Bully - Be Nice or Die

The embarrassing discovery of a misspelling on the banner for this months' LAMB MOTM, whose name I mistook for being "Buddy", could be seen as a foreshadowing of my experience of actually watching this movie. Bully, although only one consonant away from it, is anything but a movie called "Buddy".

Based on a real story and the book written by Jim Schutze, BULLY centers around a group of lazy teenagers that do little less than sleep with each other. One of the kids is Bobby, who treats his "friends" like s*it, especially his childhood best friend Marty. One day, Marty's new girlfriend Lisa decides that the Bully must die. No one disagrees.

If you're searching for a discomforting and unsettling experience, with anything in it that could be described as sick, inhuman, immoral or similar - except cannibalism - you'll hit the jackpot with Bully. It's a story that has a lot of ingredients I love in movies, some I like, and some that make for interesting, challenging watches but I know will upset me in a bad way. The first group (ingredients I love) are the teens and the splash of coming-of-age. In this case however, they don't really come of anything, although they go through some typical coming-of-age phases and actions. There is also the crime element - who doesn't love a good crime story? In this case however, we already know who did what, why and how, so it's more of an insight scoop on the crime. Ingredients I like are the psychologically disturbing elements and character treats, the social commentary/ criticism and Los Angeles setting. But now to get to the core of it all: ingredients I do like but don't enjoy. These are thought-provoking and discomforting in a great way, something I need to experience once in a while but really rather wouldn't sometimes. That's hard drugs, a loooooooot of sex including rape (I'm not prude or anything, The Dreamers is one of my all-time favorite movies, but I don't think anyone would really enjoy the scenes in Bully), teenage pregnancy and prostitution. And we're not talking Pretty Woman prostitution, but the Mysterious Skin/ Christiane F sort of thing. 

So where does all of this leave me with Bully? This is not a movie I enjoyed. It's a movie that made me want to dig a big black hole in the garden and hide in it - either that or surround myself with sunshine, rainbows and innocent little children for a month. I would want to re-watch Bully anywhere in the vicinity of the next, say, 10 years. That being said, I do think it's a great movie, and in that way, it was an enjoyable experience. One that tested and probably crossed my boundaries and made me face some conflicts and perceptions of life that I don't usually consider. It's a well-directed, well-scripted, well-acted movie and I have nothing to complain about it whatsoever. So in the end, I appreciate the fact that this depressing and thought-provoking indie got chosen to be the LAMB Movie of the Month, because I got the chance to watch something I had never heard of and maybe would've never seen otherwise.

BULLY

2001 • USA/ France • English

dir. Larry Clark (1st watch of mine) 

written by David McKenna & Roger Pullis

★ Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, Rachel Miner + more (incl. Michael Pitt)

FINAL FRAME: STRAWBERRY

Braindead: A ballet of braaaaaaains

That brainy little bastard. Somehow, Peter Jackson - who managed to completely bore and disgust the hell out of me with his first feature gore feast Bad Taste - won my heart (and liver, and... ribs) with his third blood bash Braindead aka Dead Alive.

It's a movie very similar to the former, fully living up to my expectations of an illogical and unimportant plot, a good portion of black gore movie humour and some cool effects. But this already sets it apart from Bad Taste, for even though that one did have all of these qualities, it didn't have them in great quantities. Braindead was never afraid to go for it with everything it had, featuring the stupidest characters making the stupidest choices, saying the worst and hence funniest lines, and ripping each other apart in the most inventive and disgusting ways I have ever seen in a movie of the genre. It's not a big surprise Lord of the Rings had such great effects, when you take a look at the awesomely executed battles of Braindead. Their setting in a huge cottage in New Zealand instead of, well, Middle Earth, doesn't make them any less original and fantastic. Keeping in mind that all of these effects were done without the help of computers only adds more joy to the experience. In that way, this was a very technically interesting movie to me - I kept wondering how they did this and that, where the blood was coming from, whether somebody gargled with water in order to produce the matching sound effects... and so on. Still, Braindead is more than just a technical experience. Its over-the-top-ness in every aspect that you can possibly believe, makes me want to compare it to the extravaganza we see in for instance Baz Luhrmann flicks. It takes a big portion of self-conciousness and commitment to produce something so ridiculous and pure, and I can't help but admire Jackson for that. 

Gore-fans, like me, should keep in mind that Braindead isn't a movie for everyone. The people who cried out in disgust when we watched Fight Club in philosophy class (I know... it's sad) definitely shouldn't search out this one. But if you do enjoy or don't mind a lot of blood, Braindead is probably straight up your alley. If you live in Germany, there's another good reason to watch it, since the original uncut version was, and still is, banned here.

FINAL FRAME

STRAWBERRY