The Mighty Blowhole: Pure Mayhem Fucking

Just a few reviews this time. They're for movies that either have some graphic sexual content, or have something to do with the band Mayhem.

Only other new thing to report is, I made a Twitter account to use as a Kleenex for the stupid-stuff-I-think-is-funny my brain sneezes out. If you want to follow it, you can be one of the scant few by going here: http://twitter.com/#!/Zwolf666

Or maybe hit this thing, hell, I dunno.

Now, onward...

Antichrist (C, 2009) Lars Von Tier's difficult, pretentious, self-consciously-"art" film reminds me a lot of Andrezej Zulawski's Possession in that it tries hard to shock you and "be about something" but by the end of it you get the feeling that even the people who made it don't know why the characters would do the things they do... possibly because there may be no such reason, other than maybe eleventh-hour schizophrenia. And, ultimately, it's going to be famous for the graphic nature of the sex and gore rather than anything the film really has to say. Willem Dafoe is a psychotherapist married to Charlotte Gainsbourg (they should make a Patti Smith biopic just so they can cast her in it), and while they're busy fucking in the beautifully-shot black and white opening segment, their baby falls out the window and dies. It's so sumptuously filmed that I started laughing rather than getting a sense of tragedy. It looked so much like a TV commercial that I expected the baby to bounce off the roof of a shiny new car and then a corporate logo to come up on screen and a narrator to say, "The new General Motors. Recognize no limits." The couple is overwhelmed by grief... or at least Gainsbourg is, and Dafoe tries to help her through it, apparently out of finding her grief interesting almost as much as from love. They retreat to a cabin in the woods (which is basically a convenient plot device to keep anyone else from interrupting the crazy shit that's going to happen) so they can work through the grief and fears that lead to Gainsbourg's panic attacks. She suddenly has a huge fear of the woods, even though when Dafoe tried to quiz her on what she was afraid of, she had to struggle to come up with anything). She tries attacking him sexually and eventually physically, crushing his groin and drilling a hole through his leg and bolting a weight to it so he can't get away. Going even crazier, she snips her clitoris off with scissors (all this is shown as graphically as possible and you will wince, I don't care how hardcore you are), and it all leads to a conclusion that depends on you to decide what it means because I don't think even the filmmakers are sure. The special effects (including maimed-yet-living animals who sometimes - hilariously - speak) are incredible are the whole thing is amazingly well-shot and the acting is powerful, but characterization is very weak (for all the preoccupation with introspection we end up with little sense of who these people are, much less why we should feel involved in their alien, ludicrous plight), and the pacing is like molten rubber; for most of the movie there's a lot of artistically-framed shots of nothing happening. The movie wants to be shocking, and it is, but it's less shocking if you've already watched Neighbor, which does several of the same gore tricks, just as graphically. And there are a few brief porn shots of actual penetration, but that's no major deal. Watch it because you have to say you did, because even though it's an expertly-made film, there's really not a whole lot of other reason to do it. I didn't dislike it, but it is safely dismissed as an "art film," which is not always a good thing.

And just in case people wanna see what I meant about the Patti Smith reference - look at 'er. (And, no, the song's not racist, it's anything but - if it was I wouldn't be puttin' it up - it's just the only Patti Smith song I really like)

Devil in Miss Jones (C, 1973) One of the few hardcore porn films to be considered classic and even got reviewed by critics, this is weird and somewhat sinister even amidst all the sex acts. Georgina Spelvin commits suicide by slashing her wrists in the bathtub, and ends up in Satan's office for a sort of job interview. He laments that her record should have landed her in Heaven, but since suicide is an act Heaven doesn't forgive, she's stuck with Hell for eternity. The devil's a good sport, though, and lets her go back to Earth for a while so she'll at least get some sinning done in the form of lust. Harry Reems is her teacher, and virginal Spelvin is a quick study. The rest of the movie is nonstop sex -- Spelvin with Reems, Spelvin with a girl, Spelvin by herself with a water hose and grapes and a banana, and then with two guys at once (they come on each other, so be aware that that might happen if you decide to try it at home). Spelvin's not pretty in the least, neither in face or body, but she makes up for it in total enthusiasm and lack of inhibition. By the end she's so crazed with lust that it's actually creepy --- she does seem possessed and diabolical. And, she can act. The end is dark and ironic, with Spelvin's Hell manifested as being stuck in a room, masturbating for eternity with a lunatic who has no interest in her and wants nothing more than to recover a piece of fly shit that he lost, ignoring her pleas to fuck. The classic music score makes it all more melancholy and eerie. A well-made artifact from the days when XXX films aspired to be something other than cheap monkeyspank fodder. But if that's what you're looking for, the hardcore scenes linger for minutes at a time with no edits. Vaginal verite.

Pure Fucking Mayhem (C, 2008) Documentary on the infamous Norwegian black metal band and the tragic events that have plagued them. Surviving members are interviewed and seem like fairly normal, reasonable metalheads, even while they relay weird stories about their deceased friends. Their singer, Dead, seems to have been legitimately weird. He was depressed and suicidal from age ten when he had a near-death experience and felt he belonged in another dimension. He'd carry dead birds and squirrels in plastic bags so he could inhale the scent of their decay, and slept with them under his bed. He'd bury his clothes so they'd get rotten and full of bugs and would cut himself and drip blood on the audience. Finally he wrote a suicide note - "Please excuse all the blood," so classic -- and cut his wrists and throat and wandered around the house bleeding on everything before blowing his head off with a shotgun. When the guitarist, Euronymous (who at that point was becoming very weird himself and freaking out band members) found his body, he took pictures, sent skull fragments to friends, and claimed to have eaten parts of Dead's brain. One of the photos was used for an album cover. Then Euronymous started making death threats to everyone and signed-and-the-ripped-off Varg Vikernes's band, Burzum. Varg murdered Euronymous, thinking he was just getting him first. After that the Mayhem story becomes more of a regular band story, without anything too insane happening. If you've followed the band at all you'll probably know most of the stories but it's interesting to hear it from the people actually involved. The DVD includes a CD of creepy piano music that doesn't really have anything to do with Mayhem or black metal; I guess whoever released the DVD wanted to expose their own stuff.

Watch the whole thing starting here:

Until The Light Takes Us (C, 2008) Documentary on Norwegian black metal that's well-done and interesting, but it'll help if you already have some knowledge of the genre... but if you do this won't really teach you much you didn't already know. Of course the bulk of the film examines the church burnings and the murders and suicides surrounding Mayhem. Most of the running time is spent hanging out with Fenriz from Darkthrone, who comes across as a likeable and reasonable guy, even though the numerous knife scars on his arms hint that he may be otherwise. Varg "Count Grishnacht" Vikernes from Burzum is interviewed in prison (the prisons in Norway are probably nicer than your house) and he talks about killing Euronymous and his nationalism; he comes across well, which is scary since he's a neo-Nazi idiot. Hellhammer from Mayhem is interviewed and comes across as pretty much of a moron, and Frost from Satyricon makes a real laughing stock of himself by attacking a couch (upon which has been painted with "evil" doodles) and then slashing himself (assuredly fake or he'd've had a trip to the ER). He seems like an attention-hungry goof, and is eager to be used by a pretentious artist who makes bad paintings of guys in corpsepaint. Fenriz's reaction to all this is dismay that the scene ended up as the same kind of trend it was developed to fight against. Don't feel bad, dude, that's just the curse of music.