analogzombie Blog

Joe Swanberg is, without a doubt, a very gifted new film maker. As a part of the unfortunately dubbed Mumblecore movement, he creates ultra low budget films that touch on very personal and small stories. Kissing on the Mouth is very poignant in that almost everyone can relate to the mixed up, and often embarrassing, post-college sex scene.
What is immediately striking about the film, besides the barebones aesthetic, is the sexual frankness Swanberg brings to the picture. Sex is shown for all its non-glory and absurdity. I'm not sure if this is a stylistic choice or if the director is using this as a means to attract attention to his first film. What I am sure of is that, at least for me, his scene of self-masturbation in the shower, complete with climax moment action is more than I want to see. It's not because I'm a prude or I think it goes against the theme of the film, it's just because, as a talented film maker, I know I'll see much more of Swanberg in the years to come. From now on, though, I'll never be able to get the image of his weiner explosion out of my mind.
Decent film though, and I look forward to a long and fruitful career from him.

Director Tony McNamara’s debut feature, The Rage in Placid Lake is a mixed bag. It instantly conjures comparisons to any number of American and Australian indie coming of age comedies, I (heart) Huckabees, Sweetie, Igby Goes Down and Rushmore, being the most obvious. Like those films, it shares a central character adrift in self crisis as he begins to navigate the adult world. Unlike those films, it creates a wholly believable series of personal tragedies and triumphs for its characters.

Placid Lake (musician Ben Lee), as his name suggests, is seemingly nonplussed in almost every situation he encounters. Saddled with new age parents more interested in their own personal discovery than helping to acclimate their son to mainstream society, he is forced create ever more elaborate ways to assert his independence and identity. Like all anti-heroes, he is beset upon by the pressure to conform. This pressure is manifested as three bullies that make it their life’s goal to humiliate and isolate Placid at every opportunity.

He must also confront his long simmering love for next door neighbor and best friend Gemma (Rose Byrne). Gemma has problems of her own. An obsessive and over bearing father directs his genius daughter’s life at every step. Gemma, unlike Placid, has everything mapped out for her. From the time she was a child she has been groomed for scientific greatness, “the next Marie Curie”. She offers a counterpoint, both in lifestyle and world outlook to Placid. The film revolves around this relationship and it is Placid’s desire for her that acts as a catalyst in his most ambitious plan to date: an attempt to become a “normal” person.

 For him this means taking a job at an Insurance agency and modeling his appearance on that beacon of style, George W. Bush. Needless to say this action constitutes outright rebellion in the eyes of his parents. They have never bothered to notice the bruises, internal and external, sustained by their son. It takes a double breasted pinstripe suit for them to finally take notice of the turmoil seething just beneath the surface.

By making the parents outsiders, McNamara turns some of the conventions of this genre on its ear. It creates a different kind of dynamic between the character caught in crisis and the rest of the world. Placid wants to be a part of society. He has had nothing but encouragement to do the opposite, however. With the way things have been turning out so far, it’s no wonder he wants to reinvent himself as a corporate lackey. He believes this will bring structure to his life. For him it represents escape from rejection, and a chance to set himself apart from his parents. Sure it’s mundane, but it also offers stability. Something he has never had. 

To McNamara a place like Icarus Insurance is a place to hide. Not from the world at large, but from yourself. Unfortunately the cold truth is that living a lie isn’t rewarding. Doing so will only bring greater tragedy. This theme dominates The Rage in Placid Lake. What’s interesting is that it’s all treated with humor and subtlety. Although the plot and character development may be familiar, the story of someone trying connect to the world resonates. Placid, like all of us, wants desperately to be accepted for who he is. In the face of rejection he changes tactics and becomes what he feels society wants him to be. This concept has been explored, as previously mentioned, in many recent films. What stands The Rage in Placid Lake apart from something like Garden State is its unpretentiousness. Ben Lee creates a smug, yet likeable character in Placid who feels real because his smugness, as well as his self-deceit, gets him no where with society, but succeeds in liberating him from a lot of his own demons.

