Fifteen years ago, I did a project on films about mental disorders. That was when I first learned of this one. Despite its honorable rating on IMDb, I decided not to include it among the 20 I would watch, because it sounded too intense. Even this week, the thought of it gave me pause. But then I considered all the disturbing fare I'd seen since 2003. I could probably handle this and might just enjoy it.
The protagonist, aptly enough, is Jacob (Tim Robbins), whom we first see as a Vietnam War soldier in a scene that quickly goes from quiet to confusingly hectic. This then appears to be a flashback, with him now a New York City postal worker. He has his peaceful times thereafter, but by and by, he finds a lot of details not adding up. At worse moments, he perceives seemingly random malevolence from strangers or even the presence of monsters. The bulk of the plot involves him figuring out what to make of it all.
Jacob didn't exactly have his life all together before the strange visions began. An even bigger stressor than the war came when one of his three young sons died in an accident before his eyes. I'm not sure how long ago that was, but he still cries over it. He also figured that the best ways to deal with his stress were to get a job that didn't require his PhD (so he wouldn't have to think), leave his family, and shack up with pagan co-worker Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña). Jezzie runs hot and cold with him, particularly when he's losing his grip. Does she mainly help or hinder him, and if the latter, is it deliberate?
At the same time, director Adrian Lyne, as he says in a documentary short included on the DVD, made a point to inject a little levity (which may explain the supporting role for Jason Alexander). If Jacob were always miserable, he wouldn't have much reason to struggle to survive, nor would the audience particularly root for him to do so. Lyne also understood which scenes to cut after test audiences walked away semi-catatonic. I opted not to watch those extras in full.
Not only is the action set in the '70s; I get the impression that the makers took inspiration from cinema of the '70s. It's dark, unhappy, indulgently R-rated, and downright paranoid, not least with regard to the U.S. government. Some writing on the screen before the end credits even suggests that the story is truer than it looks.
I'm not surprised that IMDb brings up Videodrome as a similar movie; I thought of it myself. You might call each, if you're relatively polite, a mind-screw. But unlike Videodrome, JL eventually answers all our questions satisfactorily. You won't be left wondering which of two possibilities is correct or how a given element could ever make sense. Nor does it spend most of the time making you believe one thing before dropping the mask; you get to entertain different notions on and off until the final scene. I'm not saying it's entirely realistic, but it works on its own logic.
Scary? Sure. It did influence Silent Hill, among other horrors. Nevertheless, I spent just as much time simply feeling pity for Jacob. In its own ugly way, JL is poetic. Maybe even therapeutic, depending where you are in life. I'm not sorry I watched, but it's probably for the best that I didn't watch for that project.
No comments:
Post a Comment