Southland Tales

At times perfect, at times a little too wacky for my taste. I was very surprised by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, who plays really lifelike, as did Seann William Scott. (04/30/2008)

A mindless theatre and the creative masturbation of Richard Kelly, who believed too much in his much-vaunted genius. I could write about his ham-fisted attempts at political agitprop and ideological insight, about the dubious comparisons with Lynch, but in the end I will paraphrase an excerpt from Jiří Peňás's four-year-old review of Fatherland, which speaks to my soul and fits Kelly's work perfectly: "All is dominated by vagueness, underdevelopment, approximation, and perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a work of art: that it is not really about anything, because it can be about anything.” It is also possible to sit snobbishly or cluelessly in front of Southland Tales and pay homage to its originality (arbitrariness is usually original) and mysterious atmosphere (something that has no meaning is a huge reservoir of mystery). Above all, for me, Kelly's film is a testament to great auteurist self-centredness. An infallible filmmaker throws into the work whatever comes into their head, let the viewer be amazed. Doesn’t make sense? Then it must be a parable. It’s boring? I'm sure there's a message in there. Flaws? It will be that surrealism then. PS: I’m still looking forward to Donnie Darko. (03/29/2008)

Day One: I turned it off after forty minutes because I just didn't understand what was going on, let alone who was with who. Day two: I didn't give up and devoted the rest of my time to it. I guess now I do have an idea about who's with who and what, but the mound of useless characters simply defeated even Kelly’s genius, about which I now have strong doubts. Appreciating porn and making a satire of your country’s foreign policy can be done in a better way, I think. The Rock's charisma, Sarah Michelle Gellar's girlishness (someone get her into real porn! :)) and Moby’s fantastic music keep me somewhere around neutral. The feeling that I should devote two and a half hours to Kelly again is strong, but I am somehow afraid that he will reward me in the same way as the first time. At least no one’s going to take away its title of the "weirdest" and "WTF?" film of the last few years. (03/04/2009)

As usual, Moby intensifies the atmosphere, Sarah Michelle Gellar is as beautiful as ever, but Richard Kelly, this time sitting in the director's chair, plays the fool who enjoys making a mess and then joyfully wading in it. I still don't understand what path I was supposed to take, why the cars are having sex, why the character Krysta got so much space, and most importantly, how The Rock and Seann William Scott managed to keep serious faces even though they couldn't understand what was going on. Stay away from futile attempts to imitate David Lynch's masterpieces. (08/08/2009)

If someone came up to me saying they'd never seen any movie, I'd put Southland Tales on. If only because I'd have to explain to him what porn is. I'm dying to explain porn to someone... (10/18/2011)

My first encounter with Richard Kelly as a director. I quite liked his screenplay for Domino, and I had heard a lot about him, but this is a big disappointment. A pseudo-plot-heavy film set in the future where a lot supposedly happens, yet in reality, nothing much happens at all. A film that has epic proportions but ends up feeling very small. And the worst part is that the film presents itself as intellectually profound as the Bible, yet turns out to be empty. This is what happens when someone tries to create a grand story but follows their own completely different path because they think it's the best one. Sometimes it just isn't. (03/21/2014)