Mister Lonely - Review

Ever since one of my favourite films of the year, Spring Breakers, came to my attention, I have been meaning to look into the history of films directed by Harmony Korine, watch them all and try and get acquainted with the roots of Korine's career in which elements of Spring Breakers style may have come from. Whilst watching films from his (extremely short) filmography (only 5 feature films long, including Spring Breakers), I encountered Mister Lonely and have been blown away ever since watching it by the amount I have been thinking into the themes and characters, relating to it and just reminiscing over how much fun I had watching it and couldn't think otherwise than to write about how much I enjoyed it.

Mister Lonely has two separate plots, the main one revolving around a Michael Jackson impersonator who meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator in Paris and travels to Scotland in order to live with her and her husband, a Charlie Chaplin impersonator, her daughter, a Shirley Temple impersonator and many other impersonators. The group are striving to build a stage on their land and perform in the greatest show the world has ever seen. This characters of this portion of the plot are living their life through the image of their chosen celebrity and in isolation from the general public for most of their screen time, meaning their lack of awareness of the outside world is uncomfortable to watch for viewers. We feel as if we are intruding on a group of mentally unstable people's lives and that isn't something that is easy to watch, but as the running time of the film moves along, there is almost a beauty in the delusion of these people, choosing to live their own non conformist lives. These people choosing to live in their own bubble are perhaps a throwback to Korine's troubles with a heroin addiction prior to the production of this film, the lack of responsibilities that a heroin user feels when he is on the drug are personified into these outrageous characters and plot.

The subplot of the film shows a group of nuns working with people in a poor country. When, in a freak accident, one of the nuns falls out of an aeroplane without a parachute and survives, she tells the other nuns that it must be God's plan for them and a way of him testing their faith. Whilst the film only cuts to this subplot a few times, we see the final result of the nuns all boarding a plane to the Vatican and it crashing into the ocean. It appears that Korine is showing extreme contempt for the idea of everyone having their own destiny, and someone else being in control of their lives. The nuns, who do not even second guess that the one surviving nun must be telling the truth, are ridiculed in their comedic death, they are made to look like complete idiots, and perhaps I am looking into this film too much as autobiographical on behalf of Harmony Korine, but I read between the lines that in order to successfully live your life, you have to live the path that you decide for yourself and not think much more into it.

The film, shot in Korine's typically gritty framing, lighting and movement, shows just how brilliant a film can be when you do not insult the audience's intelligence and spoon feed them your messages. Art is subjective, and therefore so is every film, and whether people take Mister Lonely as a fictional piece of work with interesting characters and a quirky plot or as a film very closely linked to the life of the director is up to them, the fact of the matter is that what Korine produced is an interesting and thought provoking piece of film with beautifully written monologues contrasting with an anti-Hollywood style of production. Harmony Korine is the king of independent dramas and Mister Lonely is the crown jewels.

SPRING BREAKERS- INNOVATIVE DRAMA AT ITS BEST:

I know it's been out for a few weeks in the US now, but over here on my little island (the UK), Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers has only just hit cinemas. After just getting back from my second time seeing the film, I thought I would add to the various opinions and reviews of the film surfacing the internet.

Taking into consideration that this film is directed by Harmony Korine, I'm astounded at the amount of critics who are complaining that in this film, substance was overpowered by style. Although being Korine's debut mainstream film, I honestly don't know what film reviewers were expecting, the film completely works as a mainstream piece of art (after seeing it with a number of friends who are in no way film buffs, and almost all of them thinking highly of the film), and still sticks to Korines roots as an independent and stylistically innovative director.

The four female actors playing the young college students fit their roles perfectly, the acting is supreme, with another stellar performance by James Franco. This film shows teen actress' such as Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens displaying a wider set of acting skills than they have shown before, proving they are not bound to a one-type character.

This breaking out of the comfort zone for the actors is also reflected in the characters they play. Four college students leave their ordinary, mundane lives for a world of drugs, sex and crime. It is almost as if the roles were made for these actors, and I believe Korine was extremely clever in picking who he did to play his lead roles.

The film does ask a lot of the audience in terms of suspending their disbelief, such as the consequence-less hold-up of a fast-food joint, as well as numerous crimes and drug scandals, with the teens eventually being caught at a party taking drugs, one of their lesser crimes, to say the least. This, almost mockery, of the US Police Force is shown alongside an interesting outlook on the classic 'American Dream'. Alien (his character's name immediately presenting the idea of someone foreign to this planet - an exaggeration of the foreigners entering America) is a character who has lived the American dream. Money, women, a house on the beach, he seems to have it all. However his 'dream' turns into a nightmare when his past catches up with him, and an old friendship turns into a rivalry, ultimately leading to his death.

One of the biggest arguments against the film I have heard is that the cinematography and editing techniques are too 'try hard'. The fact of the matter is, Korine is exactly the type of director that a film such as this one needed. A simple crime-drama, however with shots showing exactly why Korine got the mainstream break he deserved- my favourite being the in-car tracking shot showing the two teens robbing the diner, accompanied by Nicki Minaj's 'Moment 4 Life' on the radio. This intensely thought out camerawork and sound recording shows the a change in the girls, and the new them that they have just discovered exists.

Overall the film is a work of art, and risk-takers are something I believe cinema needs more of. Through the advancing digital age, Korine uses classic equipment and stories and innovates new and exciting ways to present them to an audience. An extremely self-aware director, this reasonably unheard of director has made his mark on the mainstream world and has gained the interest of myself, and many others like me, I will definitely be looking out for future films by him.