a
risk with any art-form that is marketed for mass entertainment -- film,
literature, music, even video games.
Perhaps this here film critic is being a little more sensitive than
usual, but that’s because I knew direct Joey L. Asap.
Back to reviewing
the film for what it is:
The film's
soundtrack is wonderful. It either fits the mood, or goes completely against it
which creates a disorientation that parallels the three main characters’ every
day life. The amateurishness and rawness really goes hand-in-hand with the
actors in a very chilling sort of way -- it's more than likely that fighting
characters were really throwing punches at each other (à la skinhead brothers
from Harmony Korine’s Gummo) and
drunk characters are played by drunk actors. You don't see films like this
frequently and it's nice to have another filmmaker like Joey L. Asap added to a
short list of such underrated and fearless directors like Larry Clark and
Gasper Noé.
Asap is also
impressive because of some of the strings he must have had to pull to get this
film distributed. While your average person may not know Thomas Din, Jacob
Sewell, Errol Keith, Dolly U., the band Primal Scream and William
"Will" Hawkes; all of the above are notable people who have
participated in the production of this film. You also have to wonder, not only
how a filmmaker could get such a budget for the type of film he wanted to make
with such little amount of notable support, and then actually get a permit to
shoot on the George Washington Memorial Bridge, the Elliot Bay Marina and the
home of Kurt Cobain. Did Asap pull an Ed Wood and shoot without permits?
The only thing that
should be criticized is the footage of Ricardo Lopez's filmed suicide. While
one can argue that its inclusion helps the audience feel uneasy and hopeless,
it's actually nothing more than a copout. If Asap wanted to further express
such a mood, he should have done it through characters, soundtrack and/or
story. Lopez's inclusion is completely unnecessary, as it has nothing to do
with anything. Just because a character jumps off the George Washington
Memorial Bridge in the film doesn't mean there's any comparison to Ricardo
Lopez shooting himself on tape. The only comparison is that they're both
suicides, and that is very weak storytelling.
One can now
sympathize with Asap’s decision to use footage of Lopez because of his own premature death. Because this is Asap's final release (save the unfinished Cornfield People), it is hard to watch this without a sense of dread.
