Abel Ferrara sometimes befuddles me with his work. The Blackout especially seems like it's something out of a drug-induced dream. Perhaps this isn't always something to shy away from, especially in the name of 'art' or whatever. But in this case he's treading some ground he's already gone through, with some variations. Just a few years before he also made a tale of excess and a lonely emotional cripple (Bad Lieutenant) and a tale of the medium of film used to disparaging effect (Dangerous Game). This time a sort of weird fusion of the two happens, with a little more melodrama, about a Hollywood actor played by Matthew Modine who is an drunk and does his share and other shares of drugs, and is in love with a woman named Annie (Beatrice Dalle, oddly beautiful). But due to excess between the two, and a failed pregnancy, she splits, leaving Matty to his own devices, which is to do more drugs, more booze, wallow in depression with "video-film maker" Mickey Wayne (Hopper, perfect at the eccentric roles that define description).
The difference between a film like Blackout and Bad Lieutenant is in how he treats catharsis. There's something intensely moving about what the Lieutenant goes through, how far he goes that he can somehow even try for redemption. In Blackout, Matty sobers up, gets a new girlfriend, and a year or so later keeps getting dreams of murder with his former love, and it drives him back to Miami and into the same alcohol-fueled despair. For some reason I wasn't as taken in with the character's struggle this time, despite the intense quality of Matthew Modine's performance. Most times he's very good, and only a few times he felt like he was play-acting at the role of a man running off the tracks of himself. I wanted his character to get resolution and to face his conflicts, but Ferrara's style gets in the way. Not so much that it's unwatchable, and it's never exactly boring. It's just... missing something a lot of the time.
The Blackout has its moments. There's a real-raw quality to Dalle when she is on camera with Modine that is very effective. Hopper, again, takes a small role and amps up the perversity to a fever pitch, which makes a big climactic revelation with his Mickey to Matty all the more amazing and staggering to watch (complicit in his actions, sure, but not below him). But its own fever-nightmare quality, sometimes impressive and awesome in a Lynch-style, other times bogs the narrative in itself. It's not even so much pretentious as it is Ferrara indulging so much in this character's loss that we eventually lose sympathy for him. His goal for catharsis is admirable, though the depths of hell that he and the director sink to don't make it any easier.
Is it under-appreciated? To an extent. I would say I was a fan of the film, up to a point. But there is a reason it feels like a minor work in Ferrara's cannon; he's done work like this before, better, stronger, with more of a visual focus. Then again, it may also be a film I'll want to return to in years time, to get in to the darker corridors of the character's downward spiral into himself. As a punishing character study, the effort's appreciated. 6.5/10
The difference between a film like Blackout and Bad Lieutenant is in how he treats catharsis. There's something intensely moving about what the Lieutenant goes through, how far he goes that he can somehow even try for redemption. In Blackout, Matty sobers up, gets a new girlfriend, and a year or so later keeps getting dreams of murder with his former love, and it drives him back to Miami and into the same alcohol-fueled despair. For some reason I wasn't as taken in with the character's struggle this time, despite the intense quality of Matthew Modine's performance. Most times he's very good, and only a few times he felt like he was play-acting at the role of a man running off the tracks of himself. I wanted his character to get resolution and to face his conflicts, but Ferrara's style gets in the way. Not so much that it's unwatchable, and it's never exactly boring. It's just... missing something a lot of the time.
The Blackout has its moments. There's a real-raw quality to Dalle when she is on camera with Modine that is very effective. Hopper, again, takes a small role and amps up the perversity to a fever pitch, which makes a big climactic revelation with his Mickey to Matty all the more amazing and staggering to watch (complicit in his actions, sure, but not below him). But its own fever-nightmare quality, sometimes impressive and awesome in a Lynch-style, other times bogs the narrative in itself. It's not even so much pretentious as it is Ferrara indulging so much in this character's loss that we eventually lose sympathy for him. His goal for catharsis is admirable, though the depths of hell that he and the director sink to don't make it any easier.
Is it under-appreciated? To an extent. I would say I was a fan of the film, up to a point. But there is a reason it feels like a minor work in Ferrara's cannon; he's done work like this before, better, stronger, with more of a visual focus. Then again, it may also be a film I'll want to return to in years time, to get in to the darker corridors of the character's downward spiral into himself. As a punishing character study, the effort's appreciated. 6.5/10