The Rhetorical Impulse

 
What kind of a road film is this where there are no car-chases? Even though opportunities abounded in the plot to insert one or two, the director Paolo Sorrentino resisted the temptation, instead he subjects a perfectly good utility (that could have been used for a nail-biting car-chase sequence) to spontaneous ignition. This is only one of many pointless things Sorrentino puts in the film "This Must Be The Place". As well, the film raises perplexing questions; the first of which is how a man can make of film in a language that he does not speak nor comprehends fully. The answer to this might be that it is similar to how an Italian coaches an English football team. The more vexing questions are to do with the dramaturgy itself. The disengagement of character from plot, unrequited romantic interests, the unexplained sorrows, the mixing of genres, the detachment with the audience, the presence of David Byrne, the linearity of narrative, the non-sense of the holocaust connection, the lack of suspense; all of these go to make the film boring and confusing yet it has been a box office hit. My observation is that commercial coercion in the mass media is tending towards a convergence of fame and trivia.

Some stories are compelling and others are not. This one was not but it was well packaged and carefully publicised as if it were. The trailer was designed with certain cultural, if not ideological, identifications in mind. It said, "This is an interesting film because Sean Penn puts on make-up as he chases a war criminal." By the time I realise I've been tricked, I've given over the money at the box-office. It's too late. It was my choice but I was duped twice. The film is made attractively, in such a way as to make one feel uneasy about saying how it sucks. One is supposed to get something out of seeing a film like this. No? (Perhaps it's my fault for not being sensitive enough to appreciate it.) Bunkum! I was just ripped off by a bad film and yet because it's attractive visually, it's one of those that one can pretend to have enjoyed.

The rhetorical impulse, i.e. the wish to explain - so prevalent in today's overly politicised world, is absent in films by Francois Truffaut or Alfred Hitchcock. Their work draws you in completely into the story as if in a dream. There are no easy humour nor pointless one-liners, only parts that fit to make a story well told.