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Someone should tell Gregg Araki that for some time now, the simple article "a"
(as in "a so-and-so movie") has been sufficient to alert an audience to the
fact that it is watching the work of -- dare I say it? -- an auteur. So when
an early title in Mr. Araki's new film, Nowhere, proclaims instead "the Gregg
Araki movie," there is little doubt of the very high regard in which the
director presumably holds himself. In point of fact, there is only one thing
that oozes out of this film's every frame in even more profusion than its
super-saturated reds, blues, greens and purples (the gorgeous cinematography,
by the way, is by Arturo Smith) -- and that is its narcissism.
This surreal, hyper-kinetic look at a bunch of fairly privileged and self-destructive L.A. teens ("a Beverly Hills 90210 episode on acid," my production notes aptly put it) does boast some supremely elegant, stylish filmmaking. Face it, Nowhere doesn't look or feel quite like anything else playing at the moment. But don't be too fooled: Any undergraduate film student could easily tick off the directors to whom Mr. Araki owes an enormous stylistic debt (Tarrantino and Jean-Jacques Beineix -- especially for Diva -- are at the top of the list.). So if it is auteurism, it's second-hand auteurism. |
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Nowhere's plot is quite complicated, given the fact it all takes place in one
day. Sensitive 18 year-old Dark Smith is troubled because his would be
girlfriend, Mel, has been lately spending lots of time with a young woman,
Lucifer. So Dark turns to a radiant blond boy named Montgomery. Meanwhile,
Dark's best friend Cowboy is having problems with his boyfriend Bart, a drug
dealer and addict who, in turn, is having kinky S&M threesomes with two other
young girls Kriss and Kozy. And that's only about half of the characters --
the human ones, that is. There's also a Godzilla-like space alien who
practically steals the show.
The characters' names alone, never mind their oh-so-casual pansexuality, will immediately clue you in to the kind of pseudo-hipness Nowhere basks in. And the film practically drowns in its own barrage of pop-cultural references. Clearly, pop culture is the very air these characters breathe. But alas, a dense and attitudinal mosaic of pop iconography, no matter how dazzlingly rendered, is no substitute for substance. But the real problem is the director's attitude toward his own material. Making no effort at maintaining any kind of critical distance, Araki indulgently exhibits a heart-felt narcissism absolutely on par with that of the characters he's showing, and all of his slick imagery and jazzy editing only serve to glamorize the very disturbing and ultimately extremely violent goings-on. Nowhere does feature a first rate young cast, as well as some extremely witty moments (the guy does have a sense of humor). And all of it really is a feast for the eyes. But it's one thing (an intriguing thing) to show a group of people who have unwittingly convinced themselves -- with a lot of help from the surrounding culture, I might add -- that their own dysfunctional nihilism is incredibly cool and trendy. And it's another thing entirely for the artist showing this dark (and not all that new) phenomenon to fall prey to it himself. The resulting work only reinforces the self-destructive subcurrents of that culture. No way am I for didactic (even worse, P.C.) art, but what Mr. Araki offers is irresponsible art, no matter how striking the imagery. |
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