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SLC Punk is A Way Of Life By Sam Costello SLC Punk Starring Matthew Lillard, Til Schweiger Directed by James Merendino USA 95 minutes Floating out there in the land of film and theater (that
is, theater on a stage, not the place where you watch a film), there's
this concept, well, it's a type of text, like a drama or a comedy, called
tragi-comedy. I'm not really clear on what it means anymore. Back when
I read a comic called "Mr. Punch" (Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. If you
don't know them, run out and buy it today, you can't beat them with
a stick), subtitled "A tragi-comedy," it seemed really obvious, but
that was four years ago, and time eats away at one's memory, and pushes
out old knowledge for new. I now know more about pro wrestling storylines
dating back to about 1980 than I do about tragi comedy. We make these
trades all the time, and I figure this is a fair one, however it is
one that isn't really serving me so well right now. As best as I can
figure, a tragi-comedy is a work that mixes tragedy with comedy (yeah,
I know that's fairly self-evident, but sometimes the most important
things are the simplest), and as such, "SLC Punk" is a tragi-comedy.
"SLC Punk" is a movie about the middle eighties,
and being an angry, intelligent kid in Salt Lake City (hence the SLC).
Salt Lake City, described in the film and its trailer, as "the most
conservative town in America," is home to Stevo (Matthew Lillard) and
his group of friends, opinionated, alienated, aimlessly angry recent
high school graduates. Trying hard to put off starting life in the straight
world, Stevo et al. are firmly committed to being as punk rock as possible,
including doing all the drugs and drinking all the beer they can, getting
in frequent fights (with cops, punks and other kids-did they really
still have mods in 1985? In the U.S.?), having lots of sex and doing
their best to terrorize the religious conservatives in charge of their
home town.
But this isn't "Sid and Nancy" (Thank god.), or any other punk rock movie. This is a movie almost certainly from someone who has been on Stevo's side of the punk rock line in the sand, and crossed it, with only a few regrets, long ago. This understanding comes across in many ways, some large and clear, some more subtle. The film is composed of a series of mini narratives, flashbacks initiated by Stevo's telling the audience about one character or another. This has the effect of drawing the audience viscerally into the film and into the lives of the characters. Through this technique, the viewer is made to feel as if she is hanging out with these kids and that she is being told tales of their past glory, not just watching a movie. One of the people I went to this film with, in fact, felt so much this way that he admitted that he was looking for them in Collegetown all night after the movie. A bit more subtle, perhaps, and very well-rendered, is Stevo's relationship with his ex-hippie activist father, now a Reagan conservative corporate lawyer. If this were "Sid and Nancy," this relationship would consist of nothing more than Stevo trying to "freak out" his father. But that's not what this is about, though there is a healthy amount of that (one scene includes aclassic line about not selling out, but rather buying in). Stevo and his father have a close relationship, even through the pretext of rebellion and parental strictures. This touch, central to the film's resolution, seems unlikely to have come only from the imagination, but more likely from the memory. Memory, though, the memories the audience brings with it to the theater, are also central. This film resonated deeply for a number of people in the audience. I can only vouch for a few, but who knows how many there that night saw themselves and their potential lives, had they not made other choices, up on the screen. It was this realization that brought so much of the tragedy into the film. We knew that we were, in one way or another, and might have been, Stevo. We understood his struggles: whether to remain distant and "cool" or to try for love, whether to stay "hardcore" or sell out. We understood his choices, because we made them, too. And, just as they were for him, they were hard for us. There's more tragedy in the film, but to tell you how would be to give away the plot, and I won't do that. "SLC Punk" is a tragi-comedy and it is about punk rock. It is about identity and the horrors of the 1980s. It forces us to decide what punk rock is: a set of fashions or a set of beliefs. It is a treat for the eyes in some scenes (Who knew Lillard could act? He's got the Johnny Rotten stare down to a tee. It also contains one of the most visually exciting tripping scenes on film), and grabs your heart and squeezes in others. Assembled inventively and bolstered by a good soundtrack, "SLC Punk" is, without a doubt, a fine film. Perhaps it won't go down as one of the year's ten best, but it might creep into the top 25 or 30. But that isn't what counts (and that's not very punk rock, is it?). It's not the recognition or the accolades that matter. It's the story, the memories. This is the story of a large number of us out there, in one way or another. What matters is what we remember, and what we do with those memories. Sam Costello is a member of the Fancy-Panted Young Anarchist Squad |
