That will clear right up with a good exfoliating cream.This is Bennett, taking a break from wearing chain mail and bicycle gloves.
Consider the idea: “If every day was a beautiful day, then what’s considered a beautiful day?” I’ve long believed that beauty resides as much in destruction as it does in creation—that in order to truly appreciate a beautiful day, you have to have intimate knowledge of nuclear fallout, cannibalism, lack of hair gel, terrible tan lines, etc. Broken down, it’s a pretty simple and common notion: good and evil are binary forces that cannot exist without the other; picture a circle with two balls keeping away from each other as they travel around the circle. If this is true, then using that model and plugging in different, opposing variables for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ should keep the concept functioning just the same. 'Beauty' and 'ugliness' are commonly regarded as analogous to 'good' and 'evil,' so let's input those into the model I've decribed. The problem I quickly discover with the model is that it implies a distance between the two variables, a sense of space, or of a line or border or boundary separating the two—no 'gray area' from blending or mixing to the two concepts. They simply exist side by side but independent and isolated from the other. Even the famous yin-yang's borders are solid, and the white and the black fields can be defined as purely white or purely black, despite the smaller circles of the opposite color residing in their bodies.
So with this in mind, I turn to the incredibly-satisfying 2009 film, Solomon Kane. Filmed in the Czech Republic, Kane presents scene after scene of lush, spectacularly gray, depressing countryside which lends the film an aching, dull ambience that seeps through the screen and darkens your mood. The details really pop in the rain: the ends of capes drag along mud, leaving fabric soaked and splattered; feet sink into the once-firm ground, and you squirm as you feel the nastiness between your toes; skin becomes clammy and putrid-looking in the face of evil. It’s quite exhilarating to watch the film take on as many shades of grey dreariness as you can imagine—and then it takes on more. So yes: it's an ugly film-absolutely awful-looking with its landscapes, costumes, art direction, and lighting. And the beauty shines through. Watching ugliness come full circle to become beautiful was the only thing I could think of as I watched the film. It takes a certain creativity to create something so beautifully grotesque that its ugliness takes on a sense of grace not unlike that derived from suffering through pain and anguish. Kane actually makes me revise my understanding of good and evil; maybe, instead of a simple balancing act, it's a complex, gray mishmash, and maybe opposing binary concepts shouldn't be considered purely in terms of its parts—such as 'good' being one part, and 'evil' being another. Maybe we have to take a step back, crush the model up so that no single part is identifiable from another, and consider its entirety as one concept instead of a circle with two opposing balls; maybe things are just more complex and contain more facets than I thought before.
Anyway.
Based on the works of famed pulp fiction writer, Robert E. Howard, who is probably best known for writing Conan the Barbarian, Solomon Kane joins the ranks of passed-over films as it lacked the wide release that such pieces of crap as Jonah Hex enjoyed-a "film" that was little more than a horrible music video from the 90s. That thing got made and released, yet somehow Solomon Kane, with its excellent cast and beautiful scenery, gets a limited, small budget production and release. I can only hope that Kane will develop a strong cult following not unlike what the Boondock Saints enjoy. But if Kane comes out with a sequel, please don’t suck (like the the second Boondock Saints film) and sink under the weight of the director/creator/overall douchebag’s ego (Troy Duffy, in case you care).
Solomon Kane was filmed with the intention of being the first film in a trilogy. Because of this, the filmmakers are faced with the task of hitting the right notes, delivering the correct amount of exposition, and making a palatable storyline that will pave the way for superior sequels (at least that’s what it should intend). We are introduced to Kane, a mercenary played by James Purefoy (Rome), as he ransacks a castle in some far-off heathen country. In the throne room he meets the Devil’s Reaper who informs Kane that his soul is forfeit for living such an awesome life. I mean despicable life. Scared crapless, Kane dedicates his life to self mutilation by branding his body with Christian icons and images, and hanging out with a bunch of monks in an English monastery. That is, until they kick him out because the head honcho had a dream that Kane needed to find his destiny at his home in Devon, England. From there he meets a family of pilgrims on their way to the New World, and ends up talkin’ 'bout God and hangin’ tough to his pledge to live life as a man of peace, even though the countryside is overrun by evil men controlled by creepy dark sorcerer Malachi (Jason Flemyng, above). Meredith Crowthorn (Rachel Hurd-Wood, from An American Haunting), the daughter of the family, takes a shining to "Three Times Her Age" Solomon and hangs around him, making him clothes and being uber-cute.
