NOWHERE

INTRODUCTION: Araki's follow up to "Totally F***ed Up" and "The Doom Generation" retains the weirdly twisted zeitgeist of its illustrious predecessors while suffering from none of the pretentious waffle that marrs this review, but you'll just have to excuse me, it's just the most existential movie I've seen in a long time.

SYNOPSIS: Follow the fragmented lives of Dark (Duval), Mel (True), Montgomery (Bexton), Lucifer (Robertson), Zero (Mayweather), Alyssa (Ladd), Egg (Lassez), Dingbat (Applegate), Kriss (Chiara Matroianni), Kozy (Debi Mazar), Cowboy (Guillermo Diaz), Bart (Jeremy Jordan), Handjob (Alan Boyce), Shad (Ryan Phillippe), Lilith (Heather Graham), Ducky (Scott Caan), Elvis (Thyme Lewis), and Zoe (Mena Suvari) as they engage in all variety of drugs, drink, sex and violence in the build up to Armageddon. Did I mention the alien (Roscoe)?

REVIEW: Araki's plot glosses over the traditional teen themes of suicide, rape, murder and God as it flips from life to life and back again while never loosing its subtext of alienation, hence the alien. What we have here is the rearguard of Generation X brought up with the realisation that Armageddon approaches and we are all doomed, and not a bunch of self obsessed valley kids, doing what teenagers have always done, i.e. looking for a good time, oh no.

A fresh young cast, lead by Keanu-a-like Duval and including Heather Graham ("Boogie Nights") and Applegate (TV's "Married: With Children"), put in angst-filled performances. They are supported by a dizzying array of stalwarts, including Beverly D'Angelo, David Leisure & John Ritter, and starlets, including Traci Lords, Shannen Doherty, Denise Richards & "Baywatch's" Jaason Simmons as himself in a truly stunning performance. Now personally I haven't seen "Baywatch" since the once weekly image of Erika Eleniak in a bikini got me through some difficult teen years, but I doubt this performance has done much to improve his image among its audience.

The film is distinguished by its pop video visuals, with imaginative reference to everything from the mis-en-scene to the set design, including the use of a Campbell's Soup Tin for a purpose even Warhol wouldn't have thought of.

After "Deconstructing Harry's" descent into Post-Structuralism I am pleased to find myself back on home ground with a movie concentrating on the themes of existentialism, delving as it does into the realms of angst, freedom, alienation, and the absurd. This movie owes a great deal to the founding fathers of existentialism from the Nietchzean nihilistic prophesy to the Kafkaesque absurdities of the plot, nowhere is this more obvious than in the final scene, a tip of the hat to "Metamorphosis".

The age old existentialist concept of alienation is of course the overwhelming theme of this drama, driven to rebel by a criminogenic society that requires deviants to justify its existence, the kids turn their revolutionary zeal, what Marx called praxis, into the standard avenues of drink, drugs and sex laid down for them by tradition since the 50's, leaving them in a state of practico-inert, where there praxis is subverted into maintaining indeed propping up the system they revolt against.

Their lifestyles of depression and excess is thus an example of Camus' sense of living in bad faith. The violence however is very much driven by Sartre's concept of scarcity, with Dark seeking nothing more than that increasingly rare commodity - true love, whether it's with Mel, Montgomery or indeed Kriss and Kozy doesn't really seem to matter. He just wants the love that will allow him to complete his Oedipal trajectory, and escape his domineering mother.

Shocking, thought-provoking and entertaining this film is everything that "Gummo" isn't.

Mutt's Rating: ****

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