NATURAL BORN KILLERS
A film review by Christopher Kankel
Copyright 1994 Christopher Kankel
NATURAL BORN KILLERS is really a very simple story that, in essence, has already been told in BONNIE & CLYDE with some major variations in emphasis, mood and degree. Both films glamorize "outlaws," in one case bank robbers and killers and in the other mass murderers. Both relate the story of a couple liberated by love. But where BONNIE & CLYDE was partial and subtle, NATURAL BORN KILLERS is total and blatant. Where BONNIE & CLYDE was social, NATURAL BORN KILLERS is psychological. What BONNIE & CLYDE hinted at, NATURAL BORN KILLERS confronts and explores. What Bonnie and Clyde stole, Mickey and Mallory kill.
To examine NATURAL BORN KILLERS as nothing more than a psychological odyssey of realization and exposure of the frauds surrounding them, expressed metaphorically as killing, subdues the mysterious power this film wields. For the most part, when Mickey and Mallory kill, they kill all that frustrates them unnecessarily, they kill what is trying to kill them, they kill what dissembles and cowers from life, they kill what needs to be killed. This mythos is at least as old as the Hindu trinity. Brahma created. Vishnu preserved. And Siva destroyed, but he destroyed what needed to be destroyed to make way for the useful creations of Brahma. The following may be painfully mundane but metaphorically so accurate, I'm forced to say it for clarity's sake: a plumber must remove the old lead and copper pipes, that is, destroy the old plumbing system in order to replace it with the new one made of plastics. Your plumber, Bonnie and Clyde, Mickey and Mallory, and Siva are all productive destroyers.
I think you could say without much of a challenge that religion is responsible for more killing and death, presently and historically, than any other phenomena. Muslims kill Christians. Hindus kill Muslims. Christians kill pagans. Jews kill Christians, etc. You could reverse subject and predicate in each instance and still not be challenged. Religion is an orgy of killing. The institution of the State only misses first place for technical reasons like it hasn't been a major player for as long or the two are frequently indistinguishable. "The State is the divine idea upon earth," Hegel said, meaning it is absolute, all-powerful, ineffable, unassailable, infallible, authoritarian and patriarchal just like JHVH, Allah, God, etc.
Well, what does all this have to do with NATURAL BORN KILLERS? Let me first say that religions of this nature, in the ideal, take the place of sex. Consider the Catholic Church, which in its hey-dey, took religion as seriously as any other religion or institution ever. God takes the place of sex as manifested in all those vows of celibacy taken by the Pope, cardinals, bishops, monks, etc. They forego the one, in order to come closer to the other. During the Middle Ages, when this doctrine was unmitigated and unchallenged, the most repressive regime the West has ever known in terms of scope and magnitude rose to power. (Parenthetically, witness Plato as well. In the REPUBLIC, he attempted to launch the first systematic absolutist regime. Not coincidentally he was something of a mystic himself, regularly assailing the passions.) Catholicism, as policy, attacks the passions as evil. It sees intercourse only as a means to perpetuate the species not as a way to pleasure. Masturbation is considered a sin with the sacrament of penance necessary for absolution. This is religion, this is authoritarianism in its essence. As further evidence, the Nazis had the same attitudes as the Church on these matters. Our culture, most of the cultures of the world have been steeped in this tradition for thousands of years. We can't help but adopt, even internalize some of these same authoritarian attitudes, leading to a destructive split between the biological and social self.
Mickey and Mallory Knox internalized them, too, then through spontaneous sexual awareness sparked in each one of them by the presence of the other, discovered them, and began expurgating them from themselves and from the world in the process unifying themselves. It is a straightforward liberation through sex. As some good patriarch once observed, "you can maintain control as long as everyone keeps their clothes on." M&M had a vision of what the world would be like without contradictions. They saw what civilization and culture and everyday life would be like under such conditions. "The moment of realization is worth a thousand prayers," as Mickey says.
As a the most consistent and impassioned critic of Western culture there is Nietzsche applying his typical stridency to the matter: Let us look each other in the face. We are Hyberboreans--we know well enough how remote our place is. "Neither by land nor by water will you find the road to the Hyberboreans": even Pindar, in his day, knew that much about us. Beyond the North, beyond ice, beyond death--our life, our happiness.... We have discovered that happiness; we know the way; we got our knowledge of it from thousands of years in the labyrinth. Who else has found it?--The man of today?--"I don't know either the way out or the way in; I am whatever doesn't know either the way out or the way in"--so sighs the man of today.... This is the sort of modernity that made us ill--we sickened in lazy peace, cowardly compromise, the whole virtuous dirtiness of the modern Yea and Nay. This tolerance and largeur of the heart that "forgives" everything because it "understands" everything is a sirocco to us. Rather live amid the ice than among modern virtues and other such south-winds!
