Badlands

365 Films

Entry #51

Badlands (1973)

Directed by Terrence Malick

We are three weeks off from the April 12^th release date of writer-director Terrence Malick’s new film, To The Wonder.  If you had told me fifteen years ago that I would only have to wait two years between Malick pictures, I would have punched you in the face and pushed you into oncoming traffic.  To kick off the celebration here at 365Films, I will do an entry each week (I’ll actually have to fudge it somewhat because I thought of this last minute) on every single title in Malick’s filmography.   Considering he has only five thus far, I should be able to squeeze every one in the allotted time.  I saw Badlands right around the end of the 20^th century.  The very idea of filmmaking had been revolutionized for me with 1998’s The Thin Red Line, Malick’s first film in twenty years since Days of Heaven, and I wanted to see where it all began.  At first blush, I wasn’t as knocked out by Badlands as I was by Line.  For starters it’s a very odd movie, certain sequences have the most peculiar and leisurely pace to them and it goes out of its way to avoid every possible cliché of the lovers on the run genre.  Then I started to watch it again several years later in more public arenas and I realized that the film is the closest Malick will ever come in his directorial efforts to an out and out comedy.  The disconnect between what the characters are actually doing versus what they say and think they are doing leads to several hilarious observations on Malick’s part.  An example of this is when Kit and Holly are driving away from Cato’s farm where Kit shot and killed his friend and possibly killed a couple after forcing them into a storm cellar.  They drive by a nearly over turned, beat up car on the side of the road and Kit points out: “Hey, look.  They’re probably gonna blame that on me too.  Bastards.”  The idea is that Kit has just killed as many as seven people yet, in his mind, he has the temerity to act as if this situation has been hoisted upon him and he is blameless for his actions.  On top of that, he feels nothing but contempt for the authorities that are after him when there is nothing but flat, empty, and wide-open space surrounding him and Holly.  That’s just a small example of a beguilingly rich film abundant with moments just like that.  Instances of cinematic life that effortlessly glides between comedy, drama, and tragedy but even that sounds too simplistic a summation.  I tend to get tongue tied when trying to break down what it is about Malick’s cinematic universe that pulls me into it every time.  He is, for me, the most indescribable of great American directors.  I know exactly what it is that I’m watching but damned if I’d be able to articulate to someone why it is that way.  The best I can do I say his technique here is an exacting method of wandering philosophical observation combined with a genuine love of the natural world that is honest enough to never dip into phony sentiment.  Badlands is a story about two children pretending to be outlaws in a world where their violent actions are met with more of a puzzled indifference than out and out disgust.  It is, at first glance, a scaled down version of Malick.  The conflicting argument could also be made (not by me) that this is perhaps the purest and most successful distillation of his gifts.  That it is free from all the poetic ruminations that have become more and more prevalent in his style since then.  However you look at it, Badlands to this day is a film like no other.  And if you are patient and cooperative with its rhythms, the rewards will pay off exponentially every time you sit down to watch it.  It is simply put, a masterpiece.