And All Kinds Of Flim Flam right under our noses
The trailer promised a bizarre movie, but not one that was truly, so difficult to watch. A few people did walk out and the remaining handful of us stuck it out to the end knowing that was always an option. The last time I saw a brisk departure like that was during Breaking the Waves with Emily Watson directed by Lars von Trier in 1996. I stuck that one out too, although with an entirely different reaction of tears. No, these tears came after the movie. I walked calmly out of the theater with growing haste. Any long movie will do that, but I had a low current of agitation that was building by the minute. Everything about that movie was agitating and I couldn’t even think, but just feel the sun on my skin as I peeled off my sweater and headed for my car. Whew! I couldn’t think, just feel. I felt icky. I drove to my friends house and as soon as I turned into her neighborhood I started to cry. Like with a real grimacing face and tears, I felt icky to the bone. Those people exist.
I wasn’t analyzing the movie while I watched it- it doesn’t allow you to do that right away. Slow and deliberate, you’re not sure of anything for a while and then increasingly so. You are invited, however, to observe. As direct intent and confrontation unfold, subtle and overt clues lure with a perverse knowing and pique your curiosity, either way one must continue. Slow and deliberate the story (stories) unfolds, each scene a cliffhanger to the next. Each scene more bizarre than the next, yet inextricably normal. The sense of everyday discourse, work schedules, family, diurnal and nocturnal flow, dominates the pace of the movie and the interactions of the characters, on the surface seemingly mundane.
Yes, just as David Lynch uses a slow camera pan to reveal a severed ear- very separate from the owner’s head, replete with ants and bits of soil, embedded in the grassy lawn in front of a white picket fence, the scene a silent alarm to an extreme departure from the conservative values of the 1950’s, or simply put, America lost - here Yugos contrasts the mundane of everyday existence, taking us right into the lair of cult manipulation, adulation, and all kinds of kindness, to the nefarious, ulterior motives at play, right under our very noses, signaling the new wave of film flam.
Where does it begin and where does it end might be the pervasive question. Almost 24 hours later did the realization of this movie come into focus for me. After I stopped feeling, I was able to see the guru, the manipulation, the cult, and what people will do to belong, what and who they will give up, and if cast out, what they will do to get back in, and everyone has a price.
The power of belief, belonging, and a very strange sense of love fuel various kinds of kindness in this movie and drew me to ponder our own societal conventions, After all, if you loved me you would …
Pervasive, in this literal new age of film flam, is fake news, influencers, lies and lip service all around. On the big screen, the deception in Kinds Of Kindness is played out through the construct of cult mentality, our flim flam man being none other than Willem Dafoe. His minions a cast of loyal traitors. I pondered the very act of kindness and the motive behind it. Yet, kindness in its true sense has no motive. It is pure, which under a nefarious charm makes it the most beguiling of all.
You’ll have to see the movie for yourself. It is that controversial. That personal in perspective. That quantum in story telling experience. For me it actually sparked a desire to be more kind, for kindness meditation which extends into the practice of true, selfless acts of kindness.
When you extend kindness the effect of love, ease, and happiness is immediate. A paradox of selflessness for the ultimate personal gain.
A few days after I saw the movie, there was an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate that was very difficult to believe and had all the markings of a Film Flam man. Yes, it is going on right now, everyday, right under our very noses. I remembered the movie Vice (2018) exposing the focus groups of the 1990’s that constructed palatable political headlines for the public by a majority raise of hands, just like surveys and focus groups for commercial branding in which I had participated in. The world is full of examples. Especially with photography, video and sound technology, words and slogans playing upon people’s psychology every minute of the day. Mankind is apparently pretty easy to manipulate, particularly if you know a weak point like fear of abandonment and the need to belong, particularly under the incessant ploy of modern media.
Kinds Of Kindness casts a familiar ensemble of Yorgos Lanthimos’s vision of characters played mainly by Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Willem Dafoe. Yorgos has even cast himself as a character - in fact, the 3 stories revolve around him, as some kind of raison d’être. Really in just the first and last story does his character, R.M.F. , make appearance - the one in between, the middle story, serves as a liaison, the quantum leap into potential of anything of great extreme is possible and if you loved me you would…
The movie begins and ends with Yorgos’s silent character, R.M.F. Initials that I searched online and Risk Management Framework is what came up.
The initials R.M.F is all we know about him, three initials monogramed on the breast pocket of his crisp white dress shirt. A mystery man that has worked for Raymond (Dafoe), but apparently has fallen out of favor. Perhaps a breach in Risk Management Framework for Raymond? We can only speculate. We soon discover Robert (Plemons) has been asked by Raymond to stage a car accident with a targeted blue BMW, however this first attempt fails as the Range Rover that Robert was driving apparently needed to go faster upon impact. Robert had floored the Range Rover and indeed smashed into the blue BMW, yet he gets out of his car and walks over to the BMW and we see R.M.F unscathed, looking out his car window at Robert with a blank stare.
