American Psycho

2000

Director: Mary Harron

Writers: Bret Easton Ellis, Mary Harron

Stars: Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Jared Leto, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe.

IMDb rating: **********

My rating: *****

IMDb storyline:

A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.

Patrick Bateman, portrayed brilliantly and flawlessly by the amazing Christian Bale, kills (mostly) for no reason, sometimes there is a motive, but usually over petty things such as watermarks and reservations. Nothing is enough for this man. He has it all, money, sex, social standing, good suits, good looks, but there is always something in him that wants more, or wants what other people have, what he can’t have. He eliminates his competition simply by killing them with insatiable blood-lust and complete lack of empathy. This movie is truly all about him, his whole life is about him, vanity, it seems, is everything. His life is a string of extravagant meals out in the best restaurants in town, and miscellaneous acts of violence and mutilation.

Despite his great wealth he is emotionally bankrupt, and although we can clearly see h is very wealthy, we never see him do any work. We see him in his place of work, and frequently socialising with his work colleagues, but no work is done.

Christopher Lehmann-Houpt said this about the film in the New York Times:

“Patrick Bateman lives in a morally flat world in which clothes have more value than skin, objects are worth more than bones, and the human soul is something to be sought with knives, hatchets and drills.”

The closing scene of the film is very cryptic and has left a lot of people wondering if he did in fact kill people or if it was all in his head. In the final scene Bateman is in some sort of public house, he walks up to his lawyer and confronts him about he message he left on his answer machine, confessing his brutal murders killing “Twenty, maybe forty people”. To this his lawyer laughs telling him what a good joke it was, mistaking him for another client (the second time Bateman has been mistaken for someone else), Bateman then tells him in all seriousness that he did kill all those people including Allen, his lawyer again says that he saw Allen in London and had dinner with him and that it was impossible for him to kill these people. So Bateman sits down with his friends and starts to have a laugh with them, literally getting away with murder and the film ends.

Also, in the penultimate scene Bateman goes back to Allens apartment, where he stored many of the bodies of the people he killed. When he gets there the door is open and the apartment is being sold, he goes to the cupboard where he hung up the bodies and they have disappeared, the realtor then tells him to leave the apartment, seeming to know who he is.

So could this all be a figment of his imagination, could his disillusioned brain have made him think he killed all those people? What if Allen really did go to London? In the books it is made perfectly clear that he did in fact kill all these people, but the film it is left open to interpretation. Whichever is true, firmly instills in us that Bateman is crazy, he belongs in a loony bin. Either his mind is telling him that he’s killed people, or he has actually killed people, for no apparent reason. Throughout the film he remains stone cold, for in the end he doesn’t feel guilt, or remorse, just sorry that he was caught.

The character of detective Donald Kimball (William Dafoe) also plays a role in this controversial ending, in one scene he goes from openly accusing Bateman of murder to apparently not knowing a thing and fully believing Batemans story, while also giving him a solid alibi. Apparently Harron asked Dafoe to portray his character in three ways, 1. Kimball knew Bateman killed Allen, 2. Kimball didn’t know if Bateman killed Allen, and 3. Kimball wasn’t sure if Bateman killed Allen. Harron then edited the takes together giving the audience an unsure vibe of what the detective thought of Bateman.

This film is the life of one man taken to a disturbed, brutal and demented extreme with the most cruel, iconic and unforgettable characters who can have everything they ever desire. It is a brilliant juxtapose of the perfect American Dream, and its worst nightmare.

Natural Born Killers

1994

Director: Oliver Stone

Writer: Quentin Tarantino

Stars: Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore

IMBb rating: **********

My rating: *****

IMBd storyline:

“The misadventures of Mickey (Harrelson) and Mallory (Lewis): outcasts, lovers, and serial killers. They travel across Route 666 conducting psychedelic mass-slaughters not for money, not for revenge, just for kicks. Glorified by the media, the pair become legendary folk heroes; their story told by the single person they leave alive at the scene of each of their slaughters.”

Director Oliver Stone said that the film is a satire on how serial killers are adored by the media for their horrific actions. I completely agree, but like the audience of the television, find myself glorifying and adoring them. During Wayne Gales (Downey) interview with Mickey, I scarily find myself agreeing with most of the things he is saying about murder. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to go around murdering people and I do not condone murder, but being a vegetarian, I get what he is saying. I fight this fight every time someone someone questions my vegetarianism. I don’t want to give too much away but, in a strange way, he makes murdering sound reasonable.

