skybridge

tom.slacker.rodeo · @tom.slacker.rodeo@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Storytelling 8/10

By now, we should know that Todd Solondz possesses a sense of humor that views much of humanity as an absurd joke, and he does not fail to extend this view toward the art of storytelling in <i>Storytelling</i>. This movie is, however, incomplete. It was originally comprised of three parts, but was cut down to only the two we see here, Fiction and Non-Fiction. In Fiction, we see a young woman who experiences a traumatic event, and decides to use it in her writing, hoping to expose some of the cruelty of the world. Instead, the critical reception of her story winds up highlighting some inconvenient aspects about herself, and exposes the cruelty of the world in a completely different way. An allegory for how "writing what you know" can expose more than you intended about yourself, no doubt. In Non-fiction, we see a documentarian who, while flailing for a subject, latches on to a teenage boy and his family. Instead of exploring "youth life post-Columbine" as promised, he winds up making a film that satirizes his life, while not actually capturing the actual horrifying things happening in his family. The film is a hit, but fails its subject completely. Given these two insane and electrifying portrayals of the creative process, I am dying to know how he handled the cut third act, Autobiography. You can, of course, find online descriptions of some of the more salacious scenes that were in the third act, but we still don't know what Solondz intended for it to say about the autobiographical process. It's a shame its missing, because the second act ends so abruptly, with no real coda for the film. All-in-all, the experience of watching this film is pure Solondz, which is to say, unpredictable and gripping. I can truly never tell what is going to happen next in his films, and that is a rare quality these days. Not always a pleasant experience, but it did capture my attention and had me thinking about it for days afterward.

#profile #movie

Published 2025-04-09 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere