SOUTHLAND TALES has been a long time in arriving at our screens. Richard Kelly’s directorial follow-up to his hugely successful cult film DONNIE DARKO was met with severe critical derision when it was first shown in Cannes 2006. I didn’t see that first cut of the film, but as Cat Stevens used to sing, “the first cut is the deepest”, and maybe a Cannes audience was not the right one to show it to. After all, this is a futuristic, apocalyptic, sci-fi political satire with The Rock, and Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star, coming from the creator of DONNIE DARKO. To my mind, what is there not to like with that premise, and I’m sure that anyone attending SCI-FI-LONDON would agree. In fact we did endeavour, unsuccessfully, to get it for last year’s festival. Having said all that, even Richard Kelly admits he may have had trouble finding a wide audience for the original version, even if just for its length, which ran to almost three hours.
After the drubbing the film took at Cannes, Kelly returned home for a spot of introspection and a long time in the editing suite, cutting twenty minutes from the running time and adding a stack of new visual effects. Thankfully, in that time, for the movie’s sake but not for the rest of humanity’s, the political climate has not changed a great deal, which means that the satirical content is possibly even more relevant than it was two years ago as we rush ever closer to the near future in which it is set. In fact, if they had waited any longer it would have been another 20 minutes in the future scenario.
Although the premise of the movie is simple: A nuclear attack on a small US town puts the country on full alert, with the government taking advantage of this to push its various agendas to control its citizens and the information it keeps on them (sound familiar?). Of course it is riddled with corruption and croneyism. But in California, the Southlands, life seems to be carrying on as usual in its hedonistic, sun-drenched oblivion, except for a few pockets of resistance and the arrival of a mysterious German company that arrives with a solution to worsening energy crisis that the war in the Middle East has perpetuated. It is a trilogy of interconnecting stories which, like STAR WARS, starts at part IV, however Kelly has already produced the prequels, not as bloated effects-laden movies but as comics (or graphic novels if you prefer), published by in the US by Graphitti Designs and View Askew, Kevin Smith’s production company (order now from Amazon). In fact, Smith has a part in the film but like some of the other guest stars is almost unrecognisable.
In this world we meet Boxer Santaros (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), a movie action star (so not an acting stretch there) who also happens to be the son-in-law of a powerful politician. Boxer has amnesia after going missing and has befriended Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar) an adult film star who is developing her own reality television series and related merchandising, while helping Boxer write a screenplay. They, and some of their Marxist underground cohorts, have kidnapped a police officer and are using his twin brother to help carry out their plot to expose and destroy the government’s corruption. But it gets more complicated than that with sub-plots and interconnecting and parallel stories and a whole load of weird characters that would take pages to try and explain. The best thing to do is see it and go along for the ride, then see it again to try and figure out what was going on.
Despite what the jaded hacks in Cannes thought of it, it is not as unfathomable as they said and a lot less pretentious than most art house movies that do the rounds of the festival circuit. At least this has humour, some great performances, one of the most surprising being Justin Timberlake (right), who is almost unrecognisable, with a massive scar disguising his pop-star looks. However he does do a song that is a match, in its surrealness, for Jeff Bridges’ bowling musical interlude in THE BIG LEBOWSKI. The satirical content of the newscasts doesn’t quite match Verhoeven’s best in ROBOCOP or STARSHIP TROOPERS, although it is a lot closer to the truth and reality of what is happening today.
One interesting thing is the technology that is being hawked by the mysterious German scientist bears an uncanny resemblance to Nikola Tesla’s World System, which will be of interest to fans of the electrical wizard.
Yes, it is a complex story but one with intelligence and humour – and buff bodies of both genders. It won’t appeal to everyone, and I’m sure Kelly never intended it to, but like DONNIE DARKO it will definitely develop cult status, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the original cut turn up on DVD some time in the future. And to quote one of Krysta’s lines, “Scientists are saying the future is going to be more futuristic than they originally predicted.”
Have a nice apocalypse.
SOUTHLAND TALES is in cinemas from December 7.