What is the dynamic between fantasy and reality? Can it really be consistently broken down into moral or psychological ideas of escapism versus responsibility? Perhaps its more complicated, and messier, than that, so maybe it's appropriate that 1992's Cool World is such a messy film. A story about intercourse (in more ways than one) between a cartoon world and a live action world, it at least has a captivating, authentic artistic voice from director Ralph Bakshi. The art design is a fascinatingly grotesque phantasmagoria and the performances aren't really bad. A lot of the live action footage feels like test footage, though, and, especially in the middle portion of the film, there's a sense of too many cooks invading the kitchen. The story becomes almost incoherent, a side effect being that the villain played by a very young Brad Pitt becomes far more interesting than the hero.
The movie starts out following his character, Frank Harris, in 1945, returning from World War II and surprising his mother with a new motorcycle.
I really like this opening. The fact that he expects his mother to be excited about a shiny red motorcycle seems like a credible misread of his own instincts for a young man: he thinks motorcycles are cool, so of course his mom will, too.
There's an accident and he winds up in "Cool World", an animated alternate reality. Nearly fifty years later, we see he's become a cop.
Cool World is populated by random, ridiculous cartoon antics, bombshell babes, and demonaic buildings. It's a pretty competently designed Hell of stimulation, especially since all the titillation comes with a rule against consummation. This bugs Holli Would (Kim Basinger), the queen bee of the bombshells, who really wants to be real.
She soliloquises about it, talking about how "noids"--live action people--are able to have physical sensations, implying she can't. She wants to have sex and sex operates both as surface and symbol--she wants the intimacy which fantasy creatures like her are designed to be compensations for the lack of.
Gabriel Byrne plays Jack and it's with his character that the film really shows its shortcomings. He's a cartoonist who thinks he created Holli Would--he has a popular comic series about her. We meet him in prison, where he's drawing her to mentally escape his isolation. We learn later he was imprisoned for killing his wife but we never learn if he actually did it or why he was released from prison. It feels like there are quite a few scenes about Jack just missing, particularly in the middle of the film where he and Holli have sex, resulting in her becoming a noid.
Wikipedia says Kim Basinger tried to take control of the film to make it more kid friendly, which would explain why the first outfit she wears as live action Holli looks like it belongs on a kid's show. She goes through four rapid, inexplicable costume changes when she and Jack are transported to Earth, which I suspect were the product of behind the scenes arguments.
She veers from toddler amusement park guide to tramp before finally settling on something like the animated Holli's outfit she ought to have been wearing from the beginning.
All the same, I don't think Basinger gives a bad performance. Holli idolises Marilyn Monroe and Basinger does a pretty credible reproduction of Monroe's mannerisms. Her motives are really intriguing, too, as one wonders what exactly her pursuit of reality means to her. By the end, she's pursuing something like an ultimate power source, but maybe this is the best way her cartoon mind can interrupt her own needs. There's something truly tragic about it. Meanwhile, Brad Pitt's character inhabits the same world as though it's an extension of the psychological trauma from his mother's death. It's subtle and surprisingly effective.
It's a shame the eyelines so infrequently match up--Bakshi didn't have the resources Roger Rabbit had. But I certainly can't fault the design.
Cool World is available on Amazon Prime.
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An eater's journey back surprised the dreams.
We gathered green in laser leaves and tea,
Constructing craven beasts with only seams,
Demoting lazy wasps to rank of bee.
The drawing kept the pens embarrassed right.
The dancing dropped a man behind a book.
The wolves were slowly grooving 'bout the night.
The music made was all about a hook.
A fire kept a building cold for life.
The vision green and grey became a tale.
A thousand marks were left behind the knife.
Should Mack decide a shark would pay his bail.
Another world was piled over brick.
The sky was red and black and faintly sick.
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