It's been a few weeks since I watched this, so you'll have to excuse any stumblings and fumblings. But I'm pretty sure it engraved itself fairly firmly on my memory. It is without doubt one of the worst so far, so why not start with it?
This is the story of Rick (Brad Pitt, not looking anything like he does on the cover, which seems to have been photographed years later) a young man battling an incurable skin disease. Apparently, if he's exposed to sunlight, his skin will big to crack and boil.
So, to avoid this, he lives his life in what at first appears to be some kind of gimp outfit, but turns out to be his defence system. This outfit is a full body leather suit, including complete facemask. I'm still not entirely sure how he breathes or sees, but that's a minor attrocity in the face of the rest of the film. One night, at a party, I say a party, seems to be a cheery aftermath to some unusual ritual which involved burning a giant effegy of someone unspecified, he meets a girl, a girl who happens to be tied up in an unhappy relationship. This allows for two sadly predictable scenes, one in which he is beaten to a bloody pulp to show how vulnerable he is after he's ditched the leather, and one in which his father shows up and floors the guy who decked him in the first place, showing both his father's turmoil and powerful love. These are two of the better scenes, quite frankly.
While at the party, Rick can pass in his leather because everyone's in fancy dress, but the girl tries to get him to take it off. Rick flees, but the following day decides he's not really been living, and so gets rid of the leather and goes in search of his girl, skin be damned. Unfortunately, she doesn't really catch on, and believes that Rick is actually a friend of the leather chappy, and so spends most of their time together whimpering about him instead. On hindsight, he could've worked this out better.
Early in the film, there are some truly shocking camera 'fails'. What was quite an important scene in setting up the father/son relationship, was shot from miles away, so that for the first 20 seconds you can hardly here what's going on, until presumably the sound guy caught on and utched himself in. Even then, what you're watching is a dark blot occupying half the screen, with occassional flashes of skin and leather to signify life. There are also several occassions where the camera is simply behind the times, staying behind on meaningless scenery, only then to look as if it's suddenly woken up and go hairing off after the rest of the scene.
I'm still not quite sure where this is set. If anyone could enlighten me, that'd be lovely. It just seems to be some dusty non-english speaking country. It's almost impossible to tell where. But every now and then the locals gather and cackle/sing/play jangly music, then disappear as quickly as they arrived.
Another scene that baffled me was the birthday party. Rick's mother is in some way seriously disabled, in that she can't really communicate, even less move. At first I was genuinely moved by the scene, she made her way to the edge of the stairs, peering down, wanting to be part of the festivities. But she stayed there. For so long. Far longer than was emotionally acceptable. I started to think they were building up to something. After several minutes, I genuinely thought she was about to throw herself off the landing. But nope, eventually the scene cut and the movie resumed, mother once more cast into the backdrop.
There's another woman in the film, some kind of maid, who seems to crop up every now and then to shout or look meaningful and strict. She might be my favourite bit, she atleast provided some relief from the sad glances and giggly "oh, maybe I should take my shirt off again" actions of Pitt. Oh yes, I should've mentioned. Once he's got rid of the leather, Brad is all too keen to strip down and show off his pasty body.
This goes on for a long time. The flexing of the muscles, the light family turmoil, the confusing imagined love triangle. After a while you start to wonder if he's ever going to die. Then, all of a sudden, a scar appears. Then, in next to no time, he's completely covered in red blotchy makeup and glue, looking quite horrible. There's another genuinely moving scene when he visits his mother for the last time, her blank lack of reaction actually slightly heart wrenching.
Suddenly, the girl (I think she was called Frances) realises, and comes rushing to the house, just in time to see him ride off into the sunset on his motorbike, presumably to die, but that's never really clarified. One final shot of a devastated girl, followed by a quite picturesque one of Pitt riding into the horizon, and I feel the flooding relief that at last, it's over.
But one final thought. The tagline for this film was "They needed a miracle for their love to survive." Now, I'm pretty sure it's not just me who, on reading this, assumes that a miracle will occur and their love will survive. That's generally how it goes. But no, their was no miracle, and their love died utterly and completely. Frankly, I'm disappointed.
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