Cinema
Americana
Peter Ackroyd
Repo Man (`18', selected cinemas)
This comes with the reputation of being a cult film, than which there is nothing more suspect. It also represents another European view of low life' in the United States — in this case it is written and directed by a Liverpudlian, Alex Cox --- and part of a series of such films which are generally praised for their oblique or sur- prising accounts of American life. It is often better for everyone concerned that European directors should stay and work in Europe, although it has to be said at once that this film may be the exception. For in fact Repo Man is even more oblique and surprising than usual; situated around Los Alamos and an Indian reserva- tion, it looks at first as if it might turn into another 'road movie' in which the high- ways of America are used for broad metaphysical effects. But the car at the centre of the film is hardly a car at all, since its trunk carries some form of nuclear heat which destroys all those who look towards it. It might be a parable; it might be science fiction; it might be an adventure; in fact it turns into a comedy.
But the comic intent does not disguise the fact that this nuclear burst on four wheels is a metaphor for an over-heated and over-bright America in which the young are in a constant state of over- excitement and the old in a permanent condition of rage. Here, for example, are a group of American punks who are slightly less colourful and more malevolent than the real thing. And since the director/ writer is an Englishman, it might fairly be assumed that a peculiarly English sensibil- ity (if that is the right word) has been grafted onto the American experience and the fact that these two elements do not Christopher Edwards is ill. quite correspond is reponsible for the odd, erratic and exaggerated nature of this film.
The oddness is not in doubt from the opening sequence and, even though it is soon pressed into the service of a consis- tently quirky and parodic style, it is able to combine surrealism and the picaresque, farce and realism, in equal measure. The repo man' of the title is one who repossesses cars — he is the bottom line of the American dream, from which vantage the country looks decidedly perverse where it is not downright ugly. The young hero (Played by Emilio Estevez) becomes a repo man' only to discover that both his colleagues and clients are junkies, eccen- tiles or homicidal maniacs. This may ex- Plain the general air of degradation which hangs over the film, and those expletives Which have offended some but which are really only carried around as part of the demotic paraphernalia. This is a film, then, which might easily degenerate into a seedy farce but always in the nick of time it is rescued from the jaws of f that fate by a script which is both Inventive and funny: 'Credit is a sacred trust,' one repo man explains, 'it's what a free society is founded on. Do you think they pay their bills in Russia?' The young hero eats out of a can labelled FOOD, while an ex-hippie talks with more than the usual amount of meretricious profundity: 'The more you drive,' he explains with a beatific expression, 'the less intelligent you are.' In fact the film might be seen, quite rightly, as a European parody of various American styles, ranging from the 'weirdos' who believe in cosmic consciousness to the macho' working class who believe in John Wayne. Each American habit is satirised, just as in turn the clichés of the convention- al American cinema are ridiculed by sleazy imitation.
Repo Man becomes even more frenetic as the plot incorporates increasingly out- rageous elements, but even the more taste- less moments are redeemed by some bril- liant photography, which turns the Amer- ican scene into the pastel colours of a daydream, and by acting which is always good and often inspired. Harry Dean Stanton, with a visage as leathery and as care-worn as that on a shrunken head, must take the honours here although Emilio Estevez gives a strikingly good Performance as the bemused young man standing at the wrong end of the American II/ay. It is an odd film, but it is always an Intriguing and generally a funny one.
Previous page
