I saw The Brothers Bloom tonight–Rian Johnson’s new one, and though I think it probably isn’t as good as Brick, it pulls the same rabbit out of a different hat and I’m pretty floored by it. Here’s my notes toward an essay I think wants to come out of me.
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Do you know what Rian Johnson does? He scares you–and then he saves you. He makes you think he’s going to further destroy something you love and can no longer bear to see because it’s been so fucked with by everyone who’s ever dealt with it before–and he’s in your face about it. He has setups that make you groan–high schoolers talking noirish slang and playing detective? Jesus, who could get behind that Bugsy Malone bullshit? Even Howard Hawks and Bogie couldn’t translate the atmosphere of Chandler right, and now he’s going to set a noir among the Clearasil set? HOW FUCKING PRECIOUS. But he doesn’t wink at you while he’s playing with this fire, he doesn’t revel and bask in concept or mise-en-scene, he gets the motherfucker done. He pays it off. He keeps making the movie instead of pointing at how clever his movie is. Oh, concept and mise are there in spades, but they’re mcguffins, my friend, they’re there to keep you distracted (often by cringing at how close they’re coming to falling in on themselves) while Johnson punches the magic of story through your addled eye like the boltgun of catharsis. You’ve been entertained. You’ve felt betrayed but found that the movie was loyal after all. You’ve cared about blatantly artificial characters. You’ve regained some of your humanity, and some of your faith in it.
[1] Doesn’t spoil anything spoilerwise, I mean. There are a few places where Bloom’s similarities to the Ziskouverse don’t seem able to transcend the source–but I’ve got to watch it again, and you’ve got to watch it and then we’ll have that discussion at another time. Whatever failures and flaws the movie has, its totality is at least a good fight, and in my view, a triumphant one.