There isn’t anything groundbreaking about The Rage in Placid Lake. It’s a mid-level indie comedy that at times makes you think you’ve seen it all before. It can surprise you though. Often hilarious, what the film really has going for are great supporting characters, in particular Placid’s parents (Miranda Richardson and Garry McDonald). This, combined with the reversal of the typical teen rebellion archetype is more than enough to keep you going through some of the more mundane sections of the movie.

I was talking to friend about it the other night. "Yeah i've seen his movie Nowhere, and that's exactly where that film goes." This sort of sentiment seems par for the course for Gregg Araki. His previous movies, epitmoized by Nowhere and The Doom Generation, are sort of hellish teenage character studies. Movies with unbelievable characters engaged in mundane daily life, in a sureallist punk landscape. Typecast as part of 'the New Queer Cinema' of the early nineties, Araki is often chastised for making films that lack depth. I've always understood this view, but I defend his work as fevered wish fulfillments. Movies whose point isn't in the message, but in the telling. So now he comes out of left field with a real film. An accomplished work that, while containing definite Araki style, is unlike anything he's made before. This is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, to quote Dave Eggars.

Mysterious Skin tells the story of two Kansas youths who are molested by thier little league coach at the age of 9. This becomes the dominant event in both their lives but with very different consequences. Neil embraces the escapades with 'Coach' as a type of paternal love. He feels special, and unique from all the attention. The wierd sex games he's asked to participate in carry with them the promise of a caring adult. Coach stands in contrast to Neil's mother, who for all her good intentions and genuine love for her son, is nonetheless an absentee mother. Prefering to spend time with various boyfriends, than pay attantion to her child. Brian's homelife on the other hand seems at first to be a bit more normal. He has a loving mother, patient older sister and enjoys a modest middle class life. Brian too though, is bereft a suitable father figure. His own, more inclined to a kind of apathetic parenting.

The film opens with a scene of young Neil in a state of pure joy. Cereal raining over him, he laughs and smiles to the sound of angelic music. This is not what one might expect from a moive about child abuse. Coach's seduction techniques are much closer to reality than you usually see in a film of the same subject. He's likable, cool, and attractive. This is a guy we'd want to hang out with. Instead of showing him a pure monster, Araki shows how the monster fools everyone.

Neil's experience dominates the first third of the movie. Brian's experience is told mainly through the aftermath of the event, and later, in flash back. For Brian, this was not an initiation into the world of emotionless sex. It was a severely traumatic event. So affecting, that young Brian blocks the experience out, causing him to suffer from psychosomatic symptoms.

As it moves into its main section, concerned with the boys around the age of 19 it becomes clear how crippled Brian and Neil actually are. Now a male prostitute, Neil tries to contextualize his experience by submersing himself in a world of emotionless sex for hire. Brian on the other hand is a complete introvert, 'wierdly asexual' as one character describes him. All of his lost time, and eerie circumstances, coupled with dreams of a vague presence hovering over him, have convinced him that he was abducted by aliens. His frantic search for truth eventually leads him to Neil, and the truth and absolution they've been respectively searching for.

The movie is not about coach. It's about Neil and Brian, it's about the effect the abuse they endured has had on them. Coach is a catalyst, something to set the stage, nothing more. Yet he is shown as a complex character. It would be easy to write him off as evil, and he most assuredly is, but this isn't his story.

By far, Mysterious Skin, is Gregg Araki's best film to date. There are times when the flair of Doom Generation is present, as in some of Neil's encounters, or the movies Brian watches For the most part,though, this feels like the beginning of a new phase of filmmaking for the director. Who knew he was actually this talented. It's dreamy and brutal all at the same time. When the credits finally roll, you can't helped but be gripped with a realization of the sheer, unbridled horror of it all.

The screening I attended with filled with gasps and shrieks, as the mostly middle aged gay male crowd suddenly realized they weren't watching a 'New Queer Cinema' movie, but one from a pure artist. They had gotten in way over their heads by underestimating Araki, and he made them pay dearly for it.