Based on their ideas alone, I’d normally be prone to like
Greg Araki’s movies, but I never have and I’m not entirely sure what I think is
wrong with them. It could be the
conflict in Araki, which remains unresolved, as to whether he is going to be
edgy and ironic or dramatic and poignant.
Unless you’re Terry Gilliam, and only one person is, it’s nearly
impossible to do both, and I think that Araki’s films have suffered needlessly
by his refusal to take them seriously. Kaboom shows what’s good about Araki as
well as any of his movies and it also shows what’s lousy about them. He wastes so much time being cool and clever,
which tends to suggest a personal insecurity more than a genuine shrewdness,
and - (with the exception of 2005's Mysterious
Skin) - so many of his films end with a joke that essentially makes the
audience idiots for attempting to care about anything they’ve seen; you can
actually hear Araki musing, “Okay I’m
tired of this bit now, so let’s just end it.” Kaboom
also perpetuates the aging Araki’s increasingly creepy preoccupation – shared
with the repugnant Larry Clark – for portraying very young people in various
tableaus of debauchery. In an Araki
film, if you’re not young, hip and sexy then you are nothing. There’s some interesting business about
college life, drugs, bisexuality and cults in Kaboom, but, like I said, none of it goes anywhere, and a pretty
lame deus-ex-machina absolves
everyone – (Araki, characters and audience) – from needing to come to any sort
of deduction about it all.
No comments:
Post a Comment