Southland Tales
DIR/WRI: Richard Kelly • PROD: Sean McKittrick, Kendall Morgan, Matthew Rhodes, Bo Hyde. • DOP: Steven B. Poster • ED: Sam Bauer • DES: Alec Hammond • CAST: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Dwayne Johnson, Mandy Moore, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake.

During May of 2006 in sunny south France, writer-director Richard Kelly must have been experiencing a deeply distressing case of déjà vu. Southland Tales made its premiere at Cannes alongside Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation and Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette as one of the few American films in the main competition. While neither of those films were given much of a rapturous reception, Southland was massacred. Shortly after the screening, tales of booing, walkouts and general antipathy towards the film were reported, along with a venomous critical reaction, with some even suggesting it to be the worst film ever shown in competition there. Suddenly what was once the proud sophomore film from a promising young talent became a “work in progress”, as the 160 minute runtime was rapidly trimmed in order to attract distributors. It is a sign of just how troubled the project has been that by the time it makes its theatrical bow, the film’s dystopian future of 2008 will be merely three weeks away. For Kelly, though, this is nothing new. His first film, the much-loved Donnie Darko, had been met with a collective shrug at Sundance in 2001, before slinking on to a disastrous (less than $1 million) cinema release in America (it turns out that weeks after 9/11, the American weren‘t to keen on a dark fantasy featuring jet engines falling from the sky). In the years following, however, it became a massive cult hit on DVD, even earning itself a directors cut re-release and gaining Kelly a reputation as a filmmaker to watch. This reputation no doubt was what gave backers the confidence to allow Kelly free reign on his hugely ambitious second film.

And Southland Tales is nothing if not ambitious. A science-fiction-comedy-drama-political-satire-musical-mystery-neo-noir, it is intended as part of a “multimedia experience” encompassing a complex tapestry of websites and a series of three graphic novels. It has a plot that takes in, among other things, alternative energy, time travel, political intrigue and an ice cream truck. It is often very funny and at times deadly serious. It has moments that range from frustratingly stubborn to absolutely inspired. It is messy, indulgent, complex and confusing, but also intelligent, unique, innovative, rich and challenging. It shows exactly what happens when a precocious and imaginative director has no one around to tell him 'No'. It will split audiences and critics right down the middle. It might also be the film of the year.

It is very difficult to describe Southland Tales, simply because there is so much to talk about. The plot, as it is, is split into three chapters (the graphic novels comprise the first three) named after songs (one may as well be called Modern Life is Rubbish, given the overall theme of the film). Beginning with a nuclear attack on Texas on an alternate 2nd July 2005 (in an opening sequence that is nothing short of brilliant), the voice of scarred war veteran Pilot Abeline (Justin Timberlake) gives us the state of the nation in 2008. America, and the internet, has been put under strict surveillance. World War 3 – sponsored by Bud Light and Hustler – is underway. The draft has been reinstated. An eccentric genius has invented an alternative energy source named liquid karma that could save the world. In Los Angeles, an underground cell of neo-Marxists are plotting to turn the tide in the upcoming election (which features candidates name Eliot and Frost in some of the movie’s more on-the-nose literary allusions) with a complex plot involving police officer Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott, a revelation). Meanwhile, an amnesiac movie star named Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson, the wrestler formerly known as The Rock) is working on a script with porn star-cum-national celebrity Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar, playing a thinly veiled Paris Hilton). Oh, and there’s also a great musical sequence where Timberlake lip syncs to The Killers… Were I to recommend Southland Tales (which I do) I would also recommend investing in the comic books. While the film functions without them (the most important gaps are filled in the prologue), as someone who has yet to gorge themselves completely on Kelly’s complex mythology, it does feel as though a large piece of the puzzle is missing.

And what a puzzle it is. Text and images are fed to us on digital TV screens (a major plot twist is shrewdly alluded to in onscreen graphics throughout). Characters’ dialogue contains further clues and literary references. Bible passages are mentioned before becoming crucial plot points a few scenes later. There’s also a selection of interesting cameos, including a heavily made up Kevin Smith, numerous Saturday Night Live alumni and Hostel director Eli Roth getting shot on the toilet. Scenes and dialogue criss-cross and repeat themselves, giving the film an unnerving sense of déjà vu at times. From the opening frames, Kelly demands our immediate attention. His film is so detailed, so littered with references, ideas and gags that it’s impossible to comprehend the entire picture on the first viewing. Perhaps this is what made the Cannes set so upset (though they must have delighted in the sight of Roth being murdered) – Southland is very much a picture aimed at the Generation X-Box, a fractured, jam packed and fast-paced orgy of information that seems deliberately tailored to an audience used to the fragmented nature of modern media. The casting also suggests that Kelly was aiming for the younger demographic. Taking a handful of 21st Century pop idols – The Rock, Buffy, Stifler and Justin Timberlake – and putting them in a latter day Dr. Strangelove is a bold, irreverent move, and one his stars seem more than willing to be accessory to (Johnson and Mandy Moore in particular enjoy themselves). Kelly’s aim seems to be to get a reaction from a generation many are suggesting is the most politically apathetic in history. When few American films seem genuinely willing to challenge the many troubling aspects of the modern society we find ourselves in, Southland is all the more remarkable in that it tackles all of them. The war on terror, the energy crisis, obsession with celebrity, the Patriot Act and civil liberties, the nature of news media – Kelly weighs in on the lot, and while he may not have a solution to any of the problems, he doesn’t sit on any uncertain side of the fence, and deserves credit for raising them at all, particularly in as entertaining and fascinating a fashion as this.

The more favourable reviews for Southland Tales in the US (of which there are few) have compared it to David Lynch’s Mullholland Drive. While Lynch is just one of the filmmakers referenced in the film, (most explicitly when Rebekah Del Rio shows up towards the end to sing The Star Spangled Banner) Kelly is playing a different game altogether. No matter how disorientating and confusing his film is on first viewing, it‘s clear that there is a strong coherent heart to it, and at no point do you feel that Kelly himself is losing touch with his story. Furthermore, he cements his status as a truly exciting young filmmaker, polishing his apocalyptic genre mishmash with dazzling camera moves (there’s a steadicam shot that gives the hallway scene in Darko a run for its money) and a terrific soundtrack which features Radiohead, Pixies and new songs from Moby.

Southland Tales appears to have already had its effect on Kelly. He has already explicitly stated that his next project – horror movie The Box, based on a Richard Matheson short story – will be something that studios can feel comfortable with putting on wide release. It would be a shame, however, if the experience blunts Kelly’s one-of-a-kind sensibility. Like Darko, the joy in Southland Tales will no doubt lie in rediscovery; repeat viewings of the film that will increase your understanding, raise questions and allow you to appreciate the many fine details of Kelly’s astonishing master plan. Rest assured, you will either love (I’ll be first in line to see it again) or hate Southland Tales, but forgetting the experience is not an option.

Scott Townsend
(Read biog here)

Rated 16 (see IFCO website for details)
Southland Tales is released on 7th November 2007
Southland Tales – Official website