Harmony Korine's 'Mister Lonely' a musical escape
Harmony Korine's 'Mister Lonely' a musical escape
At times very real and heartbreaking, Harmony Korine's first film in nearly a decade, "Mister Lonely," isn't short on its share of warped moments, as its characters and scenes exist just left of something comfortable. A seemingly conventional fish-out-of-water film, as it unfolds, "Mister Lonely" strives to become, in the words of it main character, "less ordinary."
One of the reasons the film largely succeeds in this mission is its music. Taking its name from the classic Bobby Vinton tune, "Mister Lonely" is inspired by song from the get-go, even when music isn't on the screen. Its hauntingly hypnotic score comes from J. Spaceman, the psychedelic rocker behind Spaceman 3 and Spiritualized, and the experimental music of the Sun City Girls.
The film, to be released May 2 by IFC, follows a Paris-based Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna), a street performer who has a chance encounter with a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton). Marilyn persuades Michael to move with her to a commune that's become sort of a safe haven for celebrity impressionists, where the goal is to build a theater that will showcase a circus-like revue.
Luna, who starred in "Y Tu Mama Tambien," doesn't look much like Jackson, but he has his dance moves down pat.
Speaking after a screening of the film Monday night in Los Angeles, the controversial writer/filmmaker ("Kids," "Gummo") Korine discussed meeting some celeb impersonators during the process of working on the film.
"They were obsessive," Korine said. "They looked very little like the people they were impersonating. They just willed themselves."
Indeed, one of the opening scenes in the beautifully shot film is Luna's Jackson dancing, sans music, on the streets of Paris. It's implied, perhaps, that he's moving to Jackson's "Man in the Mirror," but the only sound effects the audience hears are those of Luna's kicks and swipes in the air. He's alone in his world, and the only song here is in his head.
When asked by an audience member in the below sound-clip if he ever sought out Jackson's permission or music, Korine said the thought didn't cross his mind.
Instead, later in the film, Luna moves to the music of the more frantic, electronic hip-hop of Spank Rock's "Backyard Betty," but that's as modern as the music in "Mister Lonely" gets. While Korine draws heavily from African field recordings and American folk from the 1930s to the 1950s (he briefly discusses his thoughts on picking sons in the below audio clip), it's the music of Spaceman and the Sun City Girls that fuel "Mister Lonely''s" eccentricities.
The "Mister Lonely" soundtrack was released today (April 22) via Chicago-based independent Drag City. It features 9 tracks from Spaceman, and 8 from the Sun City Girls. And while not an entirely easy listen outside of the film, Spaceman's songs immediately illustrate music's ability to provide an escape. There's a child-like wonder to the chiming keys that open the album, in which Luna tries to explain how difficult it all is when you "hate your own face" and simply want "to go completely unnoticed."
But tracks like "Blues 1" and "Paris Beach" illustrate Spaceman's ability to take organic sounds and twist them just a little, creating a folk- or blues-based song with just a hint of manipulated guitar notes. It instantly brings utterly familiar and relaxed sounds to a slightly more wondrous, sometimes unsettling place. Or, in the case of "Garden Walk," the violins sway triumphantly, celebrating the pure cartoonish weirdness of the characters.
It's the Sun City Girls who get the score's centerpiece, however. The now-defunct experimental trio provide a take on the Vinton original with "Mr. Lonely Viola," in which the sounds of a choir and some deliberately plucked stringed instruments barely keep a melancholic violin afloat. The act also supplies the sun-scorched melodies and harmonies of "Vine Street Piano" and the orchestral overture in "Farewell," which flirts with grandness.
At one point in the film, Luna's Jackson is asked why he would ever want to be like everybody else. Why not continue to live in his fake celebrity world? Can't he see how miserable "everybody else" is? While the film does not ultimately provide an answer to the question, Spaceman and the Sun City Girls offer an escape while Korine tries to figure it out.