Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Southern Gothic/Psychedelic

Undertow (2004)
Seen: Saturday, April 12, 2008

Here is a review from Michael Wilmington that encapsulates many of my feelings about Undertow. Though I want to also mention the strange stylistic element director David Gordon Green used in this film, which was never in any of his previous movies: at the start there is a sequence where the film is treated to look like the negative, then colored with an LSD inspired color palate. So as the naturalistic setting of the story opens, suddenly it is jarred into a bright, artificial color swirl. I had no idea of what to make of it at the time, and I can't say I have any leads now either. It looked like something you'd maybe see on MTV, but (more) drug induced. For me, this is going to make for a curious comparison with his new movie opening next week (8/6/08), The Pineapple Express, which I anticipate will move us as far away from his naturalistic roots as possible.

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