Song’ sings praises of superficial beauty
Midwest-born auteur Terrence Malick (“To the Wonder”) is back with more of his recent brand of the cinematic lives of the rich and the famous and the young and the restless. In this flash-cut, voiceover-whittled to the bone installment, we are in the middle of the Austin, Texas, music scene, where such luminaries as Flea, Iggy Pop and Patti Smith hold forth and rub elbows with mosh pit jumpers and aspiring musicians such as Faye (Rooney Mara).
Faye does not play or sing very often, if at all. But she lives with BV (Ryan Gosling), who might be a more successful musician (I’m not sure), and she is having an affair with Cook (Michael Fassbender), some sort of mover and shaker, who is on good terms with the big names. Cook, for his part, also seduces young blond waitress Rhonda (Natalie Portman), who was once a kindergarten teacher. Her mother, Miranda (Holly Hunter), has a meltdown, perhaps over this (I’m not sure).
I’ve heard “Song to Song” described as a tale of intersecting love triangles. But Faye also has a lesbian affair with Parisian beauty Zoey (Berenice Marlohe of “Skyfall”), and BV is also having it off with a socialite (I think) blond beauty Amanda (Cate Blanchett), who might be an old flame (I’m guessing). Rhonda, Amanda, Miranda, let’s call the whole thing off.
Watching this 129-minute piece of relationship eye candy, it became clear to me that the plot was not important (or perhaps even necessary), and that all that was important in this world is the superficial beauty of almost everything: the faces and bodies, especially of the women, but also the men, the homes, the cars, the landscaping, the clothing (most of it frequently off) and the lighting.
We hear snatches of Smith’s identity-anguish anthem “Birdland” from her seminal 1975 art-punk album “Horses.”
Malick is more of a photographer and an editor at this point than a director. Once again, a film by Malick, once the face of 1970s American film resurgence with such classics as “Badlands” (1973), “Days of Heaven” (1978) and later “The Thin Red Line” (1998), bears closer resemblance to a perfume commercial than a movie.
Swedish star Lykke Li, who resembles Portman, also appears in the film.
Filming for “Song to Song” began in 2012. The first cut was reportedly eight hours long. Christian Bale, Haley Bennett, Benicio del Toro and Arcade Fire were all cut from the finished effort.
(“Song to Song” contains sexually suggestive scenes, nudity, drug use and profanity.)