The Neon Bible

I really admire the films that Terrence Davies made about growing up in British working class environment after World War II. They're brilliant works.

But this is horrifically off the mark.

The review of Davies' version of Edith Wharton's *House of Mirth* in the NY Times said that the movie was more like Charles Dickens than Edith Wharton. Which is exactly the criticism I had of this movie. These folks are not embodying American Southern farmers, they're acting like industrial working class people. I can understand and be sympathetic to the original story: my people, coming from South Carolina & Georgia, had lives very similar to the plot of this movie. Therefore, I could see where this could potentially be a very good film.

But nothing gets under my skin like an inability to see beyond one's own cultural bias...which is the major mistake of the director of this production. If you take the emotions, the gestures, the imagery of this film and put them in an industrial landscape, it would be an OK movie. But having people interact and react this way and have them being farmers in the Deep South is bogus, phony and w-a-y off the mark. If you want to see true southern Americana, skip this movie and see Elia Kazan's *Wild River* instead...

Loving the novel by John Kennedy Toole, I saw this adaptation with indulgence. First, for its beautiful crumbs reminding the lines of book. First, Gena Rowlands as Mae. Second, the atmosphere. Not the last, that America, dreamed using the images of Kennedy Toole, sustained by music and images by Terence Davies. Obvious, not the most faithfull adaptation but good seed for fair memorz, real subjective one.

Another film that caught me by surprise. I watched the Long Day Closes and was mostly bored by it. It felt to impressionistic for my taste that it did not really peaked my fancy when I watched it.

But after reading his fabulous Sight and Sound list choices, I decided to try another film of his once again -- in a more obscurer note, the Neon Bible. Adapted from the writer of the Confederates of Dunces, it tells the story of a troubled child in Nowhere, USA as he try to navigate his complicated family life, whilst intertwined with the South. Once her loving aunt decides to leave after a better opportunity arises, he reaches a rough decision that would change his life forever.

I was really shocked how much I love this film. It is just awe-inducing how well stylized it was and how the story just felt right even its much maligned fever pitch of a climax. I do not know, something about that climax worked for me. Its a clearly heightened depiction of growing up but I love how bizarre it was. It heightened the emotions of the film, which by then was pretty much subdued for most of the film. It also is an effective Americana (even though Davies is British) that works for its unabashed bluntness of how it depicts the South, grits and all.

Overall, a great film. [5/5]

Other reviewers have veered either for one star, or ten. I'm going down the middle; four.

It is dreamy, corny, beautifully set-staged, almost, but its subject matter isn't. It traipses along as if in a trance, we are either taken in by its beauty or it just passes by, languidly, slowly, and yes, boringly.

I can't remember if anyone swore. There was blood, otherwise what happened? People sang quite a lot, embarrassingly, at times, otherwise one contrived scene floated into the next. True, I've not read the book, so cannot compare.

I think it could work if perhaps if it was written by Harold Pinter and directed like a Dennis Potter - jet black, violent and maybe then, memorable.

As it is, it's soppy, attempting to be different, where being different is like being different in the school playground; it looks odd, that oddness showing up over any potential good and thus making the film simply not work.

The Neon Bible is the more obscure work by John Kennedy Toole (of Confederacy of Dunces fame). The book is a 1st person narrative of the main character's-David-10 or so most important memories of when he was growing up. I have read the book several times and think it is a wonderful book. I also think it wasn't particularly suited for cinema. This film more or less confirms that notion.

The resulting film is disjointed, episodic and because of how internalized David is the plotting is hard to fully grasp. I am not sure if the plot is understandable if you *haven't* read the book. The material is about the oppressive nature of small town life for different people-especially fire and brimstone religion-builds up anger and resentment that comes out in violence. That comes across in the film if you know you are looking for it. If you not I think much of the film will be esoteric.

I ultimately ended up liking the film on the level of the companion to the novel. It helps a lot that I rather like the book and there's not much different in the works. The cinematic qualities are fairly good-if a little TV production. The melancholy of the novel comes through loud and clear.

Overall I am glad this film exists but it could have been better.