It has become a trend these days for people to hit the internet blogs and forums to air their grievances over just about anything, especially movies. It doesn't matter what the type of movie, year it was made, critical acclaim, or award winning, people will find something wrong with them. I feel that this is mainly due to the human need for conflict, and smart humans like the type of conflict that won't end up requiring corrective rhinoplasty.
I am not one to argue ones opinion on anything, but I do have my own, and I do like to state it no matter who is listening (and it is usually a very limited audiences). One movie in particular has gotten a very bad shake in my opinion. That movie is Richard Kelly's Southland Tales.
This film gets bad reviews all over the web (IMDB 5.9 out of 10, and The Spoony Experiment ravaged it as one of the worst films of the decade) and in print (My Year of Flops stated that as gloriously rememberable Southland Tales was, it was still a fiasco.)
I do not understand all of the negative feedback. What was to be expected from Kelly? He proved he is good at making obscure hard to follow narratives when he released Donnie Darko five years earlier and it took another few years after that for Darko to get the credit it deserved. The Main issue people seem to have with this film is that fact that it is confusing with a large amount of characters to follow. I agree, it is rather confusing and hard to follow, but to me there in lies the genius. This movie actually makes you pay attention from beginning to end, and to every thing going on in the foreground as well as background. Most movies these days allow you to leave the room and still be able to come back and follow them, but not Southland Tales. It is a thinking mans movie.
Another thing that gets thrown out as a fault is that it follows the story lines of a graphic novel, so in order to know the complete story it helps to read the books. How is this a fault? Didn't the Matrix Trilogy do the exact same thing? Well no actually the Matrix Trilogy required you to watch an animated series, read comics, complete a video game, and find the lost arch in order to understand what was going on in that series, and the Matrix is loved for this. It is a form of hypocrisy in my opinion.
The thing that I really enjoy about Southland Tales is that it is open for interpretation. It doesn't tell you what is going on, and gives you the freedom to make up your own opinon. I have my opinion on what is going on and I am by no means saying that I am right, but I feel as if the whole film we are watching is actually the script that Boxer Santeros has written. Why do I feel this way? Well he is supposed to be a huge hollywood action star, and he decided to write his own screen play, well maybe he doesn't know how to write a screen play and what came out was a mish mash of ridiculous interwoven plot points. Again that is just one thing I thought of while watching the film. Another thing I thought of was that maybe this, as well as all of Richard Kellys films, are inside jokes that only he and his friends understand but I digress.
The whole point I am trying to make is that while this movie has its flaws, as do all movies, it does not really deserve as much backlash as it has received and that is why I am defending it here for you all to read. Until next time....have a great day.
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