The Fourth Kind - (film review)

            The first review I read of this film was by Pat Jankiewicz from Fangoria.  I was aghast at   how amateurish the review was, relegating interesting horror filmmaking techniques as a ‘gimmick’.  If you’ve read that review I should clarify some details—the split screen does not play constantly throughout.  It’s used here as a dramatic narrative device that although still directs the audience in what to focus attention on, manages to effectively push boundaries of reality-based footage from the reenactment.

            Perhaps what this reviewer (and many like him/her, ‘Pat’ is quite ambiguous and I do not want to make any assumptions) finds most abhorrent is the tried and tested annoyance of claimants that this film (and many like it) are based on or a representation of a true story.  There is an obsession with the truth—both in the production and marketing of the film and in the audience’s desire to unearth the actuality of the narrative unfolding before them onscreen.  If the film strays too far from tangible facts and representation, then somehow the film becomes veritably annulled.  It’s existence becomes unnecessary, and any merit the film claimed to have had prior to the resolved fallibility of its conveyance is abolished.

I have to admit that I tried extensively to research Dr. Abigail Tyler and her research through various online archival sites and legitimate academic psychiatric journals (through my university access), and have come up with nothing.  Most sites point to the research conducted as commencing at the same time the film began its marketing campaign.  The Alaskan Psychiatry Journal that boasts original research by Dr. Tyler is not a real academic journal.  It is unquestionably suspicious as to why the producers have gone to such massive lengths to convince the audience of its archival authenticity.  Other films that claim “based on a true story” make no such efforts—The Haunting in Connecticut, The Amityville Horror, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose have all managed to back up the actual ‘true’ stories they are based on, regardless of how fictionalized the accounts have become in the reframing narrative.  However, the reality of the situation is that proper archived footage of a man killing his family, or a therapy session of hypnosis to recount an abduction resulting in the paralysis of the patient, would never be released for major theatrical distribution, so it is not surprising that there are no documented cases that resemble the ones in The Fourth Kind.

            One has to ask themselves if the deception the film subjects its viewers to, actually lessens the experience of the movie?  I would argue that it doesn’t.  Although the central ‘gimmick’ of the film is to recount actual events that have been conveniently documented by video or audio footage, the most intriguing element in The Fourth Kind is the narrative structure and symbiosis of ‘reality’ and reenactment and how it manages to traipse through its boundaries—where does art imitation end and life begin?  It seems as though the film is relying on its believability in order to keep the thematic reality/reenactment lines blurred, for if it was discovered that the footage is actually a hoax this argument would be moot.  Which raises another interesting notion: the susceptibility of audience’s naivety in direct contrast with their skepticism for anything attempting to be ‘based on a true story’.  This is evidenced in the monumental backlash that films Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project have received, two films which have graciously admitted to the unrealness of it all.

            This film decidedly and pointedly moves through interviewed footage with Director Osunsanmi from Chapman Univeristy—of which Osunsanmi is a film alum and Dr. Abigail Tyler is nowhere to be found in the universities list of faculty members—and reenactments by Milla Jovovich and Elias Koteas.  The presentation and structure of the film as reenactment and the collision of reality and the fourth wall is a clever way in which this film taps into the alien subgenre of science fiction.  Most narratives of this kind strive on truth, and the inclusion of the audience.  The structure here goes beyond simple narrative devices, and instead attempts to insert poignant split-screen techniques with actor/character self-realization.  The fact that the film addresses itself as a film can be seen to serve the narrative structure of the story as well as heightening the assertion of its truth claims.  Its central thesis interpretively fluctuates between two positions: the blur between dramatization and reality (as mentioned above) and/or the heightened disturbance of being witness to actual events.  Both are viable, and both are intriguing.  However, given the debunked ‘reality’ of this film, one must consider a third option: the desire to represent a fictionalized ‘truth’ and the subsequent manipulation of audience susceptibility this entails.  It seems that lately there is nothing more infuriating than the manipulation of big-studio filmmaking—a number of reivewers and horror fans cannot stress enough the infuriation from being blatantly lied to, as if filmmakers have mandated an oath of truth to which they are obliged to uphold.

            It’s a shame that what mires The Fourth Kind most is the actuality of its claims, because at the epoch of the film is a rather disturbing and unsettling notion—the possibility and probability of initial sparks of religion and spirituality being based upon alien life-forms, and the subsequent underbelly of how this notion derails contentions of God and an afterlife.  Muddled into this conception of extraterrestrials as supreme beings is the drive the film has in ‘fooling’ the audience into its reality—because a work of fiction can be dismissed as just being fiction, but translations of ancient Sumerian documented in actual footage is far more difficult to ignore.  The reality of fearing nothing beyond our carnal existence with only a void entity who has none of the compassion and empathetic warmth of the god religion has concocted for us to ingest, can be quite disturbing, especially for those who rely and depend on something more—to be stripped of faith is not an easy pill to swallow.

            However, this film can be understood as a metaphorical manifestation of the shredding away of faith and the inevitable anger which results.  The very essence of fiction as truth and the underhanded manipulation necessary to pull off such a stunt is relatable to the uncertainty of religion and faith—however, more people believe in it than they do in this film.


