8mm takes "noir" literally
8mm A Film Review By Michael Redman Copyright 1999 By Michael Redman
*** (Out of ****)
People do weird stuff. This is one of the few indisputable facts about human beings.
Your electrician builds altars to small furry woodland animals. Your son's teacher dresses in an outlandish costume and screams with a frantic rock and roll band. Your waiter is preparing for the end of civilization. No matter where you are, some of your neighbors are involved in practices most people would consider bizarre if they only knew about them.
And so, probably, are you.
Most of these are harmless. Some are even beneficial. But then, there's that rich industrialist on the other side of town who's making snuff films.
Private investigator Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage) runs into that situation when a wealthy just-widowed woman hires him. She's found a reel of film in her husband's secret safe that seemingly depicts the actual killing of a young girl. She wants to know if it's real and what it's doing there.
This begins Tom's journey into the seamy world of hard-core fetish porn. He hires Max California (Joaquin Phoenix), an adult bookstore clerk who reads Norman Mailer hidden behind an X-rated novel, as a guide through the strange land.
Snuff films are the urban legend of pornography. Extreme S&M movies, they end with the authentic death of one of the participants. Rumored to exist for decades, not a single genuine example has ever been found. The one Tom is investigating appears to be the real McCoy.
Each stop on the tour of the grotesque takes him one step closer to the producers of the depravity. And one step closer to total obsession with avenging the girl he's never met. Even after learning of the extreme danger he's in, he can't give up the case.
Director Joel Schumacher takes the term "noir" literally. Not only is this a very gloomy story, it's an extremely dark screen. The predominate color in every scene is black. At times the dimly lighted film resembles the garish grainy film stock of its title.
Although his life with his wife and infant daughter presumably illustrate Tom's "normal" side, you wouldn't be surprised to find Hannibal Lecter behind the bedroom door. Like the rest of the film, even Tom calmly raking leaves in his front yard feels creepy.
His supposedly loving relationship with his wife is an odd one. He limps in bleeding from a head wound, having narrowly escaped being murdered, and her first reaction is "How can you treat me like this?" If his home life is Tom's reason to live, it's no wonder he spends most of his time at work.
The highly stylized episodes searching for the killers fare better. When Tom and Max voyage into the underground basement flea market of vendors selling "Way beyond XXX" wares, the scenes could have come from Fellini's "Satyricon". There's so much going on that it's difficult to take it all in.
When the investigator finally tracks down the director of the film in a decrepit warehouse, the images are some of the most disturbing since "Blue Velvet". This is not a "feel-good" movie. It may even define the tiny genre of "anti-date film".
As well-crafted as the visuals are, the film has some problems. Tom's character isn't very defined and some of his actions seem out of place. For some reason, there are two different times where the suspense depends upon him straining to get to a gun out of reach.
Cage is well-casted as the placid detective with obsession just below the surface. He has a reputation for playing offbeat characters and can add Tom to the list. It's certainly not one of his more recent action hero roles.
Phoenix adds a needed comedic touch to a film that otherwise might have drowned in its own bleakness. James Gandolfini and Peter Stormare are stand-outs as the vile but fascinating smut producers. Watching them is like driving by the proverbial car wreck.
I don't think I'll ever want to see this film again. It's an ugly depressing movie that makes you feel like taking a long shower to wash off the scum. It is worth a viewing if you want to deal with it. Sometimes art isn't pretty.
(Michael Redman has written this column for two and three-tenths decades. He took two showers and slept with the light on. Email your secret activities to Redman@indepen.com.)
[This appeared in the 3/4/99 "Bloomington Independent, Bloomington, Indiana. Michael Redman can be contacted at Redman@indepen.com]
-- mailto:redman@indepen.com This week's film review: http://www.indepen.com/ Film reviews archive: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Michael%20Redman Y2K articles: http://www.indepen.com/
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