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 Southland Tales review
  
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For his story, the filmmaker takes a quote from poet TS Eliot "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper". Similar to Donnie Darko, his great small film, Kelly brushes a portrait of humanity, in a state of desolation, after a nuclear catastrophe. He imagines a thriller about the invention of an alternative energy monopolized by evil German scientists. Gradually, this karmic flow deteriorates the earth's rotation and generates space-time changes which modify reality. These upheavals affect the existence of a former porn actress (Sarah Michelle Gellar) converted into a political pundit, an action movie star (The Rock) and twin prophets. Southland Tales is a product directly resulting from pop culture and only intended for this public of reference. Even the mise en scène of his chosen territory is pop: California, where society is driven by show business. The incarnation of an intellectual vacuum and superficiality, this backdrop becomes the privileged framework of the chaos announced from the beginning. In the last third of the film, he invents a Messianic figure deployed in a dazzling climax. But in spite of its loose narrative, this sick film manages to be appealing for anyone willing to go until the end. Mutant, it belongs to an emergent cinematography that makes hybridization its matter. A soap opera, a space film and a musical comedy at the same time, Southland Tales creates a heterogeneous filmic equation, whose interest lies in its deficiencies — even the choreographed sequences strike with their weakness. Southland Tales is a disenchanting film. Translated into English by Anji Milanovic 
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