Mister Lonely (2007)

Criticising Harmony Korine for failing to provide a "story," as at least one reviewer here does, is like complaining that Kurt Vonnegut didn't write soap operas. Perhaps these people ought to confine themselves to commenting on things they understand. While Mister Lonely is no Gummo (imho one of the greatest films ever made), it is enthralling. It is radically different from anything else Korine has done: full of whimsy and color, humor and peculiar optimism. It is a mark of his genius that he is able to pull off something so profoundly different from his earlier work. Yet it retains his signature. Casting Werner Herzog as the priest was particularly inspired.

Fmovies: Just got through watching this and had to comment on how wonderful it is. I am a big fan of Harmony Korine but if I hadn't known he had made this, I would have never guessed it was his film (I probably would have guessed John Sayles first).

So many amazing sequences in this film--the first Flying Nun sequence is unbelievable and I cannot get it out of my mind, brilliantly edited. The "Singing Egg" sequence almost had me crying and I don't normally get choked up. The stage show was also very poignant. And Werner Herzog's performance was pitch perfect.

I normally don't gush over movies, but Mister Lonely was so original, I need to gush. My one peccadillo? Not sure the title fits the movie.

(P.S. I hate critics and the ones on Rotten Tomatoes who called this a chore to sit through suck the most).

Harmony Korine returned to the cinematographic circuit after a 8-year long hiatus, no longer a prolific and controversial teenager, now evolved in style, subtlety, film language and self-conscience. Apparently inspired by his own failings in life Korine delves into the wacky world of celebrity impersonators - of people not satisfied with who they are and acquisitioning the personas of others in a search for betterment and happiness. Michael Jackson (Diego Luna of "Y Tu Mamá También" fame) does the moonwalk on the streets of London, dancing and acting his part in front of passerby's while the boom-box stays conspicuously silent. Upon a chance meeting with Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) he decide to join an impersonator community living off the land on a island near the Scottish coast. There amidst Charlie Chaplin, Abraham Lincoln, the Stooges, Madonna and James Dean he finds an idyllic bubble of happiness. The catalyst for the Utopian self-destruction comes in the form of a sheep disease, which forces the motley band to kill and burn their carcasses. With it burning the feeling of safety and detachment from worry.

"Mister Lonely" also features a second thread running parallel and seemingly unconnected with the main storyline. It tells the story of a group of nuns, who believe that through the power of faith they are able to fly. Their pilot - a catholic priest Father Umbrillo is adorably played by Werner Herzog, a adequate comrade in arms for Korine given the strong metaphysical essence of his work. Albeit seemingly disparate, the two interloping stories basically deal with the same issue of striving to become an ideal - through faith fulfilling the will of god or by imitating the semblance of perfection of the impersonated celebrity.

The theme chosen for his career reboot seems like very fortuitous and ripe for the picking by a avantgarde artist such as Corine. Dealing with a relatively abundant production budget Corine pulls no stops to deliver a visually perfect movie, proving beyond a doubt his immaculate taste for picture and music, seamlessly constructing beautiful albeit absurd imagery (Michael Jackson riding a mini bike to the song "Mister Lonely", flying nuns of BMXs or face-covered yoga training). Astounding vivid and mesmeric with a strong premise the overall artistic success is pretty obvious, especially in comparison the the raw predecessors. Albeit not entirely style over substance Corine fails to balance the ideas and images with a passable story. No longer a chaotic collage of relatively unconnected scenes ("Gummo"), structured around the island community "Mister Lonely" feels overly improvisational and uninspiring, as if guided by a belief that populating the movie with oddballs (in true Wes Anderson hollowness) and quirking up the ante will suffice to keep the audience intrigued for two hours. The characters themselves are uninspiring, once the novelty of their wackiness wears off becoming a group of doubly faceless individual (neither truly the personas they attempt to recreate nor fleshed out individuals behind the mask).

The grading for Corine is somewhat generous given my issues with his efforts, much owed to the admiration of topics touched as well as some utterly magnificent scenes. To some extent the flying-nuns storyline offers just compensation for the ramblings on in other sequences. A well toned, beautifully portrayed effort with a grim overtone, featuring an unbelievable entry scene, where Werner Herzog donned as a priest

Mister Lonely fmovies. Don't be put off by the man's reputation: the film is about dreams, the illusions our selves weave to tangle with things.

