Southland Tales And Weird Movies

Southland Tales is the sophomore effort from Richard Kelly of Donnie Darko fame. It seems a hybrid of genres and since Kelly wrote it there will be many many storylines to keep track of.

After reading about this project for a while I have to say that I'm excited to see it, if only to see Sarah Michelle Gellar play an adult film star! Southland is hard to describe what it is about and if it is like Donnie Darko it might take a few viewings to figure out your version of what it is about, so I really can't tell you what it is about....yet. You'll have to read that for yourself.

Southland is supposed to have three graphic novels as the first three chapters of the story with the movie being the final three chapters. Now when this is going to be released is anyone's guess.

What I want to talk about are movies like this in which are very out of the box. Primer, Northfork, or Memento for instance. Movies that are open to interpretation of the viewer. These movies are just flat out fun to watch! I do like movies that I ask myself, "What did I just see?!" Which I found myself asking um....myself....I guess, after watching Donnie Darko and Primer. I had a better grasp on Memento after a couple of viewings.

Movies like this inspire me as a filmmaker because they seem to expand what is possible in my own little confined world.

I really struggle between stories in my head that are simple like "The Straight Story" which in my very humble opinion is an example of the perfect modern movie and movies like Eraserhead which is so far out there that you really don't know what happened.

I don't think there is a balance point there. I don't think you can combine a storyline that is straight forward with a narrative that is odd or bizarre and do it in a way that is filmmable. Yes you can do it in a comic where pencil, ink, and text are your mediums. Film? Maybe but to be able to tell a story within a couple of hours???? You would have your work cut out for you for sure!

I'm not saying that it hasn't been done or even done well, just that it is a difficult task and it isn't done often. There are plenty of modern Asian films out now that combine these elements such as Oldboy, Ringu, and a few dozen others. American filmmakers just don't go out of their way to make a movie that leaves the viewers guessing at what they saw. We generally like our movies in a narrative package that wraps everything up in the end.

Nothing wrong with that at all. It is just that sometimes a mood comes over me and I want something I haven't seen before in a way that I haven't seen it done before!