After the accident, Raymond has a meeting with Robert and encourages him to go faster next time. In fact the next day and time are already set.
Robert realizes he cannot kill another human being and stands up to Raymond verbally refusing the request.
Raymond calmly dismisses Robert and his servitude, subsequently withdrawing all of the favor of Raymonds inner circle. Raymond is abrupt and absolute casting Robert out of his “Garden of Eden” and the privileges and lifestyle that went along with it.
Gifts are taken back and all acts of kindness halt in the name of the unfaithful.
An abrupt turn of events finds Robert desperate for connection, working his old tricks to attract any new friend, feigning an injury in the attempt to garner the attention of a beautiful woman. Unfazed, the women pass him by, rolling their eyes in the wake of his pathetic groans for attention. Ultimately, he breaks his own foot, the intensity of his pain so great that no woman could ignore. Ironically, his Florence Nightingale is a master manipulator, as well.
Enters Emily (Stone) who Robert soon discovers also drives a grey Range Rover. She agrees upon his asking for a dinner date, but is not home when he arrives. The next day she calls to tell him she has had a car accident, she is okay, but little banged up and in the hospital. The other driver is in intensive care.
Robert brings her flowers and sees Raymond and his girlfriend leaving a hospital room. Robert slips into that room to see R.M.F intubated and hooked up to life support. He then leaves the room to find Emily’s room and discovers her awake, but groggy. He helps her to the bathroom and snoops through her purse taking her house keys, then quickly reads the card attached to the huge flower arrangement next to the bed signed by Raymond.
After a quick visit he leaves the hospital with his suspicions confirmed. He uses the window of time to drive to her house and enter with the key. He shuffles through her mail on the credenza and quickly finds a note written by Raymond outlining a schedule of meal times, foods to eat, and when to have sex, similar to the notes that he had received from Raymond. Robert then ventures upstairs to see the coveted John McEnroe tennis racket - the one that Raymond had snuck into his house and taken back after his dissension- now given to Emily. The clincher is Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karina bedside, just as a copy from Raymond was next to his bed at home.
Replaceable, indeed. Emily apparently had no qualms with the offer presented to her by Raymond. As Robert slips further away from the Garden Of Eden his desire grows and contorts with ways to redeem himself, the opportunity presented in the fact that R.M.F is still alive.
What unfolds is a frenzy of psychological wanting and desperation controlled by an absolute figure head or power; a love so strange and controlling, all consuming.
And so it goes, my review Kinds Of Kindness has been gestating while I have been formulating my thoughts and then I happen upon The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder, 1927. I watched the movie and my thoughts take shape.
Among the plethora of themes Wilder incorporates in his novel — obsession, isolation, neglect, and death — the common thread among these themes is love. As Kuner writes, “Every type of love is scrutinized in this novel: primitive sexual love, exaggerated fraternal love, one-sided mother love.
Are these not the exact concept in Kinds Of Kindness? Slow and subtle we are intent to see where we are going as we enter through the height of havoc. In this case, intense moral ethic and conviction. In this case, all of the players are anti- anti- heroes. Unlikeable to the core. Mundane and common until we start hearing what they are thinking, seeing, and what they are doing.
The cult paradigm usually has a sexual component, in this case all members of the cult have sex sessions scheduled with the Omi character (Dafoe) in the third story, they drink his tears as sacred water, and they don’t eat fish. They do as he says.
All three stories have a primitive sexual drive between characters, intense friendships, and of course the conditional, unconditional love offered by the guru, god head, mother. An undercurrent of unrequited loves snakes through all of the relationships making all of the players victims of total control- by someone or something else.
The players are like puppets to these driving forces and capable of all kinds of extreme actions and reactions. Which is also a running theme of cause and effect, karma if you will.
The extent of their actions and the ramifications of those events play out in a slow, subtle spiral eventually bringing us back full circle. Time and space, so surreal and strange that judgement has no time to catch up…not yet.
So, what’s the point? Same as it ever was. Only total chaos in the process. Everyone made those choices though, with great conviction based on love. And the driving force?
One-sided love has a profound effect on mental health, mainly to feelings of unhappiness, depression, and anxiety. One-sided love can take a toll on an individual's emotional well-being. When someone is deeply in love but their emotions are not reciprocated, they may feel heightened stages of distress and frustration.
Perfect prey. Yet, ultimately free will decides the day. Or is it all preordained, a moment in time just waiting for us to arrive like the rope bridge of San Luis Rey, just waiting for that exact moment when all five of those particular people would be on it, when it would break, sending all five of them to their death at the bottom of the gorge. Destiny vs. free will vs. gullibility, after all, if you loved me you would…
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