The first admission is that the film is the precursor to Trash and Spring but the vision is not refined yet. Contrary to various misconceptions, Korine is not a nihilist, about nothing, though he flirts with provocation. This has all manner of that, in its main thrust however it is about beauty and meaning as much as any Malick.

The provocation is as in his other works about the ways we consume culture, as biting as Godard in his time and at least here as superficial. The image always reflects your view of the thing pictured, so when you perceive superficial things to rail against it's going to be a superficial perception. Here an example is the segment in the retirement home with senile old people gawking at Michael Jackson, one of them tapping his head with a hammer.

Now about the thing that matters here.

The film is centered on people acting roles - in Trash they were pretending to be old people, in Spring it's even more subtle and deep. Here impersonators of cultural icons; Jackson, Marilyn, Chaplin. Among them, Abe Lincoln, Queen Elizabeth and the Pope so he can have opportunity to provoke later on; a Pope who stinks and so on.

So this is about people who are not content to be who they are, who have to adopt an image that lets them go out and do things, opening up a horizon of life as performance with the complexities of self more evident than just people on the street.

Part of the fun is to see the famous faces in all sorts of hijinks, the faces picked because they're so recognizable; Jackson, Marilyn, Chaplin, each one's demons as famous as their glamorous light. But more, it's an opportunity to conjure our preconceptions ahead of us, show the complexity of that image we know: where we expected the neurotic self, we find people doing things, happily drinking in a pond or playing pingpong, where we expected glamorous light, we find the same troubled souls as the rest of us, feeling small or neglected.

It falters for me in that Korine decided to have this play out in a separate stage, a castle in Scotland, removed from life. It is his way of hitting up against the problem: an inner life of dreams as the desire to be someone else, as an escape to a stage that has no life to gracefully perform for no one (seen as a performance they stage for an audience of three people), so in the end when Jackson sheds the artificial self and returns to the world an ordinary guy, we see that it's this world and your own self that has to be lived. (Korine must have realized that if it is to pose a real question, the stage of dreams has to be seen around us, accessible; ordinary middle America in Trash, the this-worldly illusion of Florida.)

So a mild failure from this view, but with hindsight a necessary one to move beyond it. The gamble is to not be stuck grooming a view.

There's a great image here where we see the man cultivate the intuitive reach. In a separate subplot Herzog packs nuns in a plane to fly over the tropics and drop parcels of food, a nun finds herself airborne; the ecstatic rush of sky, the apprehension of god as the swirl of the whole horizon, everywhere light and air.

A mask can be a disguise or an aspiration. An instrument of ritual. An imitation of greater hopes, that we might become more like our image. Magical, incantatory. The earliest theory of art itself, as Susan Sontag has pointed out, is one of mimesis, an imitation of reality (or 'a reality').

Who doesn't know that feeling, after putting on a new suit and tie, or perfecting one's make-up. Feeling like a new person. Going out to face the world with refreshed persona. Thomas Carlyle, that great Scottish author of Heroes and Superheroes, champion of the value of role models, suggested that, "A man lives by believing something." By believing in something we can become more than what we are, or become a different type of person. Or we can simply find ourselves out of place, wearing a suit that doesn't fit. Pretending to be someone we're not.

Mister Lonely has two main threads. There is Diego Luna – best known for his great performance in Y Tu Mamá También – who is a Michael Jackson impersonator and hangs out with other impersonators. Then there is Werner Herzog – best known for his work behind the camera – who leads a troupe of nuns in Africa. The impersonators stay in character 24 hrs a day. They include Samantha Morton as Marilyn Monroe (in an awesome dress by celebrated fashion designer agnès b.) and other people impersonating the likes of Charlie Chaplin, James Dean and Abe Lincoln (we never learn the characters' real names).

If you haven't twigged the connection, perhaps you are familiar with some devout Christians who ask themselves, in a difficult situation, "What would Jesus do?" That maybe works better as a role model in determining a moral dilemma than it would, say, if the answer might involve walking on water. And while impersonators might do well in street theatre, how excited would you be to see the 'Greatest Show on Earth' that starred not Michael, Charlie or HM the Queen but . . . impersonators? I can't tell you more about the story without giving away the ending, which again points up the similarity of inspiration and obsession in both narratives but, if you are a lover of quirky cinema, Mister Lonely might well be for you.

