Dir. Thom Andersen, 2003, USA, 169 mins
Cast: Encke King (narrator) Apparently, LA is a derogatory term for the sprawling city on the West Coast of the United States that is the subject of this film. That last bit of the sentence was to help situate those who aren't familiar with Los Angeles, as it will now be called throughout this review. However, as it's one of the most famous cities in the world, forever linked to its most famous export - the movies - that's probably a very small minority of readers. This rambling documentary, part homage, part rant against the city's detractors, assumes a minimum level of knowledge on the part of most viewers, but a rather high level of interest. Dwelling heavily in the first part of the documentary on the city's use as a film location over the years, and its representation (or misrepresentation, as director Thom Andersen would have it) the film mixes shots of the civic architecture and famous landmarks with excerpts depicting, or shot in, Los Angeles. There are classic films like Bladerunner, but also obscure and straight-to-video numbers that few watching the film are likely to be familiar with - or indeed wish to be familiar with. Despite the opinion of the promotional literature, it's not a film for cinephiles; there are better films about the industry and its output. It's a film for Los Angeles-philes and those with a deep-seated interest in modernist architecture. For anyone else, it's a dense and bottom-numbing time, with Encke King's detached, drawling and rather soporific commentary not making it any easier to absorb. There are some interesting moments to pique the interest; the disdainful sequence where Thom Andersen comments that the famous "Walk of Fame" should be dubbed the "Walk of Shame" for its preference for those who named names at the McCarthy trials over their blacklisted peers, for instance, or the clips from the film's seventies namesake - a gay porn movie. The commentary is effectively the voice of Andersen in this part-personal, part-essayistic film. The clips, then, are largely presented as visual evidence of the verbal soundtrack and as such, it's quite dull. It's a film that speaks about passion but is crying out for some of that very same thing itself.
In the third section of the film - "The City as Subject" - Andersen explores iconic Los Angeles films; L.A. Confidential, Chinatown and, um, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He moves into an in-depth analysis of the city these films portray, linking their scandals with real-life ones that have shaped the city's history. These aren't just excerpts with a subtitle telling us the film and year. He really uses the films to shape his view of the city for us as the audience and its great documentary making - interesting, informative and witty. The sardonic comments about Chinatown's "subsidiary theme" - the difficulty of getting around Los Angeles without a set of wheels - is a treat. But coming as it does, two-thirds of the way into an almost three-hour film, it really is too little too late. It's a long three hours, so as a cinematic experience, it can only be for the truly dedicated. Kerry McLeod |
