Perhaps director Richard Kelly knows something the rest of us don’t: the end of the world is imminent. In his brief career, thus far he has shown a fascination, perhaps even an obsession, with the prospect of the apocalypse and the shockwaves its approach would discharge.
Kelly’s apocalyptic debut film, Donnie Darko, was ignored at the box office in the wake of September 11 only to find immense success and a cult following on DVD. Six years later, Southland Tales arrives in theaters as a higher budgeted and more ambitious thematic companion to the earlier film. Although it is ultimately an uneven piece of filmmaking, Southland Tales’ grows more valuable with contemplation. It’s the must-see-several-times-before-you-can-understand-it film.
Like Donnie Darko, Southland Tales presents a slightly mad (though no one said unrealistic) slice of American society in the prelude to the end of the world during a presidential campaign. Whereas the title character of Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal in his breakout role) was going at it alone (except for some guidance from a six-foot rabbit named Frank who may or may not have been imagined), Southland Tales features an ensemble of characters each with his or her own role in pre-apocalypse Los Angeles. The involvement of so many this time around reflects the “Not with a whimper, but with a bang” motif used to describe how the world will end.
At a sometimes-meandering two hours and 24 minutes, Southland Tales has far more plot points and character relationships than can realistically be printed. The film’s top billing belongs to Dwayne “no longer called ‘The Rock'” Johnson as Boxer Santaros. The artist formally known as the Rock portrays an action-film star stricken with amnesia whose unproduced screenplay has caught the attention of a group of neo-Marxists because it contains elements of the catastrophic near future. The neo-Marxists, some played by members of Saturday Night Live, also have an interest in infiltrating “the Man.”
Donnie Darko was set during the Dukakis-Bush 1988 election and had the benefit of hindsight. Southland Tales proposes an alternate 2008 in which the Clinton-Lieberman Democratic ticket is up against a Republican ticket comprised of an unseen candidate for president and his domineering running-mate Bobby Frost, a weaselly ultraconservative Southerner. Fear dominates the political climate, following two nuclear attacks on Texas in 2005. In response, the country is under protection (surveillance) from an agency called US-IDENT, the product of a more ruthless Patriot Act. Additionally, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue and new conflicts in Syria and Iran have popped up.
Oh, time travel, a drug-induced musical number, frequent use of messianic imagery, Sarah Michelle Gellar as a porn star and narration by Justin Timberlake are in there as well. These tepid ingredients could make for a complete disaster of a film but in the end, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
These days epic filmmaking is normally reserved for mainstream big box office certainties. But Kelly creates an epic that will probably do little business beyond Darko fanboys and arthouse crowds. The complex web of character interactions requires the viewer’s full attention as a handful of plot lines play out simultaneously. Even the viewer’s attention won’t suffice for full understanding of the religious allegory or the film’s themes; those components will need to be fleshed out in post-film discussion or another viewing.
The film packs elements of satire, science fiction, comedy and action films among other things into the nearly two-and-a-half hour running time with mixed success. But for every wane of interest, a wax of deep intrigue follows, enough to keep a viewer actively watching at least until the two-hour mark.
One of the film’s highlights comes in an unexpected place: electronica artist Moby provides an original score that, although too infrequently used, helps construct some of the most beautiful and hypnotic scenes in the film.
Richard Kelly shows promise with his sophomore effort, even if the film has its fair share of convolution, and will at least sustain his cult status. Though a lower budgeted film, Donnie Darko’s stripped-down approach to exploring the apocalypse from an everyman’s vantage point worked better. Viewers familiar with Donnie Darko will have mixed feelings toward Southland Tales. Viewers who are fanatical about Donnie Darko will likely eat up Southland Tales. For most viewers though, Southland Tales will seem more like a whimper than a bang.
