In my opinion, the world at large is increasingly null and void, in and of itself. We’re all going to die, be it from Avian bird flu, nuclear weapons, or some form of feisty, stormy air molecules.
We’re all going to die, but you knew that already, right? I myself have only 80 years to live, tops.
If humans can’t solve the political, social and environmental decline of the Earth, the least we can do is a little bit of self-healing through some good pieces of modern artistry. Who cares about politics and opinion and “society”? Let’s talk about art and culture and ways to make humans a little happier. In our constant process of life and death, here are a few nuggets of cinematic beauty to revel in along the way.
“La Mala Educacion”
You can guess a film is foreign when a quarter into the plot it turns out that the main character has been dead for years. And you know the film has been directed by Pedro Almodovar when that dead main character, as well as almost every other character in the film, is gay, transvestite, transsexual, or all three.
In “La Mala Educacion” (“Bad Education”), Spanish director Almodovar intertwines the past and the present to produce a story about (among other elements) homosexuality and molestation problems in religious school systems. An American movie on the same topic might utilize traditional ideas of good and bad and right and wrong, but Almodovar’s plot features the sexually abusing priest as an eventual love interest of the main character. The audience comes to sympathize with an intravenous drug user who delves into blackmail for the purpose of sexual reassignment surgery. In Almodovar’s world, love for money is still love, and exchanging murder for celebrity status becomes a method of healing fragmented families. If you’ve never seen beauty in how truly fucked up the world can be, “La Mala Educacion” is a good place to start.
“Dirty Filthy Love”
Ever wonder what that crazy old guy on the street corner with the long hair and nutty mannerisms might have looked like 20 years ago? “Dirty Filthy Love” follows the story of an obsessive compulsive man with Tourette’s syndrome as he tries to move on after a fallen marriage. Main character Mark experiences the emotional turmoil that any divorced man might, but for some reason everyone seems sharply critical of Mark’s mental mayhem over his ex-wife. Perhaps it’s because Mark barks at people on the street and can’t walk up a flight of stairs without retracing his path along certain steps.
“Dirty Filthy Love” provides Mark with a love interest who is a group therapy leader and can’t cope with odd numbers. If Charlotte finds herself in a restaurant booth with two other people, someone will have to leave. The plot seems slightly odd, yet fairly traditional.
It’s the images in “Dirty Filthy Love” that truly separate this movie from the usual squall of modern love stories. When Mark’s hair has grown matted and shoulder length, and Charlotte’s wig has been removed to uncover a now publicly compulsive hair puller, the two run hand in hand across the beach. The camera becomes unfocused, and a fuzzy silhouette of Charlotte and Mark against the shoreline eliminates the public eye from their love life. “Dirty Filthy Love” reminds audiences that the world will think you’re crazy no matter what; all you can do is tune them out and be happy to find companionship with a trichotillomaniac who can laugh at the fact that you growl at strangers.
“Mulholland Dr.”
The thing I love about David Lynch is that no amount of analysis can quite uncover exactly what this director’s movies mean. The unclear theme of “Mulholland Dr.” is matched only by the confusion in trying to follow the plot of “Mulholland Dr.” But the film is an entertaining and artistic masterpiece. Modern horror films cannot compete with the eerie cinematography of a dank theater house doused in deep red, blue and a woman singing in morose tones in Spanish.
“Mulholland Dr.” is not a scary movie in the traditional sense, but it is a murder mystery. Kind of. It’s also about becoming a celebrity. And same-sex love. And what it means to dream in the sense of hoping as well as being unconscious. “Mulholland Dr.” is about a lot of things, but more than that, it’s about sitting down and enjoying a film, then spending the next two weeks happily deciphering exactly what it was that you so enjoyed.

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