The Secret Lives of People We Know: July 2011

CREEPY-CORE: noun. 1. a film genre that scares you by dragging you to the precipice of your value system and forces you look over the edge. 2. a film genre with extreme and/or disturbing internal conflict that's plot is driven by characters' unpredictability.

I had never seen a Wim Wenders film before. I didn't even know that "Paris, Texas" was a Wim Wenders film. I decided to watch "Paris, Texas" on the recommendation of Sam Mendes in a book he contributed to about directors' first films.

"Paris, Texas" worried me a little. It started out like all the creepy-core films that I have been watching. Haha I invented the creepy-core genre after I started seeing a group of films that spoke to my sensibilities... the type of storytelling that I am drawn to and I feel capable of. The filmmakers and films in this group that I have seen so far are:

Wim Wenders // Paris, Texas

David Cronenberg // Dead Ringers

Peter Weir // Picnic at Hanging Rock

Jane Campion // Sweetie, The Piano

Ang Lee // The Ice Storm

Lars Van Trier // Breaking the Waves

David Lynch // Blue Velvet, Muholland Drive, Twin Peaks

Roman Polanski // Bitter Moon

Darren Aronofsky // Requiem for a Dream

P.T. Anderson // Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood

Stanley Kubrick // Clockwork Orange, Eye Wide Shut

Peter Bogdanovich // The Last Picture Show

Creepy-core, to me, are films that give the watcher a similar and creeped-out emotional experience... but, they also tend to have heart, which allows you to forgive some of the harder to swallow imagery or themes. In that way, they tend to feel real and in touch. Creepy-core usually deal with high internal stakes and characters doing mysterious things because of them. People drive the story by being unpredictable, irrational ... and.... creepy. Plot lines border on dark or disturbing themes, yet through the disgusting or unnerving situations... real goodness and truth are revealed. Characters eventually end up discovering true good.. but whether or not they choose it or change at all depends on the film and director's point of view.

In "Paris, Texas".. I felt this crushing worry.. anxious questions of what Wim Wender's point of view would be...... (maybe it was the writers' opinions.) The warm colors of the desert were juxtaposed with the sickly colors of interiors. A man's mysterious reappearance to a family he hardly recognizes. A son that doesn't really remember him.

The main character, Travis, is constantly mentioning a chunk of land he bought in Paris..... Paris, Texas. The place his parents met.. the place he believes he was conceived.

The running joke is: his parents met in Paris.. and everyone assumes that its Paris, France.

This sort of theme has been bothering me. I know that there is something deeper meant by the association of that idea and the human characters' misinterpretations of each other.

In the end, Wim Wenders "cuts to the chase" so to speak. The film doesn't spend anytime dramatizing the broken story of where each person went astray. It seems the equivalent to discarding his soap box. Instead the characters aren't delusional about their pasts. They seem well aware that they were and still may be messed up people to do what they have done. Wim Wenders challenges my prejudice and judgement of people by showing me how nothing can be generalized and that individual redemption and love are usually found in a certain way, but not always. If a journey results in a certain kind of person and a certain kind of understanding, then goodness... the type of goodness that is honest, real, dirty.. but invaluable, can be found there.

Another thing I learned is... as a director, it doesn't really matter how visually stunning your film is. Well, THAT is a generalization haha. But really... it doesn't. Because you can have the most beautiful film in the world and if is unable to communicate a story in any sort of unique way.. then it is dead. As Robert McKee says:

SO TRUE!

how many films I have seen so close, spot on... or TOTALLY missing the mark.

You can dis creepy-core films:

--> if your taste is for more friendly and happy content

--> if you think creepy-core is slow and not blockbuster-y

--> if they seems mean spirited, cruel or uncomfortable.

But the thing buried in the creepy-core films that intrigues and speaks to me is this.

I have seen many bigger, accepted films that have all those aspects:

disturbing

slow

mean spirited

scary

uncomfortable

dark

And they end up being utterly horrific. The gore was there for the sake of shock value. The plot line drug you in the dirt for shock value. It you reacted scared or creeped you out because that was the only point. These films are laborious to watch and out of touch, with a complete lack of "true-ness" even if entertaining.

But these creepy-core films have what seems to be the ingredients of such a dish and yet have heart.. seem rich... feel real... tell me something true, and (dare I say) are sometimes spiritually uplifting! They aren't trying to be good but they reveal goodness anyway.

They truly are good, they just force you to see good in a different way. The director's POV is so invaluably strong that the film drags you, kicking and screaming, to look through a new window on life and to have to question your own.

That is why they are creepy... and scary to most of us who cling to our self-righteousness generalized perspective. (A perspective that tames our insecurities and makes us feel safe and warm about ourselves.)

Will you, can you be the same person afterward?

Can you maintain your prejudicial and pompous portions of belief on right and wrong?

God forbid your thoughts step out of your comfort zone!!

These films have been, for me, a vulnerable and valuable exercises in doubt!

Not to devalue or smash how you approach life but to

test it

enrich it

and sometimes give it even more value than before.

..........and to discover, vicariously (without having to stake your own soul haha), glimpses of the truest and most honest markers and applications of goodness.

Instead of the book learned ones.

That is what I can't get over. amazing...