'The Jar, we've got to kill it.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘And looking at your repulsive face is no help.'
A lot of the movies we review were made by people who thought they were making entertainment and were wrong.
The Jar, I think, was meant to be art.
‘Why do you say that?’
Three reasons: 1, suddenly becomes black and white for a bit.
2, random religious imagery
and the clincher.
Nothing says art like a child releasing a symbolic balloon.
Although there is a hint of its artistic leanings right at the start.
‘I, I, I, I consume the lifeless moments of shadows.’
But what story could possibly encompass such diverse images.
‘I don’t know your story, my friend, but you sure got yourself in a mess’
Driving home, Paul is involved in an accident,
but the injured man isn’t worried about himself.
‘My bottle in the car. Must have it’
Paul offers to help.
‘What if I take you to my apartment, get you cleaned up and then you are going to see a doctor.’
Serious good Samaritan.
But shortly after they get to Paul’s apartment...
‘What the hell.’
The man vanishes, leaving behind the bottle he made such a fuss about earlier.
Holy hell what do you think it’s going to do?
In the bottle....
It’s unclear to me if Paul knows what’s in the bottle,
partly because it’s badly shot but also because, from here on, everything is unclear to me.
You see that’s weird.
None of this is real, Paul’s mind is going.
‘My imagination’s getting carried away.'
'I’m panicking for no reason’
and he identifies the mysterious bottle/jar as the problem.
‘I don’t know what the hell you are or what you’re doing to me.'
'I’m not going to let it go on.’
So he disposes of it. Which goes weirdly.
On his way back up to his apartment...
'I couldn't resist, I always wanted one and there it was waiting for me, on sale no less.'
Perfectly normal conversation between two people meeting for the first time.
‘Can I make you some coffee or would you like a beer?’
‘Coffee would be nice.’
By this point, coffee would be necessary.
Interesting thing; the combination of incompetence and weirdness means
I don’t know if this man in the mirror is a demonic manifestation or a screw up.
Either way and despite Paul’s behaviour.
‘Well why don’t you try knocking next time.’
Crystal likes him.
‘Would you like to have a drink together one of these nights?’
'Yes, I would.'
This is a film in which a man is hit suddenly and inexplicably in the head by an unseen octopus,
but honestly, nothing is harder to believe than the relationship.
‘Why are you so interested in me?’
Not even Paul’s buying it,.
Now regular viewers will know, I love it when it feels like a film is describing itself.
‘And it’s horrible. So horrible.’
This one does it a lot, but never more adeptly than here.
‘Everything’s becoming strange.’
That’s the plot.
‘Iit just gets worse.’
No kidding.
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen.’
That’s cos nothing happens for a reason.
One minute Paul’s smashing the jar for, I think, the third time,
The next he’s encountering monks.
...before wandering into Vietnam.
A somewhat low budget Vietnam as the squad only has one gun between them…
Next…
'And now for something completely different.'
Before being helicoptered back to his room.
How do you sum up this movie?
'ARRRRRRGHHHHH!'
That’ll do it.
‘A dream within a dream.’
No. ‘Dreamlike’ is not a get out of jail free card for nonsensical crap.
‘You don’t understand.’
That’s another excuse I’m not buying.
We’ve previously reviewed films that are weird for weird’s sake but they’ve always had the decency to hang it on a story of some sort.
This doesn’t; cos it’s art.
‘It does mean something’
No it doesn’t.
This doesn’t have delusions of being David Lynch, it has delusions of being Luis Bunuel.
And I appreciate that’s hard,
but the fact that it’s difficult doesn’t make it any less of a chore to sit through.
‘God Damn it! It’s got to stop! It’s got to stop doing this!’
I’m sure that the filmmakers would describe The Jar as an hallucinatory journey into a man’s psyche.
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
But everyone else would describe it as an ill-advised experiment in viewer tolerance.
‘That’s not an insult.’
It definitely is.
'Are you always this perceptive.'
Thanks for watching.
For a journey into my psyche- ish check out my books – there’s a link in the description below.
What other films are nonsense masquerading as art? Let us know in the comments below.
'Goddamn it, where did you go.'