In my review for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), I said that if a director uses crappy film stock, crappy actors, makes crappy framing decisions, their film doesn't become ironically good. Their film becomes crappy. I fully believe that Katsu Kanai intended for his film The Desert Archipelago to be provocative and polemical. To this end, he uses inflammatory imagery (a man pregnant with a baby that is born and grows up attached to his back), controversial dialogue, and the most irritating, aggravating soundtrack that I have encountered since Sam Raimi's Crimewave (1985). Seriously, if I hear one more nun laughing I might hurt somebody. But this film is so enigmatic and esoteric that I have difficulty believing that much of it had any point other than to shock and disturb. But to what purpose? To what ends? The film is stark, harsh, and even occasionally beautiful. But it is first and foremost annoying and irritating. Only Kanai's technical competence as a filmmaker keeps me from giving this film a terrible score.
6/10
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