ADDENDUM: The Fourth Kind portends to draw conclusions of disappearances listed here.  There have been considerable infuriated backlashes reported here, as well as a law-suit against Universal Pictures reported here.
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Grade: 80% (A-)

The Box - (film review)

            During the onset of the marketing campaign for this film, a friend and I were returning home on the subway (from a shopping extravaganza, no less!) where a movie poster came upon us.  This sparked my friend to remark:  “That looks so stupid!  Someone brings them a box and tells them if they push it, they’ll get a million dollars and someone in the world will die.  How ridiculous!”  I answered: “Well, there’s more to it than that.  You can reduce any film to a singularity.  The Descent is about five girls going spelunking and encounter horrible freakish mutants.”  (He loves The Descent).
            In the first twenty minutes of the film, I knew I was right—there is more to this film than just the proposition of pushing a button, which kills someone (you don’t know) and rewards you with a million dollars.  However, at times it seems like there is needlessly more.  The premise itself is an intriguing one, however filmmaker Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales) is not satiated with the simplicity of the thematic elements and the complexities through which it can stir great debate.  There is definitely more to it.  The first hour of the film is seamless, menacingly ominous, and suspenseful.  Frank Langella is perfectly eerie as the stranger who entices the couple with this wonderful narrative contemplation—push the button, kill someone, and make a million dollars.  Even the explanation of the button device itself, and the metaphorical trappings through which its construction and structure manage to litter itself upon the social world (we live our entire lives in some kind of box) is compelling.  James Marsden and Cameron Diaz are a perfect Virginian 1976 couple who seem to be ‘targeted’ by this person in a manner that suggests if they don’t push the button there are some other serious consequences.
            However, upon the inception of the second hour, the slow paced, needlessly convoluted storyline allows the audience to pick away at the film in a way that was probably never intended.  Brad Miska at  Bloody-Disgusting claims that one should not be distracted at the films unintentional plot holes instead urges the viewer to not “ask questions and don’t try and put two and two together; just accept it for what it is” (Miska 2009).  Unfortunately Miska, the very essence of your request would lead practically every movie to be a brilliant one—it is the very ability of the viewer to ‘put two and two together’ that pressures the filmmaker(s) to circumspect the narrative devices he/she is inculcating the audience with.  I managed to put two and two together and ultimately the result is not as satisfying as the anticipation of the film, for I (and my partner) had very high hopes for this film—we opted to see it instead of The Fourth Kind this afternoon based simply on its engaging storyline.
            The most disturbing thematic element of the film comes from the fact that the ‘test subjects’ are always a heterosexual couple with one child, and the wife is always the one to press the button while the husband looks on suspiciously.  The very notion of Pandora’s Box being opened by the female spouse harkens back to historical biblical sexism and the original sin.  The period of the film is 1976, so perhaps this temporal location instills some dire significance to the destruction of the nuclear family and the emergence of the female head of household.  It does not.  There is no mention of the significance of the wife to push the button, in fact, it almost suggests that the experiment is only viable if the wife pushes the button, for the ramifications of this action subsequent to the pushing of the button imply that certain marital dynamics be in place for the drama to unfold as it does.  Gender, and the Eve-complex, are conveniently ignored in this film, an aspect that (if you’ve read previous reviews of films) I cannot abide by.
            The Box instead focuses on the obvious theme: the consequential actions of succumbing to one’s own personal wants and desires over the well-being of the social cohesive whole.  It is an interesting theme, however laced in the 70s and reeking of heterosexist anti-feminist elements, it loses some of its appeal.  If for instance, Mr. Steward relished in the destruction of marital bliss by infusing his own warped chaotic sense of ironic justice into the fold, this glaring flaw would be overlooked.  In that instance, the destruction and implosion of the marital nuclear bliss would be the point of the film—exposing the structure and institution for what it is and can be and the boxed in confinements it upholds.  However, in The Box what propels the film forward is the clinical callousness of the experiments and the how these kinds of qualitative analyses can misinterpret or completely ignore the personal factors involved, and clearly not properly elucidated, in the decision and subsequent regret of one’s actions.  Norma (Diaz) is truly regretful for what she’s done, and surprises Mr. Steward with empathetic compassion where he expected pity.  This is a truly remarkable current in the film, it is unfortunate that it is muddled by a stylistic technique that purports to be more complex and profound then it needs to be.
            Once The Box settles into the viewer, two or three hours after the films ending, it becomes clear all the various elemental fragments inter-dispersed throughout and its linearity.  If only the story were told in this manner (and a half-hour were cut from it), The Box would be monumentally more successful than it supposes it is.  Its intriguing subject manner and superb pace and cinematography are subsequently undercut by its demand for self-importance pretentiousness.  Ultimately The Box is not a bad film by any means.  Instead it suffers from its own refusal of gripping simplicity in favour of gratuitous convolution.  Its own inept ignorance over the implications of a 70s setting with a central heterosexual couple is too staggering to be ignored, and its subtle grace over the presented ‘horrid’ deformities, is troubling when considering the advances in disability studies.  In all fairness, the film does address this deformation in a rather unexpected and well-intentioned manner.
            I really want to like The Box more than I do, and perhaps upon repeated viewings I may serendipitously bask in undiscovered subtlety and significance where I did not find it before.  Or my friend may be right—there isn’t much more to this film than I first thought.
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Grade: 79% (B+)