Decapolis II (1988)

User Rating:

9.2/10   

Directors:

Charles Cotayo
George Cotayo

Writer:

Charles Cotayo (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

He thought he had everything all figured out. Then came the bomb and there went his dreams. The days would live in infamy.

Cast

Brian Evan	...	Jonathan David Garcia
Leon McGriff
Kim Ostrenko
Charmaine Stratos
Sharon Thomas

Runtime:

USA:110 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Certification:

USA:R

Company:

Icon Pictures Corp.

AHEAD OF ITS TIME?

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A surrealistic "psycho-satirical-fantasy" with the influences of just about every major filmmaker in the world, and dedicated to Francois Truffaut in the end credits. Every character is symbolic of the 1980s and all its prejudices and nebulous mores.

The film is subversive, absurd, sometimes naive, and other times too honest and on target. It was performed by a cast of unknown and inexperienced actors at the time. The movie is arguably one of the most "politically incorrect" independent productions of the 1980s. The now justifiably taboo "n-word" was used by the main character, Jonathan David Garcia, to reflect his frustration, immaturity, and blatant upper-middle-class racism. His mother has married a black man whom he despises. His father has married a younger Latin woman whom he is convinced is only interested in money.

It's a story about a lonely young man who refuses to grow up, plays with suicide, and "escapes" his anxiety by going to see a movie B-movie (Decapolis I) in an cheap empty theater, that depicts fragments of his own life and spiritual struggles on the "big screen." JDG ultimately reforms (instantly, as in a religious conversion) thanks, perhaps, to the influence of a sexy door-to-door "evangelist" who looks more like a doll than a human being. Or is it the hot new (ironically black) car his mother and stepfather have bought for him as a truce, that softens him? And these are not spoilers!

The cinematography is beautiful. The film was shot partly in South Beach, several years before the Art Deco boom, in a mansion on Palm Island, in the city of Hialeah, and in various locations in South Florida. You may be shocked by the desolation of the Miami Beach environment during the mid-to-late 80s. It was also the first theatrical feature to be filmed, in part, in the then newly constructed Miami Metrorail.

Ultimately, Decapolis II is an experimental concept that the studios of the 80s turned down (although its artistic merits were acknowledged) that would later be "reflected" in major movies. Even the lighting bolt symbol/scar on Jordan's forehead, called The Mark of Cain, precedes Harry Potter's by more than a decade, when nobody had even heard about J.K. Rowling. It's an uncanny, original film, with surprising insight into the future trends and styles of (another irony!) commercial film-making.