Random musings on mental landscapes

Grimsby Mariner asked about 'Sky Captain the World of Tomorrow' in the comments for the Art Deco post and it got me to thinking. I'm currently posting in a, less than serious, debate over at AD about a 'world without America' and in my current disrupted sleep rythmn, I laid awake for a long time this morning pondering such things. I also watched 'Dark City' before I went to sleep which helped focus my attention.

There seems to be a progression of films in my 'catalogue of favourites' that deal with the theme of the urban landscape forming, as it were, a distinct identity central to the narrative... Okay so this is nothing new. Art critics have long since identifed the urban landscape as a playground for the darker side of the human psyché, and there are countless examples to back this up. The primordial forest is another such aesthetic playground and forms a sort of ying to the urban yang.

For me, there is a direct line of associations in the media of cinema that seems to form a linear progression. (Yes I'm rambling because its 7 am and Freja has awoken me after only a few hours sleep). 'The Matrix' ripped off a lot of other works, but its 'Dark City' that seems to be the previous link in my mental chain. Before that it was 'The City of Lost Children', 'Bladerunner' and all the way back to 'Metropolis'. I'm sure I could fill in other films along the way if I tried hard enough, but the point is made already. All these films share the same characteristics of being tales of the imagination set in fantastic, dark city-scapes. Invariably the city is decaying. In other personal favourites, 'Logans Run', 'Mad Max', 'THX-1138', the city is either destroyed already or in the agony of dying. Urban decay is also the theme most obvious in my own photographic endeavours with rust and moss holding a particular fascination for me.

It could be nice if I could sum up all these random thoughts into a coherent point but in order to do that I'd have to have a deeper insight into the mechanics of my own mind than is currently the case (most of the time now-a-days the only thing I can think about is how fucking knackered I am!).

I used to think that I wanted the world to end. That my fascination with post apocolyptic iconography was an indication of my wish to see this world destroyed, for I have no particular love of this over crowded pop cultural world we live in today. Now however, as I muse all this and attempt to summarize said musings, it strikes me as being something more akin to an obscure love of self. That somehow, for some reason, I appreciate the decayed, rusty fragments and urban detritus, maybe even identify with them. That they, like my perception of self, represent a reality of life. The slow gradual aging that wears us away and forms who we are. The great dark city is a known metaphor for ourselves, gradually aging and growing strange, and with the undergrowth always gnawing at the edges. Vast and complex, but utterly doomed. Its a cheering thought I know, and appealling. Rust is like skin. The ever spreading crows feet that smile at us in the mirror.

'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' fails on so many levels its hard to know where to begin. Yes, its an homage to the Art Deco movement and its title (world of tomorrow) suggests that its creators are aware of their references, but it has none of the feel of the 1930's period for me. It feels like an experiment gone horribly wrong. 'Rocketeer' feels like the 1930's (at least more so than SCATWOT) because it has the faux realism thats missing from Sky Captain's world; the optimism.

Yes, I know, The film makers went for a film noir look but they failed to take into account that film noir is not simply cinema du look. In other words the ambience of film noir is not determined by the visuals. Shadows alone do not make for film noir, it requires good acting (and probably a half decent story). More than anything else though, it requires that little grain of reality that grounds it in to the human psyché. The strange little thing that makes fantasy credible. I don't know what that little thing is yet but I know SCATWOT doesn't have it.

I'd wonder what Terry Gilliam would have done with a concept like Sky Captain, except I don't have to because he's already done it in his own twisted way. Set in its own alternative 1930's, 'Brazil' is what Sky Captain ought to be. Dark and strange its not hard to watch with suspended disbelief. It has all the right elements of the unreal and mates them to the brooding cityscape as well. Best of all it has the sense of humour that is so painfully lacking from Sky Captain.

I think I made a point in all that. Now its time for the Snoos to go to day care and then I'm going back to bed! (Click the image if you want to see more of the same)