MOVIE REVIEW: 1984 (1984)

 Written and Directed by Michael Radford

Produced by Simon Perry 

Director of Photography Roger Deakins

Edited by Tom Priestly

Production Designer Allan Cameron

Music by Eurythmics and/or Dominic Muldowney

Starring

John Hurt as Winston

Suzanna Hamilton as Julia

Richard Burton as O’Brien

…

Corruption is the cement that holds this country together. Besides, corrupt people are the first to want love stories.

-Michaelangelo Antonioni, Identification of a Woman (1982)

…

Review by William D. Tucker. 

In another timeline, the fate of a totalitarian regime rests on the love between a man and a woman. 

That’s not the truth, of course, but you could use that as a marketing hook. 

Sure, people who’ve read Orwell’s novel will laugh and roll their eyes, and say, “It’s about the love for Big Brother, stupid!” but many more will not have read the book, and so they will go into the movie version thinking-singing, “It’s the power of love!” 

And, well, the movie wouldn’t absolutely contradict any of that . . . and Winston does say “I love you” in the end-oops! My bad . . . Spoiler . . . sorry . . . 

Look, you’ve read 1984, right? You can buy it at a Target, for Christ’s sakes, alongside the latest volumes from this or that New Age con artist or The Art of the Deal or some incoherent reactionary screed assembled from rotting pieces of pop psychology and outmoded essentialisms by some pretentious Canadian philosophy professor-what’s his name? 

Ah, doesn’t matter.

We’re not here for the shit.

We’re here for the champagne. 

1984 . . .

 . . . the same year that Godzilla returned from the molten depths of the Earth to terrorize Japan once more . . . 

 . . . a massive miner’s strike meets violent suppression in Britain . . . 

 . . . the Union Carbide plant disaster kills 2,500 in Bhopal and creates an ongoing environmental catastrophe . . . 

. . . New Zealand is declared a nuclear free zone . . . 

. . . first CD players available commercially . . . 

. . . Bishop Desmond Tutu wins the Nobel Peace Prize . . . 

. . . Ronald Reagan wins a second term as US President . . . 

. . . Famine in Ethiopia . . . 

. . . William Gibson’s Neuromancer introduces the word ‘cyberspace’ into the pop culture zeitgeist . . . 

. . . four independent businessmen repel an extradimensional demonic invasion of New York City . . . 

. . . scientists in America and France jointly discover the virus that comes to be known as HIV . . . 

. . . Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to go on a space walk . . . 

. . .  DARPA launches the Strategic Computing Initiative which is a program to create autonomous robotic land vehicles to be used in war . . .

. . . Waseda University invents WABOT-2, a prototype humanoid musician robot . . . 

. . .  US Congress cuts funding to the Contra death squads who continue to be funded by secret financial support from Saudi Arabia . . . 

. . . Apple Computers were going to free us from technocratic corporate oligarchy by creating a rival technocratic corporate oligarchy with killer form factor for a change-look at the Olympian Steroid Babe as she throws a hammer through that stuffy goddamn IBM telescreen . . .

. . . 1984 . . . 

. . . in both Orwell’s novel and this film version, we’re not even sure if the year is actually 1984. Our protagonist, Winston, seems convinced that he knows what the actual date is, tho’ even he is afflicted with doubt. Winston works in a warren of offices rewriting history according to the dictates he receives via telescreen. A telescreen is a kind-of old-fashioned tube TV with a camera behind the screen that’s always watching you, and that you cannot turn off unless you are a member of the upper ranks of the Party-the Party being Ingsoc, which is a designation derived from the collapse of the words-and the ideals-of English and Socialism. 

Ingsoc, in practice, resembles a nightmarish amalgamation of Stalinism and Fascism and Naziism. But, as an American, I can’t help but see reflections of my own oh-so-wonderful crapitalist society. The de facto caste system based upon (mostly inherited) wealth; a media machine much too cozy with the state that’s all too eager to spit out the infallible metrics of GDP (conveniently ignoring the plight of the working poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, and those marginalized because of their immigration status, skin color, sexuality, and/or gender identity) whilst singing the praises of martial virtue attained in endless warfare upon nebulous enemies abroad; and all this while medical costs skyrocket amid epidemic rates of drug addiction, suicide, and eroding faith in public institutions. 

