Abilene Point is Anywhere: How Texas Conquered Death - SOUTHLAND TALES (2006)

As part of the Richard Kelly blogathon on Exodus 8.2 I'm revising and re-posting my initial fractured skewed take on SOUTHLAND TALES which is in turn heavily influenced by Steven Shaviro's highly recommended book, Post Cinematic Affect.

"It is the business of the future to be dangerous." 

----Alfred N. Whitehead (1925)

"Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more 

futuristic than they originally predicted."

--- Krista Now (Sara Michell Gellar), Southland Tales

"Can you prove it didn't happen?" 

-- Criswell, Plan 9 From Outer Space

After the cult explosion around Kelly's big debut, DONNIE DARKO, it was inevitable his follow-up would be needlessly obtuse. With a bit of post-modern affect discussion under your belt, or on a double feature with BOARDING GATE however, it might tighten up. Might not. There is an annoying buzz of self-indulgent confidence at work in the film which you'd never find in the much more serious Assayas. He would never share the naïveté that since DARKO is a cult item, SOUTHLAND will be too, and its weirdness will engender a cult it's right there with BUCKAROO BANZAI as far as 'another think coming'. With its ceaseless frisson and funky breaks meant to dazzle fans of a certain age, it's a film made up of dead hypertext links and little text. At least BUCKAROO had Peter Weller's taciturn deadpan perfection to carry it along. The closest SOUTHLAND gets is The Rock, and though he makes some brave choices (Bob Hope-style faux cowardice), Rock's no Weller. Can you imagine the Rock as Bill Burroughs?

Kelly's presumption that we'll watch SOUTHLAND over and over and compare obscure references and symbolic meaning on the internet comes from an understandable-for-the-young miasma about changing viewing habits and--interestingly enough since Assayas is French but not Kelly and only Europeans (and South Americans) love their auteurs unconditionally--that newer generations of internet kids will think he's cutting edge if he just explores their virtual worlds. Youtube and Netflixe have arrived though, and it makes watching one film one time a daunting improbability for newer generations. When BUCKAROO came out we didn't think it was great but we still taped it off cable and watched it 100 times, because "no matter where you go / there you are." Do you want to know why DONNIE DARKO was such a hit, and screened at midnight showings for years in my old East Village neighborhood? Because chicks loved the doomed, moody romance in Jake G's stoner stare; his battles with schizophrenia mirrored their own issues with existential expressions like cutting, anorexia, drugs, and (at least for the girls I knew, at the time who loved it), grudge sex. It was a hand into their darkness, a friend who knew the score and who had great eyelashes. And it was lyrical and poetic without being overly sentimental. And since girls went, guys went right after them. You could go to the midnight show in your pajamas and no one would bat an eye, or a ball, very far. In other words, it was a date movie for the midnight hipster set. They could go after hooking up, meet back  up with their friends, and then not have to see each other on the way out.

"Quantum teleportation, teen horniness, and war."

SOUTHLAND has nothing much for the all-night girls to make it worth escapades out on the G train, except maybe the Darko-ish sex appeal of Justin Timberlake as Boxer, the lone gunner at the pier at the end of time, but he's just one (or rather two) of a big, overstuffed and seemingly under-directed cast, and while I admire the abstract crossword puzzle association to films like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (plastic oranges are to SOUTHLAND what the watermelon was to BUCKAROO), MADAME SATAN (a crazy Zeppelin party), THE BIG LIEBOWSKI (dancers in jazz age make-up out on the skee ball lanes), and MULHOLLAND DR. (Rebekah "Llorando" Del Rio singing the national anthem over John Cale strings). It doesn't add up to even the sum of its parts. Don't get me wrong - I love Moby's score, and I love that everyone is working to stop the apocalypse in only in the most perfunctory of ways, but I'm a dude... who's seen a lot of dude films, over and over, that girls may not like since they ain't got no romance, or angst. My girl can't look at SOUTHLAND for more than a handful of minutes without getting restless and yet she name-drops Sparkle Motion at every party she goes to. I even gave her the T-shirt, which some enterprising silk-screener cobbled up.

