Malick's work has always existed in a twilight zone between stark reality and feverish fantasy. Malick shows us our world through a sepia-tinted filter of memory. Even his most crisply filmed features seem to echo old photographs and ways of life gone past. Here, in his first film, Malick examines Holly and Kit, a doomed couple living out the tireless fable of Bonnie and Clyde in 1950s rural northern United States. While it may seem like a knock-off of the more successful and influential Arthur Penn film Bonnie and Clyde, Badlands transcends the tropes of the story and launches into a full-scale examination of teenage apathy. Kit is a homicidal sociopath and Holly only starts to protest against his murderous actions when she comes to the silent conclusion that he may one day turn the gun on her. I found the true meat of the film to be in how Kit tried to create illusions of grandeur surrounding their actions. When Kit is finally captured, his prostitution of his image in an attempt to transform himself into a celebrity reveals a deeper and more terrifying justification for his crimes: he did it because it was the only way that he felt he could have a hand in defining himself.
Score: 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment