the dirties (matt johnson)

[AFlickering]

there are few better substitutes for power and machismo than a phallic camera lens and a facade built from a collage of pop culture tropes... 'cept maybe guns, of course. yes, this is one of those slyly indictive meta-dramedies that've been churned out pretty regularly since REAR WINDOW--->BDP, but transposing it into an ELEPHANT-style school shooting narrative freshens up the chill, to say the least. complaints that the mockumentary device is nonsensical are fair enough literally speaking, but of course it's matt's id behind the camera while his ego stands out front. the cliff-side scene was fairly on-the-nose about that, and i'm not sure owen ever acknowledges the camera or gets filmed by himself (may be completely wrong about that though, can anyone confirm/deny?).

THE DIRTIES doesn't say anything interesting about bullying or even portray it particularly effectively, but it has different concerns; for starters, convincingly showing teen film geeks in their creative, deflective element, as well as the shared hurt and gradually shifting power dynamics underlying their interactions. more significantly, it forces us to acknowledge the self-enforced sociopathy inherent to tarantino-esque movie-buffery; these juvenile obsessions/projects/pranks are all derived from and enabled by the medium of film, and they play so authentically while so transparently serving as relatable distancing mechanisms that the laughs are accompanied by real poignancy, and a deeply uncomfortable feeling of audience complicity once shit gets real. there's no telling the difference between fiction and reality if your identity is just a vat of information ingested from the collective cinematic consciousness; an inevitable side-effect of perpetually holding up a screen of projections and distortions between you and the world, as many cinephiles are compelled to do.

the climax [spoiler]hammers home the discomfort, operating the same way as KLASS (worth checking out if ELEPHANT via DOGVILLE smells like your cup of bile) by providing perverse satisfaction in witnessing these bullies get their comeuppance even while turning the stomach, openly asking the question of whether matt is really so different from other, more idolised "good guys" of the silver screen.[/spoiler]