DARKO was about the apocalypse immolation of the individual but SOUTHLAND presumes there is no individual to sacrifice, no time left to travel anywhere but straight up. DARKO was elliptical but had momentum, SOUTHLAND has only the stasis of 2-D checkerboard movement, like the way time slows and matter mirror shatters close to the black hole of ground and time zero. But boys are more pro-apocalypse than girls, which is another reason this film didn't connect with them. The nonstop parade of documentaries about 2012, Nostradamus, and the Ice Age on Discovery and the History Channel proves what Kelly's SOUTHLAND TALES hints at: some of us, self included, are excited for the apocalypse. It's a chance to stop receiving paper bank statements in a whole new way. I'd even argue that we're apocalypse-dependent. Without the fantasy of a global reset button, we'd be stuck with the guilt, hangover, and debt of seven generations. Aren't you always tempted to just blow up the house rather than have to clean up your messes or look that crying Indian in his eye? I mean Native American.

In the new century, if we heard the world was gonna end 'exactly' five hundred years from now, would we care? The game of it all becomes what the Buddha calls "joyful participation in the sorrows of the world." When the world finally adapts that marvelous strategy, owning up to amnesia is the same as pressing the button because even Def-Con 5 needs love.

Even the bad guys who monitor everything from afar in SOUTHLAND are secretly enthralled by the notion of the end, and are all rebelling from one program or another to ensure that end arrives. Good guys and bad all want the same thing, escape from an age when amnesia is inducible via an easily acquired drug, because when that happens, life has no meaning. Anyone can be abducted and turned loose without being able to identify one's abductees. Whole lives can be lost in a flash. The Rock (Boxer Santeros), starts the film with amnesia and the first thing his wife (Mandy Moore) notes when seeing him--as if it was the reek of stale booze and cigarettes or stale perfume on his collar--is that he'd been kidnapped and mind-erased. He denies his amnesia on instinct as if its something to be ashamed of, like he did it on purpose. It's a weird choice, but if you've ever come home from a party with a mind full of weird drugs you promised your ball-and-chain you wouldn't do, and can barely remember doing, then you'll know the feeling.

Red Bull give you wings

What Kelly also understands is the nature of drugs and the weird habit alcoholics and drug addicts have of watching the same movie over and over again because... I forget why. They're too wasted to change the channel? Or dredge up another DVD from the vast archive? Or for that matter, the endless repeat seasons of reality TV shows, where our knowledge of what is going to happen, who will win, who will die, is granted us like benign rulers, or our own inner Pilot Abilenes. Revelation 6.8 and behold a pale horse and the name that sat on it was repeat business; if you've ever edited footage on Final Cut until it loses all meaning... or if you've ever conducted experiments on soldiers or sniffed paint fumes from a spray can, or had amnesia, then you know what I mean, and if you're happy and you know it, hit the squib, and act shocked when you die. Snivel as you swivel your electric high chair, so the Dead End Kids won't want to start no trouble in the rubble. Just leave them a DVD of SOUTHLAND TALES, and they'll think you were one muthufuggin' lost-ass generation. Weren't you, Perfect Tommy?

Apocalypse-Dependent: SOUTHLAND TALES (2006)

"It is the business of the future to be dangerous."
  ----Alfred N. Whitehead (1925)

"Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted." --- Krista Now

Watching THE SOUTHLAND TALES (2006) followed by the Little Ice Age and UFO documentaries (only on the History Channel) and preceded by Libyan unrest on the news; as Portlandia and The Onion News Network make amok globalization and conservative paranoia funny again, all I can think is my knees hurt from the weird solar weather outside and how it's all going according to plan, but it's not my plan.

12/21/12 is coming, the solar storms are moving in, MONSTERS patrol the widening contamination zone between the US and Mexico; "Cyberspace is placed under federal control, formed under the protection of the patriot act," says Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake), narrating from the vantage point of his California beachside gun turret, where he watches like a cross between Charles Starkweather and Bela Lugosi in GLEN OR GLENDA. Pull zee trigger!

This is the way the world ends, not with a whimper but with a bang, so TS, TS!

