Fascinating failures are products of passion, ambition and originality, where the lofty goal has exceeded the reach of the creator. Fascinating failures take risks.
There are fewer and fewer of these at the movies and in books. The Hollywood formula doesn’t lend itself to risks anymore, and books (those published by the major publishing houses anyway – I’m sure there are myriad fascinating disasters self-published) are increasingly formulaic or grindingly faddish. Even the genre short story – a form that lends itself to risk-taking and experimentation – has begun to suffer from the drab sameness of subject matter, slowly turning itself into a desiccated husk of ironic self-reference.
Open certain highly-respected speculative fiction magazines today and you’ll find a story much as follows:
Guy walks into diner in contemporary America (US diner fantasy is compulsory in today’s short fiction), with a copy of a 1967 Galaxy Magazine under his arm (making some ironic reference only members of a tiny clique will get) and talks to the man behind the counter about his divorce. He drinks his coffee and reads his magazine. Then we discover he has webbed feet.
That’s the fucking story.
If that’s the dull, self-referential shit that is being served up in short fiction, creativity everywhere is doomed. So fascinating failures aren’t just a pleasant surprise, they give you hope that someone out there still gives a damn.
The Congress by Ari Folman is a fascinating failure that, sadly, could have been brilliant. Twenty minutes in the film looked destined for greatness – or, at the least, a cult hit that legions of nerds watched, re-watched, debated and dressed up as. The premise outlined in those first twenty minutes is this: Robin Wright plays a version of herself. She is a troublesome actress who has done almost nothing since The Princess Bride. She is offered a large cheque to have herself 
‘sampled’ – digitally cloned, if you will, in every aspect: intellectually, emotionally and her physical image. The film studio thereafter may do anything they wish with her sample, putting her in any film they want, without having ever having to ask her permission. The real Robin Wright is never allowed to work again. At first Robin refuses, but as her son has a debilitating illness, she reluctantly accepts.
The Congress initially raises questions about the nature of individuality, free will and consciousness. This culminates in a gripping scene where Robin Wright is ‘sampled,’ (or, as she puts it: “trapped inside this monster”) wherein she and Harvey Keitel (as her agent) give powerful, assured performances.
And then, disappointingly, it all goes downhill. The film fast-forwards twenty years to where Robin is invited as guest speaker to the ‘Futurological Congress’ in Abrahama City, an ‘animated zone’. Here is where the movie also switches to an adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s short novel The Futurological Congress, and from live action to animated. It is also the point where the vitality of the opening drains from the movie. Robin Wright – an intelligent and forceful presence at the beginning of the film, soon fades into bland submissiveness. Strangely, though the animated section is at first surreal and mind-bending, the whole experience begins to drag.
The themes also become confused. Stanislaw Lem’s book was more about the nature of reality and altered consciousness,
and as such only partly relates to the themes the film opens with.
There are some nice moments: a corporation attempting to make the chemical formula for ‘free choice’, for example. But overall, the narrative falls apart. The worlds built by Ari Folman – whether the animated or the ‘real’ world – have little internal consistency. At the end of the film I wondered if they’d run out of both money and inspiration – the human population lives in blimps for no apparent reason, and old people sport outrageously fake beards.
A shame, as Robin Wright took a risk taking the role, as did Ari Folman with his vision. Nonetheless, points for the effort.
On the surface, Spring Breakers, looks like a candidate for cult hit or fascinating failure: four poor college girls turn to 
crime to fund their trip to the annual American exercise in hedonism – spring break. I hoped the film would take the American Dream to its logical conclusion, and in so doing expose all the greed and lies that this entails. That for the real American Dream, the poor needn’t apply. Sure, not an original theme, but one that doesn’t get played out nearly enough.
It’s safe to assume this was on the director’s mind as well, as Scarface is referenced directly.
Spring Breakers fails to fulfil its moderately ambitious premise. The director, Harmony Korine, is an enfant terrible according to the internet. I didn’t see it. If there’s a French phrase for ‘self-indulgent wanker’ he’d be that thing.
Spring Breakers has no main character, and the supporting characters evoke no sympathy. The four young women the 
movie begins with are placed in all sorts of dangerous situations – yet this never creates any tension. The director never shows the characters speaking to each other, but rather goes with arty displacement shots that have dialogue overlaid with different images (for example, a picture of a beach while one character asks another to pass the salt). Indeed, the director’s ego intrudes so far into the film that the audience is simply unable to get close to any of the characters, especially the women, who remain ciphers throughout.
The only distinctive character is Alien, played by James Franco, who – despite the director’s efforts – is a vivid presence on
the screen.
Spring Breakers looks like everything that ended up on the cutting room floor was scooped up and used. The narrative is incoherent, switching from a coming-of-age of the main character (Faith) who leaves a third of the way through, to an escalating crime spree that morphs into a gang war. As with The Congress, the internal logic of Spring Breakers is unclear (for example, instead of Alien, the drug dealer, selling the masses of dope piled on his counter to college kids, he beats them up and robs them).
It does have, however, one scene which I find perfect. A Britney Spears song overlaid with images of the characters going on a criminal rampage. You don’t need to see Spring Breakers; you just need to see this clip.
The Congress: 2.5 stars (out of five)
Bechdel Test: Pass
Spring Breakers: 1.5 stars
Bechdel Test: Pass