Hollywood satire a winner
I Blame Society (R16, 84 mins) Directed by Gillian Horvat Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★1⁄2
‘Aself-directed satirical mockumentary about a serial killer.’’ Say those words to anyone who was knocking about in a decent cinema in the early-1990s, and they will know you’re talking about Man Bites Dog.
But in the 30 years since Man Bites Dog was tearing it up at the film festivals and causing migraines at the censors’ offices, I don’t know of anyone who has taken on the genre with enough brio, wit and originality to warrant even a release down here at the last ticket booth on Earth.
So, I guess we welcome Gillian Horvat’s I Blame Society with open arms, and then maybe appreciate just what the cash-poor and idearich Horvat has done here.
This is a film gone meta-withinmeta. It has Horvat playing herself as a struggling film-maker, filming herself planning the perfect murder as a plot for a mockumentary and then
committing . . . anything but.
Horvat’s journey, from frustrated writer-director, enduring meetings with exactly the type of vapid young male dude-bros we all secretly imagine do run large parts of Hollywood, to stalker and then – possibly – accidental killer of her own best friend, is traced out in a series of mostly hell-funny and oddly likeable vignettes.
Along the way, Horvat chucks her satirical hand grenades around with gleeful abandon, blowing up
the industry in general and the way it holds women directors to standards the dudes never even have to think about, in particular.
The more vested you are in who gets to make movies and how they get them made, the more you will enjoy Horvat’s ride and the jokes she piles into every scene.
Also, Man Bites Dog isn’t available online in Aotearoa. You’ll just have to go to Aro Video or Alice’s to see it. Somehow, that seems appropriate.