Happy endings all the way ‘round!

Orwell’s novel-and this faithful film adaptation-depict a world with no hope. That’s not to say that there’s no escape. You’ve got state-subsidized Victory Gin which will get you good and fucked-up, even if it burns like jet fuel on the way down your gullet. You’ve got the ritualistic denunciations of confessed Thought Criminals broadcast on Jumbotron-style telescreens in massive public arenas-which are like super-angry high school pep rallies. 

You can pass your nights dreaming of a future in which the orgasm is physically and neurologically excised from the human being as both an individual and as a species. All people shall exist as either providers of wombs and/or providers of sperm’n’eggs so that the state can perpetuate itself unto Infinity, with no masturbation or other non-productive forms of sexuality allowed. 

Oh, yeah-and public executions of prisoners of war. You can lose yourself watching someone get machine gunned at the knees so they bleed out real slow-like. 

And if you ever engage in any illegal activities-which is basically anything that Big Brother decides deserves punishment-you get to be tortured for days, weeks, and months until you agree to confess all of your actual crimes-things which you did do-and all the crimes which Big Brother instructs you to confess-things which you did not do-over the national telescreen network, which is a kind of Next-Level Fox News-style form of state media. 

Oh, and there’s death! How could I forget that one? 

Death’s an escape. You can be shot in the head by an executioner. You can drink yourself to death. You could even perish accidentally while being repeatedly electrocuted by one of Big Brother’s beloved and loving torturers. 

Oh, shit! I forgot about the Victory brand cigarettes! State subsidized lung cancer . . . once again, as a selfish All-American Asshole, I keep thinking of my own country-specifically, in this instance, of Big Tobacco’s denials of the carcinogenic effects of their best-selling products . . . I’m also reminded of a video I found on YouTube where a guy talked at length about how chewing tobacco would never give him cancer or any other health problems because he felt very strongly that had to be the case . . . and now I’m thinking about all the religious fundamentalists in my nation that deny evolution . . . deny the scientific consensus on climate change . . . deny COVID-19 . . . are in denial about the results of the 2020 Presidential Election . . . in 1984, the action is confined to an England which is dominated by a single totalitarian political entity-Ingsoc-whereas in America we have . . . The Marketplace of Ideas! Whoever makes the most money gets to purchase the Marketplace and decide which ideas get a come-up! Have the most money and be Big Brother! Sports bar! New Age wellness prattle! All ‘organic’ cookbook recipes! Right-wing tele-pundits authoring nationalist revisions of history! Pro-abstinence parables hidden inside gothic teen vampire romances! How-to manuals focused on regressive ideas of masculinity! Hate rally! Go team! Hoo-ray! Kill ‘em all! Jump for joy!

Yeah, I know. It’s easy-cheap, even-to be a pessimist when everything is absolutely motherfucked beyond recovery. Shame on me for stooping to such negativity of attitude-of outlook, even!

This film version of 1984-which was both produced and released in 1984-works as both a credible science fiction scenario and as an all-too-Orwellian nightmare of pessimism. Orwell constructed his literary output upon the dual bases of powerful moral conviction and the profound disillusionment he experienced as he saw humanity charge boldly into two World Wars which brought about so many wonderful products: death camps, Atomic-Biological-Chemical weapons, and totalitarianism. 

Orwell protested all of it even as he lost hope that humanity could legislate or theorize or fight its way out of a final and complete self-obliteration. This film emobdies the Orwellian despair while offering up an extremely detailed production design which extrapolates from 1948 England what the worst possible 1984 England would look and feel like, and the result is a potent example of a retro-future. But not a trendy, steampunky retro-future that Los Angeles actors would want to tabletop roleplay in via YouTube livestreams-this is the Bummer From Way Back-an alcoholic and tubercular writer’s prophecy of fear where the only feasible painkiller is that goddamn Victory Gin that you could probably use to power a tank to flatten a slum full of starving sex workers and manual laborers. 

