Bellflower follows two friends as they venture out into the world to begin their adult lives. All their free time is spent building flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction in hopes that a global apocalypse will occur and clear the runway for their imaginary gang “Mother Medusa”[...]
Alright, let’s just stop right here. Two friends... adult lives... flame-throwers and weapons of mass destruction... global apocalypse... imaginary gang. OK, continue:[…] While waiting for the world to end, their call to excitement comes unexpectedly when one of them meets a charismatic young woman and falls hard in love.
Here’s an image from the movie that I think captures the first half of the above quote:
Here’s an image that captures the second, the hard-love:
Now, in case you can’t tell from my above redoubling of the line “two friends... adult lives... flame-throwers... global apocalypse... imaginary gang”, I think that the story of Bellflower has some serious issues, that is, it has some serious issues if it’s presenting “two friends... adult lives... flame-throwers” in an affirmative, congratulatory, thumbs-up kind’a way, but I don’t think it is.
While watching Bellflower, I was convinced that it and its film-makers shared my sentiments, that it, like me, believed something to the effect of: One does not begin their adult lives and wait for the world to end at the same time, that the two are fundamentally opposed ways of being; adult-living being almost exclusively concerned with ensuring not only the occurrence but also the quality of the future (both for oneself and for others); waiting for the world to end basically betting on the opposite and so doing precisely bupkis to ensure the occurrence/quality of said future.
Part of my reason for believing that the film-makers of Bellflower share my sentiments is that precisely 0% of the film is dedicated to adult-living (e.g., what it consists of, how it works, what’s hard about it, what its rewards are, etc.), while almost 100% of the film is dedicated to waiting for the world to end (e.g., drinking, fighting, f*cking, building flame-throwers, not going to ones job).
Bellflower, more so than any other film I’ve ever seen, shows those of us males who’re either approaching, on the cusp, or already (perhaps against-our-will) living adult-lives what the alternative is: meaninglessness, frustration, stagnation, drinking, fighting, f*cking, and, ultimately, doing a lot of fantasizing about a tragic end to release us from said meaninglessness, frustration, stagnation, etc., a tragic end that *gulp* never actually comes. A film to which it's been compared by many reviewers is Fight Club, and I think that comparison, while understandable (both focus on the frustrations of young males Today), just isn’t quite apt. Fight Club makes waiting-for/bringing-about the end of the world look fun and/or well justified (and did such a good job that fight-clubs popped up all over the place after the film’s release); Bellflower makes it look hopelessly depressing and never really develops the justification for said malcontent beyond a love of Mad Max (whether or not young men start building flame-throwers and forming imaginary gangs in the wake of Bellflower's release is t.b.d.).
There is, admittedly, a part of this reviewer that isn’t quite sure whether Bellflower wants to be more like a Fight Club, romanticizing the whole refusal of adult-living and everything it entails, or more like what I think it is: a film that shows those of us who’re beginning adult-lives what the alternative really looks/feels like.
As for whether or not I’d rewatch Bellflower in theaters, my answer is “Yes.” The film is beautiful, provoking, and haunting (one scene in particular is, I think, worth the price of admission alone). I’d also consider Net Flix-ing, Red Box-ing, or On-Demand-ing it, probably not on my own, but if there were somebody with whom I thought it would be rewarding to watch/talk about it... A few people come to mind.
--Lord Humungus
No comments:
Post a Comment