Tropic Sprockets / Song to Song

Tropic Sprockets / Song to Song

By Ian Brockway

From the inimitable Terrence Malick (Badlands, The Tree of Life) here is “Song to Song,” a visual montage of life on the road for three musicians and the hedonism they experience. The film is mostly in voiceover with hardly any spoken dialogue. Constructed in brief vignettes with indulgent camera movements that involve endless sweeps and circles, this film is not for everyone.

The ubiquitous Ryan Gosling is BV, a musician of uncertain genre. He is young, fox-like and happy go lucky. Faye (Rooney Mara) is his girlfriend. Together like a musical Bonnie and Clyde they travel The West from festival to festival.

In Texas, they meet the music mogul Cook (Michael Fassbender) who strongly resembles a satyr. Cook spends entire days rolling around with girls and is hardly ever in a studio. He bends over each lover and collapses suckling many a female waist. Cook seems stuck halfway between a mythical creature and an infant. He is also a bit of a warlock leering at numerous nubile women from dark corners and doorways.

Natalie Portman is Rhonda, a waitress who Cook attempts to seduce.

Beyond these characters rolling and spinning about in various rooms and locations from neon clubs to the Yucatan, the deserts and white spatial homes, there is not much here. After a while every gesture is so routine that a rhythm does develop, a meditation of sorts on the mindlessness of constant revelry, albeit in a low key.

There are a few interesting cameos: a reclining Iggy Pop recalling his combative nature and the great Patti Smith possibly recalling her love for Robert Mapplethorpe. Val Kilmer appears too, as an anarchist who slices a speaker with a chainsaw and gets arrested. As the scenes progress the parties lose charge. BV, Faye, and Cook look pained. Pleasure becomes pointless and people are hell.

This auteur is an icon in cinema but only the most maniacal of Malick fans will find thrills here. There is however a sliver of consolation: with such shots depicting BV and Faye as neon extraterrestials conducting a strange probe with only their heads and fingers visible, no one but Terrence Malick depicts boredom and listlessness so luxuriantly.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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