But it is all fine. It will be fine. For all times. If you can just look Big Brother in the face, and say the magic words,

“I love you”

and it’s not like you have to mean ‘em, or that Big Brother’s even concerned that you’re speaking from the heart. 

Big Brother, at some level, is a realist. He knows that if you ruthlessly torture someone for months on end to get them to make a public confession they’re probably doing it to make the pain stop. 

But Big Brother is as fair as they come. 

You see, everybody’s been through the ringer in 1984. Your number’s come up, that’s all.

Even the torturers were tortured once upon a time. 

And history’s been re-written so many times, now-who knows what’s real? 

How do you even know what today’s date is?

Even if your dayjob’s re-writing all the history books . . . how many times were they re-written before you got rotated into position, hm? 

You’ve got a box that’s supposed to be a jigsaw puzzle of a picture of an old church. You open the box, and you start fucking around with all the pieces . . . only to find they’re all pieces from different puzzles of pictures of who knows how many different old churches . . . you’ve basically got just enough to know . . . that you’re totally defeated. In fact, it’s hard to avoid the sensation that your sin wasn’t trying to solve the puzzle-your sin was that you thought there was a puzzle you could solve in the first place.

Nope.

Just a bunch of random crap rattling around in a box. However, for your deductive efforts you shall be rewarded with a mandatory thought reform period. Congratulations. 

What if Orwell had drank less? What if he had access to cognitive behavioral therapy? What if he hadn’t caught TB? Would he have been more of an optimist? Would we have accepted a more hopeful vision? Or does Orwell’s personal despair give us all a way out of trying to make things work-a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it were, hmm?

1984 exists, possibly, as a challenge from a man writing well beyond hope. 

Do we have what it takes to live in reality without white supremacy, slavery, hyper-competitiveness, social stratification, colonialism, fanatical systems of belief, empire, propaganda, and war eternal? 

Orwell tells us that history isn’t on our side. 

But, you know, maybe, like . . . Christmas cheer will yet save us?

Or, like, I dunno . . . the Protestant Work Ethic?

How about . . . a really-I mean really terrific after dinner speaker-like, uh, like totally Toastmasters level of quality-that could do the job, couldn’t it?

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! I know! I know! Ooo! Teacher! Teacher! Over here! Me! Yes!

I got it. If I show up at my local open mic stand-up comedy show, and, like, do just, you know, like a total slayer of a five minute set-eh? That’s got to move the needle, comrade! I could even get laid! Humor’s sexy, y’know?

Ahhh . . . yeah . . . okay . . .

I’m spitballing here. 

Don’t look at me like that!

You’re reading a blogspot blog, genius, and you’re looking for the next-level breakthrough on the problems articulated by Orwell?

Like, Christ-humping fucknuts, people-whaddaya want from me?!

(Shrugs elaborately)

That’s all I got. 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have multiple glass tubs of nacho cheese to microwave and consume one after the other, so, if you wouldn’t mind . . .

(Gives you little flicky waves of his hands to indicate ‘get the fuck out’)

Alone at  last . . .

(Redefines ‘abject’ as he abuses his body with a nacho cheese orgy-glut)

MOVIE REVIEW: WESTWORLD (1973)

 Written and Directed by Michael Crichton

Director of Photography Gene Polito

Edited by David Bretherton

Special Effects by Charles Schulthies

Visual Effects Coordinator Brent Sellstrom

Automated Image Processing (Robo-Vision) by Information International, INC. and John Whitney, Jr.

Make-Up by Frank Griffin and Irving Pringle

Art Director Herman Blumenthal

Produced by Paul N. Lazarus III

Music by Fred Karlin

Wild West Saloon Brawls and Shootouts by Dick Ziker

Starring

Yul Brynner

Richard Benjamin

James Brolin

Norman Bartold

Alan Oppenheimer

…

This is the problem of the way we get into and out of the play or game . . . what are the codes which govern these entries and exits?

-Brian Sutton-Smith, Child’s Play (1971) (by way of Rules of Play(2003) by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman)

Those who had not destroyed themselves had sought oblivion in ever more feverish activities, in fierce and suicidal sports that were often indistinguishable from minor wars.

