Review CXXVII - Badlands

Review 127
Badlands (1973)

I've been wanting to write a review for Badlands for about two weeks, but when I say school takes up a lot of time, I mean it. While I was on a week-long break, it was worse than usual given the amount of work my teachers - actually, one teacher - piled on to complete for the following week. Let's just say I never want to go back there. Anyway,enough about school. Let's talk about Terrence Malick.

I'm familiar with Malick's work. To describe the images he catches in a reel of film is near impossible - you can only witness them to see the beauty he catches. He particularly has the sense in capturing solitude in empty landscapes, in the prairies, as can be seen in Days of Heaven. He also captured the beauty of nature in the hell of war, as in The Thin Red Line. But you know what he can't capture? My attention with his plots. Good god, the plots are awful. As beautiful as Days of Heaven was, the plot and characters were boring as all hell. The "Does your sister keep you warm at night?" line is a running joke between friends, and I couldn't even finish it. The Thin Red Line was okay, but again, the plot was just pushing anti-war in your face. It was so linear and boring that, to be honest, I don't even remember the exact plot, apart from the scene where a member of the ranks tells these kids to attack up a hill, an absolutely horrible strategy that made no sense. But again, the shots were always beautiful.

Now we have Badlands, his first feature film starring Martin Sheen as Kit and Sissy Spacek as Holly. The plot follows similarly to the 1958 rampage of Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, but with some romanticisms here and there. But we'll get to that.

Badlands is beautiful, as was expected. The shots of prairie land were astounding, capturing the solitude and the minilomania of man. I'm disappointed that I did not view the film in 1080p because this is one which can only truly be appreciated in clearcut quality. Nevertheless, it was beautiful. I still hold Days of Heaven higher, but considering this was Malick's first film, let's give him some slack.

One of my favourite shots, by far. [ref]

Now, how did I find the plot? Well, better than Days of Heaven, that's for damn sure. But it still was meh. Centering on the perspective of a teenage girl in love who finally gets the attention of another human being, you know right off the bat that she's perfect bait for Kit. The film even has a scene after she meets her future partner-in-crime with her sitting on a chair with a giant, maybe fish sculpture in the back with the huge words "Bait" written on it. Pretty neat. But yeah, the two get along fine until Kit decides to take vengeance upon the world.

Just what Kit asked for. [ref]

However, while we know Kit comes from the wrong side of town and apparently he's pretty miserable, the death and all just kind of... happens. It's not really fully explained, and I didn't like the little blurbs from Kit claiming, "I bet they'll blame that one on me too!" after seeing a dead animal on the side of the road. It was just weird. And bad. So Kit's character was out for me. What about Holly? I mean, some of the lines she spurted out during her monologue was meaningful, at least to me. But most of it was just... okay? And her character, well, she just kind of happened. Bland, nothing really going on. She's forgettable. Her father is murdered by Kit and she's just there. Honestly, just, I have nothing to say about them. We don't really get any type of bond, or so I found. They just come together after Kit approaches Holly, and then Holly falls for Kit. But I find hard to believe Kit actually falls for Holly. Just weird. I'm out.

The unlikely couple held together by murder. [ref]

But the main thing I wanted to bring up with this film is the romanticism behind the whole killing spree. The film ends with Kit finally getting caught (Holly surrenders earlier on), and everyone refers to him as James Dean. While this is true to what happened with Charles Starkweather, I find it really hard to believe that the two cops who catch him at the end are all smiley. Christ, at the end, the cops wish Kit the best of luck. I mean, maybe it's just pushing this idea that Kit wasn't actually a bad guy at all, and he was just put in these circumstances beyond his control... But dude, seriously? He killed a bunch of people! This film seems to glorify the two, and even though Holly informs us that Kit is killed by capital punishment, Holly goes away free, claiming she married a man who defended her. It's like they go away without any sort of reprimand. I... really didn't get it. What was the film trying to tell me, in terms of this murder? I get this whole American dream set-up, but that ending was just... what?

In the end, Badlands is a beautiful piece of cinema, but it fails on any attempt to tell a story. The characters are boring, and the plot is just bland and pretty nonsensical. Would I recommend it? If you want something pretty to look at, check it out; otherwise, as with the other Malick films, it isn't worth a second glance.