Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Tribeca Files 4: Suffering an Art Attack in MR. JONES


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If considering the film as a kind of journey, it is pretty amazing to think where MR. JONES, a new and unique horror film from director Karl Mueller, begins and the far off place where it ends.

It starts out with camcorder footage capturing a couple, Scott and Penny, enjoying a carefree drive through desert terrain.  Their dialogue is much like the cutesy cleverness of a car commercial, as they show total awareness that they are narrating an experience that could become an object of public viewing.

They arrive at a cabin where they intend to stay so that Scott, an aspiring filmmaker, can complete a nature documentary. However, the sunny skies grow darker after little time, hinting early on about the film’s shape shifting nature. Scott’s voiceover monologues reveal that his artistic vision is far from clear; it’s something he hopes will take shape once inspired by the location they have removed themselves too. Penny is growing frustrated with Scott’s lack of progress, and there are allusions to some kind of psychological condition that Scott has had to deal with in the past. There is also the issue of him deciding to go off his medication.

As unrest persists, a mysterious figure reveals himself. It is a harbinger of both terror and hope.  While ominous occurrences begin cropping up around his appearance, they determine that the desert dweller is Mr. Jones, an artist known in the public sphere, but only through mysterious stories and conjecture. There are no known facts about the man, who seems the stuff of urban legend, and traces of him have been found solely in totem like art pieces attributed to his hands. Their discovery of Mr. Jones is the jumping off point of the film’s journey, following the development of a documentary about the artist and the couple’s encounter with him, bringing them slowly closer to his true nature.

While it is fascinating to consider the start and end points of the film, Mueller’s direction of the trip as it unfolds can be a rough and at times confounding ride. A critique I have noticed among reactions to the film is that its story would have been far more successful if not shot in the style of found footage. It’s a notion I’ve tried to avoid discussing, not because I disagree – it is in fact an accurate assessment – but as a result of it coming up so often in reaction to this and other movies. Perhaps for this reason, I resigned myself to the fact that this is an exercise in that divisive genre, and focused my thinking on whether or not the story was suited the format.

At first it absolutely ia; the jarring thud of at first unidentifiable objects against the windows of a remote cabin at dusk is a chill best experienced with a greater element  of reality attached. Same can be said for Mr. Jones’ first inscrutable appearances. But the part of the story in which it serves best, and the most exciting part of the film to me, is the documentary in progress we see being made in New York, after the couple concludes Mr. Jones is their not quite next door neighbor. It is another odd move that makes for a total shift in gears. And moods – any sense of dread and horror is left behind for something completely different.

Suddenly we are in the world of pseudo-documentary as art historians, anthropologists, and regular citizens who have had unsettling encounters with Mr. Jones’ work offer perspectives on the mysterious being, of whom little fact is known. This artificial construction of a mythology, complete with fictionalized experts, is quietly thrilling in the way it blurs the lines of reality. While never quite suggesting it's real, it is easily the part of the film most readily confusable with actual documentary footage. It’s the stuff of art pranksters, making the mention of Banksy as Scott and Penny piece together their initial knowledge of Mr. Jones seem like it may just be a little more than coincidence?

Clearly I wish this part of the film continued much longer. It gets even more convoluted when you consider there is a real life artist responsible for the sculptures attributed to Mr. Jones. He creates under the moniker Pumpkin Rot. There is a doubling here, in the real world and the world on film, of figures with veiled identities. Are the works in the film more Pumpkin Rot or Mr. Jones? Do the ritualistic qualities of their arrangement in the film represent the real artist’s work, or is he just doing a job…The possibilities are fascinating to explore, and more layers added to the mythology, through mock interviews and realistic footage, would have been welcome.

In a sense, it is continued. By way of a return to Mr. Jones’ domain. Yet, while further scenes of research and explorations of the artist’s turf might have matched the camcorder style of shooting, the very surreal turn that the action takes does not. A great many ideas come out of the screen suggesting various possibilities about Jones: Suggestions that there are different layers of reality that he moves between, that he could be either an embodiment of evil or a protecting force, are explored. Recorded footage blurs together with events that are taking place, and multiple images of characters appear. If the ending shows what I believe it might be, then it is an amazing trip from beginning to end, indeed.

But the ‘if’ in that equation is the problem at large. So scattered are the visuals, there is more of a sense of disorganization than mystique. It becomes something quite difficult to follow and causes more frustration than curiosity.

Returning to consider the criticisms of the film’s visual style, I realize that I have been more tolerant of similarly disjointed narratives when they’ve blown me away with bold visuals. Indeed films that are open to interpretation have a great value, but they need stronger images, and a stronger connection between images, to make the forming of conclusions feel worthwhile.

MR. JONES received its world premiere screening at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival. Release rights to the film have been purchased by Anchor Bay
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