Wayne Gale, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. with a dodgy Australian accent, is a news reporter and TV personality. He makes a crime show that glorifies Mickey and Mallory and shoots them into fame. During his interview with Mickey he gets angry, shouting at him, telling him his views on murder are wrong and he is sick. But later the same day, after his interview with Mickey is terminated, Gale begins showing symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. I don’t want to give too much away as I want you all to watch this movie (apart from Katherine).

Scagnetti (Sizemore) a corrupted police detective, obsessed with imprisoning Mickey and Mallory. And McClusky (Jones) also corrupt, a vicious warden at the prison Mickey and Mallory are held. These two work together to try and kill Mickey and Mallory before they can be properly sanctioned. These two perfectly portrayal the bizarre things people will do for fame. Jones in a role much unlike anything he has ever done before, his brilliant acting carries the film to its glorious end.

One thing that caught my attention was the fact that the camera never angles on a straight, horizontal level throughout the whole film. This gives the feeling of disorientation and that things aren’t “right”, and I definitely felt this throughout the film.

Also the colour green shows up several times during the film and is used to indicate the sickness in Mickey’s mind. Also, the use of TV commercials was an attempt to show the comforting power some commercials have. Every commercial comes after a horrific moment or a flash cut of a demon, such as the Coca Cola Polar Bear commercial.

But the most striking an horrifying scene which I could not shake was one which involved Mallory and her family. In the style of a 1950’s sitcom, it is revealed that Mallory’s father molests her as he does it on screen with audience laughter following. This style makes the entire subject dark, disgusting and just completely vile, it almost made me look away.

Every thing in this film makes it so amazing, the only thing that annoyed me was the camera angles, they made me feel a bit woozy. This film is breathtaking and heartbreaking, two star-crossed lovers find each other in the twisted worlds they grew up in and find their own peace in this trigger-happy thriller.

Irréversbile

2002

Director: Gaspar Noé

Writer: Gaspar Noé

Stars: Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel, Albert Dupontel

IMDb rating: **********

My rating: *****

In the course of one traumatic night in Paris, events unfold in reverse-chronological order as Alex (Bellucci) is raped and beaten by a perfect stanger in an underpass. Exacting revenge is her boyfriend and ex-lover, Marcus (Cassel) and Pierre (Dupontel). The entire story is told backwards which means that each sequence starts at that moment where the next sequence ends, so there is a lot of thinking and remembering involved but that’s no problem as there is not a dull moment in the entire movie, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time asking myself questions only to have them answered by the next scene. All of the dialogue in the film was improvised, the actors where told what they had to talk about, but not how to say it which makes me worship the film and the director even more.

This film is everything I wanted it to be and more, the first 30 minutes of the film has a background noise with a frequency of 28Hz, similar to the noise produced by earthquakes. It is barely audible to humans but it causes nausea, sickness and vertigo. It was the main cause of people walking out of theatres during he first part of the film and when I read this fact I thought about how I felt during the first part of the film and I remember feeling confused, slightly dazed and a little bit sick but I just put it down to the wild camera movements and shocking scenes. Talking of camera movements I couldn’t have been more impressed, the movie seems to glide from one scene to another, there are no cuts, just one big sequence in every scene.

It starts off with a brutal murder in a gay s&m club which you soon learn to be called ‘The Rectum’, which turns out to have been a genuine club in Paris. As the movie unfolds and previous events become apparent you learn why the murder took place and the cause of such hatred and anger. During the last scenes you can’t help but feel overwhelming sadness for Alex, in what should be a happy scene you feel nothing but heartache. If the film had been in chronological order it would be nowhere near as hard-hitting as it is, and not nearly as exciting, the director is a genius and has revolutionised french cinema. Yes of course there is nudity and really really horrible parts that almost made me look away, such as the 20 minute rape scene which again was all done in one take. I worship these actors for their perfect portrayal and just flawless acting in this movie, Vincent Cassel is a true legend for the overwhelming anger and sorrow and his ending (or beginning) blasé attitude.

The tagline “Le temps détruit tout”, meaning “Time destroys everything” is the first phrase spoken and the last phrase written.

Another fun fact, in “An Experiment in Time”, which Alex is reading during the last (chronologically first) sequence in the film, J.W. Dunne ponders the existence of a ‘time-travelling observer’, which in dreams can move backwards or forwards in time to observe events which may not have yet happened. These are the ‘premonitory dreams’ which Alex mentions to Marcus and Pierre in an earlier (chronologically later) scene. Alex describes such a dream to Marcus, where she is in a red ‘tunnel’ which breaks in two.

This film is a beautiful and horrible example of how cause and effect can destroy people and lives and how time destroys everything.