Meta-Film and Heads Exploding

(Click image for trailer.)

Rubber (2011), by Quentin Dupieux                           Rating: 3/10

     Ah, indie films. How weird and unique you can be.

     I have said in previous post how I love to watch indie films for the most part, because it is in those films where most times one can see films that are significantly different from mainstream Hollywood films. It is in indie films where filmmakers feel more free to break the rules of films in order to show something different. In many ways, indie films are all about style. And in these and many other ways, Rubber is the best example. However, the exploitation of all of these concepts also mark the films demise.

     Allow me to explain. Rubber is fully and completely driven by its meta-film concept. That is to say when a film turns conscious of itself as a film, or a film about film. The best example in popular culture of this is the Scream franchise by Wes Craven. In Scream, the characters are for the most part conscious that they are in a horror movie, or at least they know they need to know and follow the rules of the genre to survive from the killer, Ghostface, all while talking and commenting in small talk and short dialogue about what a horror movie should be. In this way, the result is a horror movie director talking about what a horror movie should or should not be through his horror film.

(“What’s your favorite scary movie?”)

     If Rubber had pores, they would be conscious that they are tiny little holes on somebody’s skin that ooze sweat once in a while when that person exercises or it’s really hot outside. The plot revolves around a group of people who are watching a “film” happen before their eyes in the middle of the desert about a tire with free will and telekinetic powers and a very bad sense of humor and big urge to explode things, especially human heads and harmless animals, with its… mind? Anyways, that is all. It’s only 87 minutes long and it gets tiring in fifteen minutes into the movie, or less. But see, the movie does not have a point and that’s the point of it. The movie focuses on the “no reason” in the everyday life, and, most importantly, in the film industry. The film is a direct insult to Hollywood in the most explicit ways possible. There is nothing subtle about their commentaries on film against Hollywood standards and rules. Which is understandable, and it fits pretty well in the “no reason” concept.

     But the joke is on itself, because nothing about the movie really works. An absurd movie with the only purpose but to be absurd for the sake of an artistic commentary… I felt on an Andy Warhol exhibit, or maybe I was experiencing the resurrection of Marcel Duchamp.

(I present to you a work of art.)

The film is not terrifying, it is not funny, it is not fun to watch, it is extremely simplistic in its “complexity,” and to put it simply, it makes no sense to make a movie about not making sense because people do not want to see film to get bored or insulted. We want to see film that entertain us and/or that it is meaningful in one way or the other.

     The problem with this movie, and maybe what could blur the opinion of people on it, is that this movie is directed to a specific audience, and that audience is Hollywood. The problem is that they know that Hollywood is not going to like it at all, and they do not care, and they should care. If they want to break the rules and do something different, by all means do it, but you have to put some effort in it. You can still insult Hollywood and make a surreal film and make it weird and different and still manage to make a good movie, Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé, for example. Take any successful indie film director and study their movies. Most of them do meta-film all the time…

… like Quentin Tarantino, who, while overrated and a douche-bag is still a filmmaking genius. I mean, Inglorious Basterds was all about meta-film, using film as a weapon and breaking all kinds of filmmaking rules, including going against history itself suffocating Adolf Hitler with burning film and blowing his face with a hundred bullets.

     I can keep giving examples, but that will only be a continuous rant. So all I am going to add is that this film is not only extremely and unnecessarily conscious of itself ALL the time, it also intends to be conscious of what the audience is thinking while watching the film, which is honestly annoying and not funny at all in this case. And worst of all, it gives itself WAY too much credit. (Sighs.) 3/10.

     Until next time, This is Freddy Lizardz with Words on Film. Peace.

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