       -Arthur C. Clarke, Childhood's End(1953).

“Central mechanism psychosis?”

-an actual question posed by some tech support nerd in Westworld (1973)

…

Review by William D. Tucker. 

Delos is a futuristic amusement park that allows you to inhabit three different kinds of mythologized pasts: the American Wild West, debauched Roman Times, and a Chivalric European Medievalism Trip. 

So, you can be a gunslinger or a sheriff or an outlaw or a knight errant or a king or a queen or a Roman emperor or empress in an elaborate live action role-playing game (LARP in today’s terminology) facilitated by full-size authentic environments populated by interactive robots that you can pretty much treat however you want. 

You want to shoot ‘em, stab ‘em, burn ‘em, torture ‘em-you got it. There are robotic prostitutes, concubines, slaves, gladiators-you can make ‘em do whatever you desire. 

You want ‘em to fight to the death in a guilt-free spectacle slaughter? Done.  

You want to stage a big robo-orgy? Hey, no risk of STDs, so toss all the robo-salad you please. 

Maybe you want a robot to whip your ass? It can be done, friend, and you don’t even have to tell your significant other. 

They’re just robots. 

Fuck ‘em, right?

Except . . . hey, can I ask you a question?

You ever watch a movie or read a story or comic book with robots . . . and not want ‘em to go berserk and rise up and wreck all the shit? 

I know, I know, I know-it’s stupid. 

WE build the robots. WE program ‘em. Why would WE allow them to go off the rails? Asimov resolved all this decades ago. 

But . . . maybe I don’t want Asimov. Maybe I want a dumb robot rebellion story. Maybe that’s my desire, okay?

You set up the pins. And then you want to see them all get knocked down. 

You build the Lego castle, and then you demolish it with your Godzilla action figure. 

You spend months meticulously composing a mandala out of different colored sands only to ritually obliterate it when the time comes.

All in good fun. 

That’s Westworld. It was a movie written and directed by Michael Crichton ten thousand goddamn years ago-same guy who wrote the novel Jurassic Park. 

You want a version of Jurassic Park where the dinosaurs don’t go on the rampage? 

Whaaat? 

Seriously? 

Why bother, then-just, umm, here . . . read these stereo instructions. You’ll have a ball. 

We good?

Okay . . .

. . . what was I talking about again?

Westworld. 1973. About a place called Delos that uses future robot technology to allow you to live in a historically questionable version of the past that really only existed in dumb western flicks and boring-ass costume pictures-I mean, how many layers of phony nostalgia are we getting wrapped up in here? We’re gonna be a goddamn Nostalgia Mummy-and just as fragrant-by the time we get to the end of this thing. 

Westworld is amusing to watch because it’s not a million miles away from immersive time-suck video games like Fallout 4 or World of Warcraft or Red Dead Redemption or Evercrack. And this is back in ‘73, well before video games existed in the way they do, now; and yet this film has so many elements that have become cliches of gaming:

You have the boring Whiteman Protagonist who goes from innocence to experience while being handheld by a tutorial expositional character.

(But I gotta give lead actor Richard Benjamin credit: his epic porn-stache could probably deflect both bullets and the clap.)

You have superfluous sex with robo-babes to restore the Whiteman’s health bar just like in a Grand Theft Auto game.

Yul Brynner plays a creepy recurring boss battle gunslinger reminiscent of, say, Nemesis from Resident Evil: Nemesis. There’s even a protracted multi-stage final boss battle where the Whiteman has to navigate an unfamiliar environment and figure out the final boss’s weaknesses and implement a counterintuitive strategy to win. 

(Yul Brynner’s robo-gunslinger even anticipates later ruthlessly stalking, nigh-unkillable movie villains such as Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees, the T-800, the T-1000, and Agent Smith.)

You even get to play both sides of the law in the Wild West simulation. One day you’re the sheriff and the next day you’re a desperado. It can all be done, amigo!