...there's unofficial links in SOUTHLAND that are surely to make film fans recall other films about the nature of cult film viewing, like BUCKAROO BANZAI, but at times Kelly's presumption we're going to watch SOUTHLAND over and over and compare obscure clues with each other seems presumptuous in an age where an infinite amount of films and TV are available at every moment and we can barely sit still for a film once. Pre-fab camp never works, well sometimes.... and I admire the abstract crossword puzzle association to films like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (Boxer passes and pockets a blinking plastic orange while Ludwig Van's 9th plays in the background), MADAME SATAN (crazy Zeppelin party), THE BIG LIEBOWSKI (dancers in the skee-ball lanes) and MULHOLLAND DRIVE (Rebekah "Llorando" Del Rio, singing the Star Spangled Banner, clashing against droning John Cale strings). Moby does the rest of the music and it's a perfect fit for Kelly's mood - it's the end of the world and everybody's fine with that, acting to stop it only in the most perfunctory of ways

"---Science is harnessing... wormholes... light speed.... time travel..."

I'm inserting random history channel quotes as I write to add some post-cinematic affect; the voice intoning scientific advancement playing behind my head on TV; listening to a radio in a separate room at the same time; I'm deliberately screwing with notions of actor vs. character in this essay; everything I say is a lie but this. Buffy's actress's porn stars' TV show's theme: "Quantum teleportation, teen horniness, and war."

 ----"what caused the abrupt climate shift that doomed the Vikings?"

The Nostradamus History Channel TV show proves what Kelly's SOUTHLAND TALES hints at: Americans are excited for the apocalypse. I'd even argue our whole culture is apocalypse-dependent. Without the fantasy of a global reset button, we'd be stuck with the guilt, hangover, and debt of seven generations. If 'nothing' happens on 12/21/12, man we'll be pissed, let's not kid ourselves (unless we have kids of course, as it's dad's fault). In my childhood during the still cold-70s, it was the sudden threat of nuclear war that kept us edgy and smoking without excess guilt; kept us screwing (the expression at the time) and burning out. We secretly hoped it would come so we could go out on the roof and watch Philadelphia get it first, and even the kids would get gin and tonics to celebrate.

But what I can't understand is why Nostradamus and--apparently--every ancient civilization with star savvy was so anxious to encode everything on earth with the date that is now rapidly approaching. In the new century, if we heard the world was gonna end 'exactly' five hundred years from now, would we care? Seven generations is a crap in the bucket when you're thinking about Egyptians and Mayans... who themselves were wiped out long before getting close to within seven generations of 2012. So why did they inscribe our date with destiny in secret code all around their architecture. Why did they care about us?!!! What about the fast food and the banks and power plants that might fall a mere 7,000 years from now!?

I think it was, in the end, they had no television, no internet; nothing else to do.

That problem is answered in SOUTHLAND by completely collapsing any notion of linear time. Even the bad guys who monitor everything on IDENT are secretly enthralled by the notion of the end, and are all rebelling from one program or another to ensure that end arrives. Good guys and bad all want the same thing in an age when amnesia is inducible via an easily acquired drug. Anyone can be abducted and turned loose without being able to identify one's abductees. The Rock (Boxer Santeros), starts the film with amnesia and the first thing his wife (Mandy Moore) notes when seeing him--with some disgust--is that he has it again -- do reprobates pop an amnesia pill after cheating on their spouses so they can't get trapped in a lie? She notes it with the repulsion one might notice the reek of stale booze and cigarettes or ring around the collar. He denies his amnesia on instinct as if its something to be ashamed of. The game of it all becomes what the Buddha calls "joyful participation in the sorrows of the world," or what Joseph Campbell deciphers it to mean: "When you're falling, dive." When the world finally adapts that marvelous strategy, owning up to amnesia is the same as confessing to Satanism, and pressing the button because even Def-Con 5 needs love.

What Kelly also understands is the nature of drugs and the weird habit alcoholics and drug addicts have of watching the same movie over and over again because... I forget why. Or for that matter endless repeat seasons of reality TV shows, where our knowledge of what is going to happen, who will win, who will die, is granted us like benign rulers, or our own inner Pilot Abilenes. Revelation 6.8 and behold a pale horse and the name that sat on it was repeat business. Of if you've ever edited footage on Final Cut until it loses all meaning... or if you've ever conducted experiments on soldiers, or called him Ronald Taverner, or sniffed paint fumes from a spray can, or had amnesia... if you're happy and you know it, hit the squib, and act shocked when you die, for the kids!