Not just your average lovers-on-the-run picture

Yesterday, CineVerse took a trip through the Badlands...Terence Malick style. Here is a roundup of the major discussion points covered:

WHAT DID YOU FIND DIFFERENT, INTERESTING OR EVEN PUZZLING ABOUT THIS FILM, ESPECIALLY COMPARED TO OTHER “LOVERS ON THE RUN” TYPE MOVIES?

·       Despite the violent subject matter and context, and the cold-blooded nature of the killings depicted, the film doesn’t attempt to impart any moral message or make any moral judgements on the characters or their actions: it neither justifies nor condones nor condemns the lovers’ actions

·       The movie also doesn’t attempt to explain the reasons behind its characters’ dark, violent behaviors via backstory or psychological motivations

·       The two main criminal characters, unlike predecessors like Bonnie and Clyde, lack passion, affect, and motivation: they seem to be wandering and killing aimlessly and getting no joy or rewards out of their crimes; they are cold and emotionally detached

o   Likewise, this reserved, cold tone is reinforced in the movie’s directorial style: the camera sometimes keeps a healthy distance from the protagonists when you’d perhaps predict a close-up or reaction shot

o   The interior and exterior settings our main characters encounter are also often barren, lonely and desolate

o   This tone is also exemplified in the offbeat musical score: most films depicting violent crimes about to happen use suspenseful music to ratchet up the tension and evoke an emotional response in viewers; this film often doesn’t employ musical cues when you’d expect them, or when we do hear music, it’s sometimes unexpectedly romantic and light

·       The voiceover narration by Holly is strange: the monotone voice lacks emotion, and is spoken as if she’s reciting an article or boring school homework report; it’s also not very consistent or revealing in its details

·       Ironically, the more Kit and Holly distance themselves from civilization and society, and thus earn greater “freedom,” the more hollow that freedom seems to feel as they experience increasing loneliness and isolation

WHAT THEMES ARE EXPLORED IN THIS FILM? WHAT IS MALICK TRYING TO SAY?

·       Despite the lack of plot and character motivation/direction, there is an unnerving quality about Badlands that is probably intended to make audiences uncomfortable

·       The cold-blooded, remorseless and random acts of violence Kit and Holly perpetrate are meant to make us ask deeper existential questions about the nature of life and humanity

·       A major theme could be alienation: the isolation and loneliness that these 2 lovers feel, not only from the world they inhabit, but, ironically, from each other

·       Perhaps the message is that our world and the things we value are more fragile and finite than we believe them to be: the movie doesn’t try to paint the characters as inhuman monsters, although it easily could have

·       Malick may be suggesting that humans are products of their world and environment, and that the world shapes our experiences and humanity : if Kit and Holly’s world/environment is desolate, barren and harsh, that explains why they lack essential experience and humanity

·       Another theme suggested is abuse of nature: several animals are discarded or easily dismissed in the film—the dog, fish, and dead cow

·       Another theme is the illogical, contradictory nature of human beings: Kit tries to look like James Dean, but he’s not a rebelling against anything; he dreams of fitting in, but he cannot conform to society; he murders poor men, but allows a rich man to survive; he desires to pursue the American dream but is living the furthest from it; he appears incensed when the media paints him as a villain, but later capitalizes on his reputation and celebrity status. Kit also yearns for a return to some simpler, bygone time, when honesty, civility and respect were treasured; so instead of trying to be a counter-cultural anti-hero, he seems to be aiming for responsibility and conformity.

SEVERAL CHARACTERS IN BADLANDS ARE SHOWN LOOKING IN MIRRORS. WHAT IS THE POINT OF THESE SCENES?

·       Mirrors are often used as symbolic devices that allow characters to reflect upon their inner nature and give us clues as to how they look upon—or don’t see—themselves. In this film, mirrors are the tools by which the characters, as one critic put it, “reveal themselves as possessing or lacking self-knowledge, or being caught somewhere in between”

·       Interstingsly, despite his multiple chances to reflect upon himself and what he’s done, Kit refuses to do so; yet, Kit has 5 different mirror scenes, all of which portray him as a person detached from and lost within himself. In one scene, he even shoots at his own reflection, as if suggesting how truly unable he is to self-reflect, feel emotion, and acknowledge his true self; thus, he cannot attain self-knowledge

·       Holly, on the contrary, is a more self-reflective person who aims for self-knowledge, as evidenced in her two mirror scenes: she realizes, in the applying makeup scenes, that she can “mask her true self,” and she’s aware of this change; thus, she can self-reflect and attain knowledge from the act.

·       Cato, who is shot in the back by Kit, has a mirror scene prior to his death that seems to imply how senseless and pointless his death—and his life--is

DID THIS PICTURE REMIND YOU OF ANY OTHERS?

·       Bonnie and Clyde

·       True Romance

·       Gun Crazy

·       You Only Live Once

·       Persons in Hiding

·       They Live by Night

·       The Getaway

·       Thieves Like Us

·       The Sadist, Murder in the Heartland, and Natural Born Killers (all films inspired by the true-life Starkweather/Fugate mass murders upon which Badlands is also based)

·       Moonrise Kingdom