Now, there is some fun expositional techno-babble to explain why everything is going off-program. It’s not badly done for what it is. I especially appreciated the line about how many of the more advanced robots are designed wholly by other robots, and, therefore, the project is very definitely getting away from total human control. 

It even gets eerie, and just a touch philosophical, in the final scenes. Nothing too overbearing. This movie knows it’s mostly having fun with you. But it still has enough creepiness to allow it to stick in your memory. Maybe you’ll even create your own tabletop role-playing campaign with your friends based off of Westworld. For all I know there might have been an actual officially licensed rules set or GURPS worldbook or something like that back in the day. That would be pretty cool. 

So have fun with all that.

Just don’t actually shoot or stab or torture or enslave or oppress each other, okay? We got enough of that shit in real life.

Ya’ll play purdy, now!

(Horrifying scream choking off to a wet, squelching, cracking, crunching set of noises as powerful robo-hands crush William’s skull.)

BONUS: If you watch Westworld with the French soundtrack it plays like an extremely quirky sequel to Alphaville.

POETIC VIDEO GAME REVIEW #8: METAL GEAR SOLID (1998)

 Do you think it's possible to have a heart-to-heart discussion in the heat of battle? 

I think maybe that's the only place to reveal your innermost self. 

Because whatever gets said

no matter how revealing

either you or your enemy will be dead

so there's no cause for regret over telling someone a bunch of next-level embarrassing shit about yourself.  

I think that's why Solid Snake and his boss enemies go on-and-on-and-on in all those interminable cut scenes when you get right down to it. 

Two hearts are revealed, 

but only one has to go on living with what's been said.

If real life were like that, I'd be pleased-as-prank about it. 

Communication is largely an illusion. 

You can't really relate to a stupid person. 

Nor is there any getting along with your local conspiracy theorist or religious fanatic. 

You can only connect with someone who, essentially, already thinks the same as you, and this 'connection' is, like prayer, just talking to yourself. 

But a deadly Enemy . . . there's the only Intimacy that can be had with Another. 

One of us will die, and one of us will live.

If I die, then my problems are over, because I can't feel embarrassment if my ticket's been punched. 

If I live, then, well, I'll probably remember what Enemy said to me, but not forever. 

Memories fade to make room for new memories. 

Like, uh . . . that new item on the Taco Bell menu!

I gotta remember to eat that.

And the pleasure of that worthy event-changing up my Fourth Meal game-that is gonna take up at least one or two slots on my PS1 memory card. 

Adios soul-bearing monologue from whosits that I had to kill last week.

Hello sensual mouth-orgy as I chew up that quadruple cheese pork-steak quesadilla with some of that new limited time only Rectal Napalm hot sauce. 

This is a good deal. 

And only at Taco Bell. 

-December 2020

MOVIE REVIEW: METROPOLIS (1927)

 Directed by Fritz Lang

Written by Thea von Harbou

Photographed by Karl Freund and Gunther Rittau

Production Designed by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut, and Karl Vollbrecht

Music by Gottfried Huppertz

Starring

Alfred Abel

Brigitte Helm

Gustav Frohlich

Rudolf Klein-Rogge

…

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to heaven . . .

-Allen Ginsberg, “Howl,” from a January 1959 audio recording of the Big Table Reading at the Shaw Festival, Chicago.

I’ll deal with it later, 

I’ll deal with it later,

I’ll deal with it later,

LATER IS NOW.

-Devo, “Later Is Now,” from the album Something For Everybody(2010)

…

Review by William D. Tucker. 

Metropolis is a seductive city-state of the retro-future, full of neon lights and skyscrapers and all-night parties full of ritzy people in tuxedos and fancy gowns and ornate costumes. It exists upon the backs of the Workers who live deep underground, cruelly apart from the giddy debaucheries in the heights. The Workers maintain the machines that keep Metropolis bright and hopping ‘round the clock. They all wear the same dark, drab jumpsuits and caps, and their lives are regulated according to the ruthless elite demands for uninterrupted electricity, gas, and running water. The Workers are dehumanized-as far as I can tell, they’re basically living components of the overall Metropolis Machine. At some point in the evolution of this magnificent city, advanced automation was circumvented by simply plugging people into the gaps in the system and worrying about the moral consequences later.