As far as I can tell, this is what the movie has to say. Its alleged critique of the media is only secondary, tertiary, quaternary, subsidiary for sure. For example Wayne Gayle's first report ends with some Gen X dude saying, "If I were a mass murderer I'd be Mickey and Mallory," in his most excellent Bill and Ted voice. On one level you cd make the humdrum observation that because the media had glamorized these two psychopaths that the uncritical, impressionable Gen X dumb guy confused the matter and took them for heroes. It seems more likely that he made an independent judgement at a subconscious level recognizing what M&M were up to and confessing that if he had the balls to be so honest with himself he'd be just like them, killing and destroying what deserves it.
Let me exemplify what I've been saying by analyzing a scene from the film, namely the scene where Mallory fucks the gas station attendant, kills him, and then castigates him for giving her "the worst fuckin' head I've ever had in my life!!!" Now, I never claimed that Mickey and Mallory had a perfect relationship, because demonstrably they didn't, and this scene and the ones leading up to it show us this. Sometimes they are the source of each others frustrations, but unwilling to kill each other, since they love each other so much and are responsible for each others liberation, they must kill in place of their lever. It's no secret that in this scene Mallory fantasized that her victim was Mickey. As the attendant approached he took on Mickey's character in the eyes of Mallory. She needed to kill him because of he kidnapped that girl in the hotel room and was having secret fantasies about her while making love to Mallory. Upon discovery, Mallory views this as a betrayal, judges him, and commutes his sentence on someone else.
The style of the movie is a whole 'nother matter that I won't get into very deeply but surely it is partially responsible for its power. Let me just say that its editing has the opposite effect of a Western with shots that linger forever on a salon entrance or the like suggesting the expansiveness, barreness and boredom of the frontier lifestyle. The rapid succession of all those 8mm, 16mm, 35mm images from various perspectives with a soundtrack sometimes in sync and sometimes out of sink instills a skittish, frenetic mood. Also, Jungian archetypes abound. These can't help but trigger deep psychological responses we can barely understand especially when they flash across the screen for barely a few frames.
Some of the best scenes and lines that come to mind.(quotes are paraphrased only):
Mickey to Mallory: "One of these days I'm gonna be cummin' for you," in prison, while Mallory jacks Mickey off. Semen is a symbol for great potential and things to come. At the time they haven't yet had sex nor have they killed anyone yet. The two of course go hand in hand. For an even more explicit semen scene see SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
Mickey during his marriage to Mallory: "As creator of my universe, I pronounce us man and wife." The way Woody delivers this line is truly haunting, but telling, too. It reveals M&M are well on their way to expunging all their destructive tendencies and replacing them with positive ones. This is what Mickey means by "creator of my universe," he is giving himself or creating for himself healthy attitudes. It is not necessarily a schizophrenic retreat into solipsism as it first appears.
Scagnetti's first meeting with Mallory is through her pubic hair he plucks from the gas station attendant's mouth.
The Indian Sage releasing Mallory's father, who was reincarnated as a snake: "Old man, go be a snake," after telling his "snake story" that ends with "Bitch, you knew I was a snake."
After Mickey shoots this sage to death during a bewildering nightmare, Mallory says, "You killed LIFE!!!" This is another telling quote because it implies they didn't see themselves as killers of life. Then what were they killing up to that time? In some case just those zombies faking their way through life, the living dead, as it were. In other cases, all the anti-life forces, the cops and their parents.
The butterfly just before the movie shifts into the prison. It of course symbolizes rebirth.
Dr. Emil Reingold, as portrayed by Steven Wright, passing judgement on M&M: "Mickey and Mallory know the difference between right and wrong, they just don't give a damn." This is reminiscent of Nietzsche's whole philosophy, and maybe a direct reference to his BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL.
Mickey: "The rabbit says the moment of realization is worth 1000 prayers."
Mickey (again in his interview): "Me and you, we are not the same species."
Notice when the escape is in progress we get some role reversals in terms of leadership and control. Mickey the prisoner becomes the leader of his little gang. The wardens become prisoners and the civilians like Wayne Gayle and his producer follow the leader, no matter who it is.
Mickey: How ya feelin'?
Wayne: Fucking Great!
Mickey: You got the feelin'?
Wayne: I'm alive. I'm alive for the first fuckin' time!
What an incredible transformation this is. He got the feeling and he couldn't contain himself. What a feeling. That feeling of metaphysical freedom that you can create your own universe.
Mickey when almost caught in a dead end, "Think, think, think, think." Go figure it out.
Dwight (Tommy Lee Jones) in general, because he may be the sickest fuck in the whole film. His whole attitude can be summed up with, "Destroy them!!!"
On a scale of 1 to 10 years hard time: 10
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