JOE, David Gordon Green 2013
Melodramatic, homoerotic s/m soul porn
It´s not that I had problems with pathetic productions. I find life, its emotions, mysteries and strokes of fate, pathetic itself. But here it´s formed (and performed) in an obstructive manner. It feels like the film pushes, almost forces you to feel pity for those poor poor asshole-fuckers and their so so human evil weaknesses, even though it kind of masks itself with an I-don´t-need-your-sympathy attitude by putting this meditation on anger so long suppressed until it breaks out in extremely violent behavior (real violence, not Kung Fu or Tarantino-violence) in an fucked up low class Southern environment where neither intelligence nor the internet exist. I don´t like that attitude, it stinks, its snobby, fake authenticity I can´t believe. Nic Cage is Nic Cage and not Joe, the awful electronica-soundtrack belongs to fancy uptown cocaine lounges and not it that no man´s land depicted on screen. Hell no, what the filmmakers really giving you is some melodramatic and homoerotic s/m-soul porn. You see men hitting tress, men hitting another men, men getting hurt and having really beautiful wounds, men seeking revence, men screaming and crying, old men-young men and real father — symbolic father-relationships, men smiling at other men, men teaching men how to be men like them, men´s asses and men with guns, men trying to drink their pain away and so on and so forth. The only women in this world are prostitutes in general, a prostitute loving a about stumbled by men-stuff Nic Cage who just isn´t interested in having dinner with her and holding the door open for her (why not? she´s pretty, she´s nice, she´s got black Uma Thurman-Pulp Fiction-style hair, her voice is sexy, and she seems to love him very much) in particular, a powerless drunken mother and a little girl who you one day decided to stop talking for no apparent reason (very understandable when you´re living in such a shit hole). At least there are two dogs — a barking and a killing one — and some great shots inspired by great American 20s Century documentary photography, too. Still not my cup of tea. Not at all. I drink coffee.