A cackling mad scientist named Rotwang has invented a Machine Man-a robot-which could take the place of the humans serving as Workers, and thereby bring on a hypermodern Age of Universal Leisure-no more need for a segment of the population to be condemned to soul-killing labor. Everybody can join the orgies in the skies! 

Ah, but as I mentioned, Rotwang is a nutjob, and he’s only invented the one Machine-Man-who has a very alluring feminine form-and there are some pervy implications that the brilliant roboticist may have assembled this construct to satisfy his own appetites. Moreover, Rotwang’s techniques may be so idiosyncratic, so handy-craftsy-so alchemical, even-that his Machine-Man may not be scalable to the needs of the overall Metropolis System. Something about the way this city-state society is constructed prevents them from going for miniaturization or finding a way out of the necessity for jamming the human form into the chaos gears of the Great Moloch Machine . . . or maybe we’re just in the realm of flaky, overheated German Expressionism? Hard to tell.

Even deeper underground, in the catacombs beneath the Workers’ City, there’s an old Christian church where a woman named Maria advocates for justice and equality, but not through political means. Maria isn’t even preaching from some version of a social justice gospel after the manner of, say, Dr. Martin Luther King. Maria speaks of a “Mediator” that must necessarily join the “Head” and the “Hands.” So, the Head is an allegory for the ruling business elites and their cold, economic calculations. The Hands represent the hyperspecialized lot of the dehumanized, roboticized Workers. And this Mediator . . . that’s the Heart? The Heart being some transcendent moral principle of compassion, of justice, of equality? Is the Mediator some kind of a Jesus type person? Is this the “vanishing mediator” that super-hacker kid from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was talking about?

Maria leads her meetings in a church-looking chamber deep underground with lots of crosses on the walls, but her words are not explicitly Christian. Maria and the Workers seem to be waiting for a messiah, or maybe this is a “Second Coming” type of deal? If this all takes place in the future, perhaps this is a future mutation of Christian belief. I prefer to interpret Maria’s sermons as a new thing that happens to take place in a disused place of worship, and thus with the implication that Christianity is something belonging to the dead past, and all this talk of a Mediator is a new kind of religion or ideology. 

And wouldn’t you know it . . . there’s a Mediator waiting in the wings! A pasty-faced elite young man-who conveniently happens to be the son of the ruthless businessman who rules over the Metropolis System with a cold heart-begins to deconstruct his privilege and decides to journey down into the depths of the Workers’ City and beholds in horror the Heart Machine the dehumanized laborers sacrifice their freedom to maintain. The Mediator-to-Be has a vision of the monster-god Moloch-a deity of avarice-superimposed upon the Heart Machine. 

And our Mediator-to-Be sees the Workers being systematically marched into a flaming hellmouth in a sequence that seems to be an eerie prophecy of the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. This becomes even more disturbing when you realize how many loyal Nazis participated in the making of this movie, including screenwriter Thea von Harbou, although her partner, director Fritz Lang, famously fled Germany for America and a renewed filmmaking career in Hollywood.

The discontent of the Workers cannot be contained by flowery sermons of future deliverance. The Mediator-to-Be is prone to visionary freakouts wherein he sees the mythical underpinnings of the scientific present. Some of the best scenes involve immaculately art-directed hallucinations of the Grim Reaper and the Seven Deadly Sins and wild dance parties led by a corrupted Maria gleefully bumping and grinding her way through a Whore-of-Babylon inspired burlesque routine. When the workers go berserk and trash the Moloch Machine they join hands and line dance in the ruins of their techno-demonic oppressor.  Logic and nuance get trampled beneath goofy German Expressionist melodrama amidst exquisite sets of varying scales and fabulous costumes. Although Good Maria has the right ideas about social justice, Corrupt Maria is way more fun. Intellect is overtaken by spectacle, and it’s hard not to enjoy the madness. 

