One of the things that writer-director Todd Haynes tries to do in POISON has been done before and seldom, if ever, has it worked. The most infamous example is perhaps D.W. Griffith's intolerable INTOLERANCE, a 1916 silent film epic featuring four revolving stories, each from a different period in time, interlaced so that they keep interrupting each other. INTOLERANCE is seldom praised for its quality but more often remembered for the boldness of its effort and the critical and box office failure of its end results.
In POISON, Haynes apes Griffith's foolhardiness as he tries to tell three stories (subtitled "Hero," "Horror" and "Homo") and he tries to tell them simultaneously, despite the fact the stories have nothing in common as far as narrative, style or point. Haynes tells his tales in tiny bite-sized chunks of scenes, cutting from one to another to another in an endless rotation. The result is less like powerful film-making than it is like trying to watch TV with the scan button on the channel changer hopelessly stuck. It is an insipid gimmick trying desperately to prove itself as innovative film-making.
As such, POISON is more annoying than shocking, despite the material's obvious attempts to be controversial. Furthermore, the three stories themselves suffer, as none of them can gather momentum or maintain coherency or consistency. And certainly these stories could have used all the help they could get.
"Hero" is a story of domestic violence; told in retrospect, it is largely a series of talking-head interviews discussing the circumstances that led up to a 7-year-old boy killing his father, before jumping out a window and literally flying away. According to the boy's mother (who is the only witness, but should be the only suspect), she gave birth to an angel who came to rescue her from an abusive husband. It is told in the dour, deadpan style of a mock documentary, not unlike Woody Allen's TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, though it's not nearly as cleverly done. If the subject matter wasn't so grim, it could be assumed the film is a comedy. As is, it has a joyless goofiness to it that doesn't really make any sense. At best, the story is a weird idea that's barely been given a chance to be anything else.
"Horror" is equally grim and joyless, even as it appears to be a parody of old black-and-white horror movies. A young and idealistic scientist is studying the biological secrets of sexuality and accidentally becomes infected with a virus that turns him into some sort of sexually contagious leper. The story wants to be a parable about the AIDS epidemic, I suppose; but Haynes' attempts at creating an analogy between science fiction and medical tragedy is undercut by his self-conscious awareness of old movies. His film-making technique strives to replicate the socially conscious "B" thrillers of the 1950's, like THE FLY or THEM, but the end result comes closer to the sincere, yet ludicrous D-level films of Edward Wood, only without the clumsy campiness that make them at least funny-bad.
With "Homo," Haynes is playing closer to home and makes no obvious attempt to recreate an old movie genre, but that doesn't mean that this tale works any better. It deals with two inmates in a French prison who are reunited, having also been in juvenile detention as well. The story hints at it being a love story, but in the end it is about rape, humiliation and domination. Though POISON is considered a groundbreaking work in gay cinema, this vision of homosexuality is dark and violent. It is hard to judge the overall merits of "Homo" because, like the two other tales, it is so hacked up by incompetent editing (by Haynes himself) that it is devoid of any compelling passion.
It can't be argued that Haynes lacks a strong eye for the visual; despite the low budget, each segment of the film looks great in its own way. But there is a certain cowardice in Haynes' films. He wants to deal with serious social issues, but he buries it all in inappropriate homages/parodies of genre films that trivializes rather than reinforces his messages. Just as he did in his later hit, FAR FROM HEAVEN, which dealt with racism and homophobia, he dilutes his material by resorting to some ill-fitting, superficial, bygone cinematic style. You sense that he feels compelled to somehow justify his love of old movies by loading them down with serious intentions. It's like he is afraid to either tackle issues head-on or to admit that he is a film geek at heart.
Thus, he fails going in both directions: the serious social issues are cheapened by the movie campiness, while the fun of movie parody is chilled by pretensions melodrama. Like so many young filmmakers, Haynes relies on the safety of imitation in his film-making. Great filmmakers (like Spielberg, Woody Allen, etc.) outgrow this and find their own voice. Lesser filmmakers like Haynes (and Tarantino and De Palma and Lucas, etc.) don't even seem to try.
