I Don't Get It?

How is it that some poeple, seemingly a lot of people, just don't get some movies. It's like, these days, unless something is flagged by the reviews as being quirky (Clerks, Raising Arizona, Truly Madly Deeply, Ill Fated), thoughtful* (The Myth of Fingerprints, Garden State), surreal (Donnie Darko, pretty much anything by Terry Gilliam), a "black comedy" (Very Bad Things, American Psycho, Barton Fink), or that most damning of all descriptions, "independent" (which could mean anything from Lost in Translation to Open Water to Shaun of the Dead to pretty much anything by the brilliant John Sayles), there is a real danger that the movie-going public will just straight-out not like a film because they don't know what to make of it.

When did this happen? When did distributors stop just advertising a film in a way they thought would sell it and start labelling movies like products in a supermarket. And when did audiences get so damn lazy that they won't even take the opportunity to make up their mind whether they like something they see, or take a chance on something they've heard nothing about simply because the poster in the lobby appeals to them?

One of my all-time favourite movies (not necessarily one of the best I've ever seen, but one of those I can go back to again and again and I still enjoy) is Milk and Money. This is a quirky, surreal, thoughtful independent comedy that came out in 1996. It never got a cinema release in Australia. I only chanced across a VHS copy in a bargain bin at a video store for $5.00. I thought it could be interesting, so I bought it and took it home, here it sat on a shelf for maybe three months. One night I was at a loose end, so I watched it. This would have been maybe '98. I laughed 'til my stomach hurt. It is ridiculous, silly, totally divorced from reality, and one the best low-budget comedies I have ever seen.

Since then I must have either watched it with or loaned it to half a dozen friends, and each one of them has claimed not to "get" it. This from people would each extol the virtues of some or all of the following: 2001: a Space Odyssey, Ghosts... of the Civil Dead, Drowning by Numbers, Eraserhead, Naked Lunch, Lost Highway. The list could go on. I mean, compared to some of these, Milk and Money is like an episode of My Three Sons in the wierd stakes.

I refuse to accept "I don't get it" as a legitimate criticism of a film. This is lazy, turgid, and about as far from considered as a comment can get. The first time I saw 2001, I didn't get it. I didn't consider this a failing of the film. I went away and I thought about it on and off for about two years, then it started to make sense, or rather, I started to make sense of it to my own satisfaction. And low and behold, when I watched it again with my wife about a year ago (maybe ten years after first seeing it) I really enjoyed it. If you only take one thing away fro this blog, don't be a lazy movie-watcher. Challenge yourself with a Von Trier or a Truffaut film. Rent Blow-up or Calendar. Go to the cinema and take a chance on something you know nothing about. A movie does it's best work when it makes you think about something differently.

* "Thoughtful" is often synonymous in promoters' and reviewers' minds with "gentle". Both of these words should be taken out of the lexicon for these "professions" - words like this in a review scream, "I didn't bother sitting through the whole movie - or even showing up to the premiere - as I knew with my special reviewer's prescience just what it would be like - and yes I get paid far, far more than I deserve".