This is such a confusing movie. Is it science fiction? Is it a faith-based film? Is it camp? Can it be  all these things at once? I tend to think it can be all these things at the same time. I’m okay with that. Just think of it as a precursor to all those dopey Roland Emmerich blockbuster flicks of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No, it doesn’t make much sense, but there’s a lot of it, and it looks amazing. Watching Metropolis I see so many things of latter-day pop culture: Blade Runner, robot uprisings, music videos by Madonna, and movies such as Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns where the lavish art direction and production designs more than make up for unlikely characterizations and flake-o plot logic. 

Fritz Lang went on to better things as a filmmaker, but the manic energy of Metropolis is, much like perverted Rotwang’s Machine-Man, just not something that can or should be mass-produced. It’s a glorious, doomed aberration and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE BLACK ROOM (1935)

 Starring Boris Karloff

Directed by Roy William Neill

Cinematography by Allen G. Siegler

…

“People turn into something else in the mirror.”

-Dialogue from Rampo Noir (2005)

…

Review by William D. Tucker.

In a fairy tale European kingdom, a royal family finds itself cursed by a prophecy: what was founded in blood shall end in blood. A pair of twin brothers set the curse in motion when one murdered the other inside a secret room, and the prophecy states that a final pair of twin brothers shall end the dynasty in the fullness of time in the same manner. 

The royal family tries to defy the prophecy by bricking up a sinister chamber with reflective onyx walls-after all, a prophecy only has power if one believes in it, right? Take the scene of the crime out of the crime, and you have no space for the theater of cruelty. 

But if the belief in such a dark and fated scheme persists, will it yet find some way of coming true? 

Is it all just a matter of faith?

In the beginning, Cain slew Abel, and so shall it be at the end. 

Boris Karloff plays the final set of twins-one a murderous, depraved tyrant; the other dandyish and of good cheer. You get the full spectrum of Karloff’s capacities as an actor, from the creepily aggressive to the counterintuitively charming. 

The ill-mannered evil brother preys on the women and girls of the kingdom as a kind of Bluebeard figure. The good brother has a non-functioning right arm, yet he has lived life to the fullest travelling abroad as a perpetual student, acquiring culture and charm. 

Yes, you get to see Boris Karloff acting with Boris Karloff years before, say, Nicholas Cage played his own sibling in Adaptation, and it’s all pretty seamless. No computer effects. It’s all in cleverly concealed edits, in-camera opticals, and tactical use of body doubles. In 1935. Take a look. Then think about that. If you know how movies are made, then you can suss out all the tricks, but I contend that you will nevertheless choose to believe what’s in front of your eyes because it is so well executed. 

Karloff alternately embodies sadistic evil and good-will-towards-all with but the simplest of gestures, a specific tone of voice, different costumes, and conflicting postures. The sneering evil brother slouches and puts his leg up over the arm of his chair while peeling a pear with a knife. The good brother is impeccably dressed and carries himself with perfect posture while always greeting the world with a sincere smile. Sure, we’re in the realm of melodrama, but it is done with such simplicity and wit that it cannot be denied.

Combine all this with pristine black and white photography, evocative-if theatrical-sets of castles and graveyards and cavernous church interiors-

-and only 68 minutes . . . although some sources list the running time as 69 minutes which is nice . . . The Black Room doesn’t waste your time. 

How does it all play out? Will the prophecy be fulfilled as it was in times of yore? 

Do prophecies only come true when we believe in them enough that our actions are influenced to make it come true?

You’ll just have to see for yourself. 

I will say this: if you remember Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster, you might recall how that piteous abomination was persecuted by mobs of pitchfork and torch brandishing villagers . . . well, in The Black Room Karloff does indeed play at least one character who deserves an angry mob on his ass. 

You’ll just have to see for yourself.

I'm so disappointed . . .

 . . . you know that mystic mindfuck monolith that's been popping up all over the place?

And how everybody thought this was going to be the Cosmic Brain Zap Generator that would release us all from our Calculus and our Cares?

Well, turns out it was just a part of some viral marketing campaign for Richard Nixon's Sparkling Colostomy Wine. 

I can handle flim. I can handle flam.  

But spare my heart the flim-flam. 

(Sighs with great sadness. )