In POISON, Haynes apes Griffith's foolhardiness as he tries to tell three stories (subtitled "Hero," "Horror" and "Homo") and he tries to tell them simultaneously, despite the fact the stories have nothing in common as far as narrative, style or point. Haynes tells his tales in tiny bite-sized chunks of scenes, cutting from one to another to another in an endless rotation. The result is less like powerful film-making than it is like trying to watch TV with the scan button on the channel changer hopelessly stuck. It is an insipid gimmick trying desperately to prove itself as innovative film-making.
As such, POISON is more annoying than shocking, despite the material's obvious attempts to be controversial. Furthermore, the three stories themselves suffer, as none of them can gather momentum or maintain coherency or consistency. And certainly these stories could have used all the help they could get.
"Hero" is a story of domestic violence; told in retrospect, it is largely a series of talking-head interviews discussing the circumstances that led up to a 7-year-old boy killing his father, before jumping out a window and literally flying away. According to the boy's mother (who is the only witness, but should be the only suspect), she gave birth to an angel who came to rescue her from an abusive husband. It is told in the dour, deadpan style of a mock documentary, not unlike Woody Allen's TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, though it's not nearly as cleverly done. If the subject matter wasn't so grim, it could be assumed the film is a comedy. As is, it has a joyless goofiness to it that doesn't really make any sense. At best, the story is a weird idea that's barely been given a chance to be anything else.
"Horror" is equally grim and joyless, even as it appears to be a parody of old black-and-white horror movies. A young and idealistic scientist is studying the biological secrets of sexuality and accidentally becomes infected with a virus that turns him into some sort of sexually contagious leper. The story wants to be a parable about the AIDS epidemic, I suppose; but Haynes' attempts at creating an analogy between science fiction and medical tragedy is undercut by his self-conscious awareness of old movies. His film-making technique strives to replicate the socially conscious "B" thrillers of the 1950's, like THE FLY or THEM, but the end result comes closer to the sincere, yet ludicrous D-level films of Edward Wood, only without the clumsy campiness that make them at least funny-bad.
With "Homo," Haynes is playing closer to home and makes no obvious attempt to recreate an old movie genre, but that doesn't mean that this tale works any better. It deals with two inmates in a French prison who are reunited, having also been in juvenile detention as well. The story hints at it being a love story, but in the end it is about rape, humiliation and domination. Though POISON is considered a groundbreaking work in gay cinema, this vision of homosexuality is dark and violent. It is hard to judge the overall merits of "Homo" because, like the two other tales, it is so hacked up by incompetent editing (by Haynes himself) that it is devoid of any compelling passion.
It can't be argued that Haynes lacks a strong eye for the visual; despite the low budget, each segment of the film looks great in its own way. But there is a certain cowardice in Haynes' films. He wants to deal with serious social issues, but he buries it all in inappropriate homages/parodies of genre films that trivializes rather than reinforces his messages. Just as he did in his later hit, FAR FROM HEAVEN, which dealt with racism and homophobia, he dilutes his material by resorting to some ill-fitting, superficial, bygone cinematic style. You sense that he feels compelled to somehow justify his love of old movies by loading them down with serious intentions. It's like he is afraid to either tackle issues head-on or to admit that he is a film geek at heart.
Thus, he fails going in both directions: the serious social issues are cheapened by the movie campiness, while the fun of movie parody is chilled by pretensions melodrama. Like so many young filmmakers, Haynes relies on the safety of imitation in his film-making. Great filmmakers (like Spielberg, Woody Allen, etc.) outgrow this and find their own voice. Lesser filmmakers like Haynes (and Tarantino and De Palma and Lucas, etc.) don't even seem to try.