Well, I think we all know what happens next. Hijinks ensue, innocent people Kane has come to care for are killed, and that silly vow of pacifism falls to the side, bloodied and dismembered in favor of guns, swords, and a badass pilgrim hat. Meredith is kidnapped by Malachi’s henchmen and Kane goes galloping after her. Along the way he saves other prisoners from being shipped to Malachi’s base to be turned into slaves or worse, then he finds time to get crucified, all while getting soaked to the bone with all the rain. The body of the movie breezes through at a break-neck pace to the climactic battle between Malachi—well, Malachi’s masked henchman, the Masked Rider, and Kane. It’s all pretty straightforward, standard fare. But why, then, do I like this movie so much? Why does it satisfy me in ways only David Lo Pan could previously? Well, other than the sumptuous, relentless art of the thing, the acting is pretty damn good.
Now, Solomon Kane is a franchise that’s essentially all B-film. Kane fights evil throughout the land while dressed as a Plymouth Rock pilgrim. It takes some balls to film this, much less act it. In a world of cynics, when everything is tongue-in-cheek, or filmed with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge, Snakes on a Plane-sort of humor that generally ends up lacking a real connection to its audience, it’s refreshing to see a performance that is dead serious when it absolutely has no reason to be. And it works! Purefoy carries this bad boy. Combined with the excellent art direction, costumes, and fantastic Czech scenery, you actually feel yourself sink into the story and buy into all of the elements that you’d consider nonsense anywhere else. Consider Nicolas Cage’s overacted outbursts. While they used to be charming or whatever, they have since become more of a punch-line than actual evidence of emotion; after seeing this film you’ll realize how much the actors have accomplished. Purefoy growls, he screams, he yells, he flexes his presence, and at no point at all does it seem out of place or out of touch with the film. It’s dead on perfect.
It’s not a flawless movie, obviously, and the main problem with it is the lack of a real villain. I mean, sure, Malachi is great. He’s an excellent idea of a character, and he looks awesome, and Flemyng does a fantastic job with what he’s given. But I wanted more, much, much, much more. Even though this film is about Kane, discovering his destiny as a badass, and his relationship with God, Malachi should occupy a larger space and be given much more screen time in order to become the physical, outward source of tension (spiritual, personal, as well as physical) and struggle for Kane. Instead, the Masked Rider, who’s Malachi’s representative in the field, fills that void, but he lacks a true sense of evil—he’s just too simple. Evil should be much more complicated, twisted, and horrible, and Malachi is the perfect character to act as its representative. I didn’t understand why we were introduced to him so late, and why he couldn’t be a larger part of the film.
It's the little things like that that prevent the film from really becoming a great escape. It satisifies, as I said, but it also could have been so much more. It lacks a certain pizzazz but in other things it's completely overdone. For instance, I love the imagery, right? Right. But it to be a bit much over time. So to return for a moment to the image of the circle with good and evil chasing each other: the beauty and ugliness in the film continues the cyclic nature of the circle and wears on you. Oh how I longed for a sunny day, a beautiful moment or revelation from God in all His glory. Or a nice, dry, warm scene. Oh how it would have stood out as a breath of fresh air and driven up the stakes as we actually see for a moment what we would be missing if Malachi succeeded in taking over the land... But we don't get that, and by the end of the film it started turning ugly for me again as it wore on my mood. Languishing in such dreariness, the film's unrelenting epic quality drove the film from ugly to gorgeous, and then back to ugly. But it was just part of the experience, and I’d love to see it again.
I hope-hope-hope they make a sequel. It’s not the best film, but it certainly hits the right notes. The action sequences are well shot, clean, and Kane certainly upholds the epic fantasy legacy of such films as Willow, Conan the Barbarian, Ladyhawke, and more. There’s so much here that works because the world that the filmmakers adapted from Howard’s writing is incredibly well-realized. Everything has a weight to it, a sense of being lived-in. It’s an excellent example of old-school filmmaking, not unlike 2002’s Count of Monte Cristo. And I loved that movie. I'd much rather watch this than get impaled by an Austrian-propelled steel pipe.
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