I'd been following the story of Escape From Tomorrow ever since I read about it's entry into Sundance a few months back on the Variety website, at that stage both film maker's and critics alike were unsure that the film would even see release, such was the controversy that surrounded it. For the uninitiated I'll give a quick relatively spoiler-free synopsis, I feel the less you know about the film before seeing it, the better.
Escape from Tomorrow is a surrealist, psychedelic, monochromatic nightmare, shot guerrilla-style in and around the actual Walt Disney theme parks, without any authorization or approval whatsoever by the Walt Disney Company. It tells the story of Jim, a recently unemployed father who, whilst holidaying in the Magical Kingdom with his wife and two young children, begins a battle with his own sanity after a chance encounter with two underage girls.
I'll let that sink in, if you haven't seen it, go do so, because by God there's some spoilers coming. I'm including the trailer here, but be warned, it does give quite a lot away.
****MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD****
Like the critic's quote on the trailer, Escape From Tomorrow is quite unlike anything I've ever seen. I wonder what it's like watching the movie, but never having experienced Disneyland itself, for me, the two are intrinsically linked. Writer–director Randy Moore based the screenplay on his childhood memories of time spent with his own father at the Disney parks, I visited Disneyland Paris (back then it was Euro-Disney) at the age of seven accompanied by my own family. As the film opened with footage of Big Thunder Mountain, I became mindful of that experience for the first time in years, if you've ever sat on that particular roller coaster yourself, it makes for an acutely surreal moment.
At this point, my opinion of Escape From Tomorrow is that it's no masterpiece, it has problems, namely the performances and some questionable use of CGI, but concessions have to got to be made, because of the conditions of production and because this is a brave piece of film making. It's my feeling that the nature of the production, the guerrilla techniques employed in delivering a story set in such a seemingly forbidden place is reason enough to deserve its audience.
What of the story itself? It's a pretty basic one. It's the story of Jim's midlife crisis and subsequent loss of control in a place that epitomizes regulation and symbolizes the past. Jim looks at his wife and no longer sees an object of lustful attention, but the mother of his two children. Midlife crises are about change, and the fear of that change, Jim's reluctance to move onto the next stage of his life results in the appearance of him reverting back to an earlier time, the mourning of his youth. The Disneyland Park and its associated memories are an emotional trigger, a bridge between these life stages. The scenes of Jim stalking the two pubescent girls surely make for uncomfortable viewing, they come across like National Lampoon's Summer Vacation meets Death in Venice (!) , but they serve to perfectly illustrate Jim's nostalgic questioning of past decisions. By pursuing the young and vibrant girls, Jim feels young and vibrant too.
As the film progresses and the park takes on a more oppressive, disturbing appearance, the story begins to teeter on the edge of nonsense. Be under no illusion, the film gets silly. It's hard to know what's real and what isn't, but at this late stage it matters little, the Happiest Place on Earth has become something else entirely. In the penultimate scene Jim has completely lost his shit, half naked and holed up in his en suite bathroom, vomiting up giant hairballs. The next morning his wife discovers his corpse, a Cheshire grin rigorously fixed across his face. As Jim's body is loaded into the back of a van by Disneyland employees, a family saloon pulls up outside a Disney resort hotel and out steps Jim… smiling, decked out in a dapper suit and matching pork pie hat, accompanied by a beautiful young woman and presumably their son, Jim reborn as the man he could have been, if only.
At this point, my opinion of Escape From Tomorrow is that it's no masterpiece, it has problems, namely the performances and some questionable use of CGI, but concessions have to got to be made, because of the conditions of production and because this is a brave piece of film making. It's my feeling that the nature of the production, the guerrilla techniques employed in delivering a story set in such a seemingly forbidden place is reason enough to deserve its audience.
What of the story itself? It's a pretty basic one. It's the story of Jim's midlife crisis and subsequent loss of control in a place that epitomizes regulation and symbolizes the past. Jim looks at his wife and no longer sees an object of lustful attention, but the mother of his two children. Midlife crises are about change, and the fear of that change, Jim's reluctance to move onto the next stage of his life results in the appearance of him reverting back to an earlier time, the mourning of his youth. The Disneyland Park and its associated memories are an emotional trigger, a bridge between these life stages. The scenes of Jim stalking the two pubescent girls surely make for uncomfortable viewing, they come across like National Lampoon's Summer Vacation meets Death in Venice (!) , but they serve to perfectly illustrate Jim's nostalgic questioning of past decisions. By pursuing the young and vibrant girls, Jim feels young and vibrant too.
As the film progresses and the park takes on a more oppressive, disturbing appearance, the story begins to teeter on the edge of nonsense. Be under no illusion, the film gets silly. It's hard to know what's real and what isn't, but at this late stage it matters little, the Happiest Place on Earth has become something else entirely. In the penultimate scene Jim has completely lost his shit, half naked and holed up in his en suite bathroom, vomiting up giant hairballs. The next morning his wife discovers his corpse, a Cheshire grin rigorously fixed across his face. As Jim's body is loaded into the back of a van by Disneyland employees, a family saloon pulls up outside a Disney resort hotel and out steps Jim… smiling, decked out in a dapper suit and matching pork pie hat, accompanied by a beautiful young woman and presumably their son, Jim reborn as the man he could have been, if only.
sound interesting,will check it out
ReplyDelete