Out of all the implements of
death any character can have at their disposal, I think that the axe is perhaps
the least well-used (just hear me out).
Since this is one of those things that can be debated ad nauseum, and
since we’re not actually speaking (I know, my writing is so good that sometimes
it feels like we are, but we’re not), I’ll just give you some of my reasoning
on the matter. The axe is a cleaving
weapon. Aside from having a spear point
at the top end of the haft, the weapon can’t really be used for stabbing. Add to that the fact that, typically, an axe
(okay, maybe just a battleaxe) is not only heavy but top-heavy at that. Almost any blow that can be delivered with an
axe will usually be done by hauling off with both hands on the axe handle,
thus telegraphing your shot, so to
speak, and giving the user no free hand to block any incoming attack. Much like the three-section staff, the axe is
a weapon which must be mastered to be used effectively. Oh, sure, slashers have used axes to mount up
a nice body count, but rarely are they used with any true finesse. To my mind, only one fictional character
(beside Paul Bunyan, but he had other advantages, a giant blue bull
notwithstanding) has truly belonged with an axe in his hand, and that would be
Conan of Cimmeria, by Crom. Search your
conscience. You know I’m right on this
one.
Giovanni (Gary Graham) is a bit of a
spoiled prick. At dinner with his Senator
father-in-law (Joe Condon)
and apparently his entire extended family, Giovanni and the old man basically
tell each other how much they want each other dead. Giovanni sneaks off, ostensibly to get some
wine from the garage wine cellar but actually to bang his wife Elvira’s (Kimberly Baucum) sister Laticia
(Leigh Wood). Having picked up a black cat during all this
(read: foreshadowing), Giovanni is confronted by the Senator on his way back to
the dinner. Wielding an axe, the Senator
only succeeds in splitting the cat in twain (see?) and sending Giovanni through
a window, a shard of which Giovanni uses to stab and kill the Senator. Feeling suddenly unwelcome and wanting to
continue his journey of bald-faced debauchery, Giovanni takes off on his
motorcycle (and for the purposes of this review, I would suggest pronouncing it
“motor-sickle” in your head as you read this) and makes for the desert. There he picks up hitchhiking waitress Julie
(the late, great Sylvia Kristel),
and the pair travel around for the rest of the film.
To give you more of the “plot” of
Philippe Blot’s The Arrogant (aka Sylvia Kristel’s Desires) would only
wind up being an exercise in futility.
On that same note, if what I’ve written above entices you in any way to
see this film, you have my sincerest apologies.
This can best be described as an Art film, though it’s not very artfully
done. The plot is set up like a series
of vignettes punctuated by extended scenes (let’s call them diatribes) of
Giovanni and Julie having “deep” philosophical debates. In my opinion, Art films, like Science
Fiction films should give you its points, raise questions, and give the viewer
something on which to ponder. The
much-parodied dialogue style of this type of film is usually intentionally
oblique (“You impede me. I excrete you.”
– thank you to Saturday Night Live’s
“Sprockets” for that one). It is meant
to generate ideas, to engage the viewer and force (for lack of a better term)
an active thought process in order to digest the work (though sometimes the
intent is to confound, as well). This is
why Art films are so notoriously difficult to do well and why they are so easy
to parody. Blot’s film posits itself as
an Art film, so we expect a bit of pretension to go with his ideas.
Unfortunately, what we get is a
lot of pretension and some seriously self-serious dialogue that could be called
purple-nosed, since that is its style and placement. Witness:
“There is nothing worse than virtue and those who speak of it.” “You confuse rage with vengeance.” “I am my king! My master!
My fate and my god!” “I don’t
know anything about God, but you drive me into Hell.” The list goes on. It feels as if Blot took a few first year
college philosophy classes and tried to do his best at aping what he thought he
learned. His visual style is no
different. A black limo follows Giovanni
around, a symbol for his past following him as well as an angel of death biding
its time for the right moment. At one
point, Giovanni seduces a young woman (Teresa Gilmore),
and the scene is shot almost entirely from his perspective. The few cut-aways in the scene are almost
always of Giovanni’s eyes in extreme closeup, frozen in a lupine stare. The obvious meaning is not just of the
control of the male gaze but also that Giovanni is a wolf who takes what he
wants. All well and good, but the
mashing together of the closeups with the POV camera work draws attention to
itself and not in a good way. Rather
than permitting us to think about the film, Blot tells us what to think at
almost every turn while managing to remain befuddling. It is ham-fisted metaphoric filmmaking, and
it all amounts to a lecture being delivered to the audience, something which
most intelligent viewers will resist and resent (I’m not saying I’m
oh-so-smart, but how much do you enjoy receiving a talking-to?).
The Arrogant is also very much a religious film, and calling it
heavy-handed is like saying the McGuire Twins were kind of stocky. Regardless of your own personal views on
religion, it is blindingly obvious that Blot does believe in a higher power,
and he goes out of his way to pound the audience over the head with his views
on it. Giovanni is a bad man, but he is
also arrogant (hence the title) in thinking that he can continue to defy God without
consequence. He’s supposed to be an
anti-hero, but he actually comes off as being extremely unsavory. As a counterpoint (and the only way the film is
made even remotely palatable), Julie tries to convince Giovanni that he’s wrong
and headed for disaster. That she puts
up with Giovanni’s antics at all is mind-boggling, but more headache-inducing
is how their relationship ultimately resolves itself. The entire film is a series of encounters
with Giovanni basically being a massive douche and then challenging Julie to
prove that he’s wrong, when he does it himself.
On a moral rather than religious scale, any viewer can still recognize
that Giovanni does evil simply for the sake of evil, but he couches it as an
act of defiance toward God, as if that makes it okay. When the final “twist” is revealed, though,
it is not only conspicuously predictable but illogical by the film’s own
logic. Even an Art film needs to follow some
of the rules it establishes for itself (including the rule that “there are no
rules”). When it doesn’t, as it doesn’t
here, it reeks of laziness trying to disguise itself as avant-garde filmmaking,
and to my mind, that’s more offensive than any sinning our main character can
get up to.
MVT: The best thing about
this film is the desert setting. I love
films shot in the desert, and there’s so much that can be done with it,
visually and thematically. Blot does
manage to wring some nice images from the backdrop. Though outside of that and seeing a few
naked/semi-naked women, there’s really no reason anyone should ever watch this
film.
Make Or Break: The Break is
the philosophical debate scenes between Giovanni and Julie. These circular dialectics (wow, that’s giving
them a hell of a lot of credit) are over-emphasized in the film, and by about
the third one, they have not only made their point, but also worn out their
welcome, crapped on your favorite throw rug, and lit your aquarium on
fire. They are pure garbage, and that
they are the seeming center point of the film speaks volumes.
Score: 3/10