|
Irony aplenty with retro reveries from the the golden age of television. In this case, Hogan's Heroes - a comedy set in
a WW2 concentration camp (start your irony count here). Unfortunately we find ourselves
pretty much treading the same boards as Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, revisiting the vacuous vintage pop art of
the soft focus sixties. And guess what? Underneath the prosperity, smiles & soda, there was a dark indomitable spirit
eating the very heart out of the American dream! Ohhhh, nooo!
Haven't we seen this before? Did director Schrader miss Blue Velvet? Apocalypse Now? Taxi Driver and most of his own back catalogue?
Don't we live in the age of revelation where the disparity between apple pie & Uncle Sam and America's brooding legacy of
violence and self-destruction is all too apparent? Like Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Auto Focus seems to wallow in its own
misguided self-importance. Which is a shame, as Schrader remains a largely unaccepted filmmaker and this is a film that (a)
won't make him any more friends in Hollywood because of it's metaphorical gutting of the cinema-going experience
and (b) isn't breaking any new ground or saying anything we haven't heard, more entertainingly, elsewhere.
The problem with this type of probing tinseltown self-analysis is that it's virtually redundant
outside of the US mainstream. The rest of the world acknowledges that everything that glitters isn't gold. While the other major
continents are haunted by the kind of cynicism a by-product of two world wars, America's isolationism has allowed
it to continue to sow the seeds of a naive dream propagated by the televisual & cinematic media. Hence the rest of us have
to sit through hours of watching America comes to terms with itself onscreen. It's been enjoyable for the most part, from
Oliver Stone's back catalogue to Boogie Nights, but now we're into these rose-tinted dramatic retouches that for the
most part don't work. Casino & Quiz Show being excellent examples.
All of the above seem to miss the glaring irony. You take this dreamlike illusion that for all intensive purposes
never really existed and then set about proving it wasn't real through a medium based in unreality. Here is the myth and
here is 120 minutes and several million dollars of myth-making exploding the myth. What's the point? It. Just. Doesn't. Work.
But like I say, no one in America has yet figured this out (probably the irony) and so we get two talented actors sleepwalking
through their roles,
a film directed by a man famed for his intensity that lacks intensity and a tale that looks, reminds and for the most part
could be, the disappointment that was Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.
Like Clooney, Schrader opts for a character study grounded by its factual origins. And perhaps because of this, restrains
from the very maniacal exuberance & disturbing dramatics that have defined his work. Sure, there's plenty of t & a as you
might expect from a film about two men paving the way for America's OTHER movie industry, recording their sexual exploits on
film, but where Schrader has, in the past, chosen to excel himself in terms of taste & decency, he pulls back, perpetuating the
very myth he has set out to dispel. Which is surely the final nail in the coffin.
The film lacks depth, focus & drive, which only adds to the irony that is the film's real star.
RATING: (c)Limer 2004
|
Auto Focus (Cinema: 2003)