Mister Lonely has quirky written all over it. It is directed by Harmony Korine, who won awards for his Dogme95 feature, Julien Donkey-Boy, and for his screenplay for Larry Clark's Kids. Korine once tried to make a film by engaging random people in actual street fights - until he was hospitalised. Something to do with being prepared to die for his art. He seems interested in mental illness, dysfunctional childhoods, symbolism, and an innovative approached to film. Hopefully that will put off people who don't like films like that. Indeed, Mister Lonely can easily be read as disconnected and insubstantial if you like more solid fare.

Mister Lonely is deeply original, strange and yet accessible. There are points of touching emotion – in an old people's home, for instance, as Michael and Marilyn evoke unfeigned warmth from what are most probably non-actors. Then there is the threefold face – the actor, the character and the impersonation – and we search for the glimmers of sadness or the 'real person' behind the manufactured facade. As they strive never to act in any way other than their alter-egos, it forms a tender bond with the audience when their feelings become apparent.

I particularly enjoyed Samantha Morton's performance. I had never been a big fan of her

Mister Lonely (2008) ****

Well, it's been 8 years since Harmony Korine made a film. The last time we saw him was in Julien Donkey-Boy, before that Gummo. Both those movies passed through eyes of which the majority had no understanding. Roger Ebert, in his review of Julien Donkey Boy, referred to Korine as on a list with such names as Herzog, Cassevetes, Tarkovsky, Brakhage, Godard, etc. The reason: because he smashed the boundaries of how a conventional filmmaker would have told such tales. He also pointed out the near death of the underground film scene. There once was a time when if you were a film buff, you sought out films like these, and sat willfully in old one screen cinemas. And you were not alone: It's hard to believe now, but yes people lined up around street corners to see the Godard's or Tarkovsky's. Now those lineups are reserved for the likes of Pirates of the Caribbean and Spiderman.

That kind of film buff is now a rare breed. We exist, and gleefully buy our tickets and run to the theatres, but we're no longer shoulder to shoulder or lined up around the corner. Take as an anecdote a few trips made to my local film festival. I saw a Bela Tarr film, and in my idealism rushed to get there early so i could get a seat. Though later I realized that the auditorium was only maybe half full, at best, in one of the smallest auditoriums in the city. When I first saw Mister Lonely, it was of course the same.

But I digress. The point? Mister Lonely, like Korine's two previous directorial outings, dare to be different, dare to be bold, and so are destined to go unappreciated. Even Ebert, who praised Julien Donkey-Boy only gave the film 2 stars - though he did wish he could give a 2 star positive review. The problem with making a film like Mister Lonely is that its so odd that everyone gets caught up on the oddity. A common gripe: "sure its original, but what's the point?" Mister Lonely, written by Korine and his brother Avi, sets its sights on the world of celebrity impersonators. Mainly are Michael Jackson (Luna) and Marilyn Monroe (Morton). He meets her while working a bizarre gig at an old folks home, as they sit half amused, half catatonic. She invites him back to her commune in the highlands of Scotland, inhabited by their kind: Abe Lincoln, James Dean, Madonna, the Queen, the Pope, Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Stooges, and Charlie Chaplin and Shirley Temple, who are her husband and daughter, respectively of course. They live in their own world. The only thing that ties them to the real world is a flock of sheep. To them, their world seems as perfect as they want it to be, for they are the truest souls of all as they cloak themselves in the lives and manners of others. Or so that is their claim. To showcase their talents and philosophy, they build a theatre where they will put on shows for themselves, and the townsfolk.

Although their is light heartedness and tender sweetness, something else seems to be sinister. Charlie Chaplin is an egomaniac, and emotionally abusive towards his wife, Marylin Monroe. To everyone else he is courteous and, well, Chaplin-esquire. She tells him that sometimes he looks more like Hitler than Chaplin.

Though the film retains its tenderness, its big shift comes with the slaughter of sheep. They are infected, and even the living must be killed. All gather round as Larry, Curly and Moe pull the triggers of double barrel shotguns. In a way, their fantasy reality is not so much shattered, but breached.

Punctu