Elanso

I refused to sign the absurd online petition that was drafted to stop Uwe Boll from making more movies. Not because I do not believe in the power of online petitioning to accomplish social change, but because of my genuine appreciation for the films of Uwe Boll. For some reason, everybody has an opinion on this man and most of them are negative. As Boll himself - the self-promoting, critic-boxing, shameless churner out of B-grade video game adaptations that has become something of a staple on message boards in the years since 2003’s House of the Dead - points out, many of his critics are simply un-informed, the result of not actually deigning to watch his movies. While I agree that criticizing something you have not seen is no way to carry on, what is amazing about Boll is the level of emotion and anger (almost personal) some people seem to feel towards him. I can honestly say that if they do as I have done since 2005’s Alone in the Dark and take the time to see his films in a theater, they will find out that we are witnessing the unraveling of one of the most unique and fascinating careers in recent cinema.

House of the Dead is a spectacle that, more so than anything Boll has made since it, needs to be seen to be believed. The picture, adapted from the video game of the same name, actually features footage in the film of the video game. Not raw footage, specially designed for the movie. Footage that has things like ‘GAME OVER’ flashing on the upper corner of the screen. Footage that appears to have been recorded off a television. One outstandingly laughable moment occurs when the camera pulls out to reveal the characters standing in a tight circle, and also to reveal the tracks on which the camera has been moving. House of the Dead is the most technically inept of Boll’s recent films, the work of a man still learning his craft (though, as people often fail to mention, Boll made six features before it, both for American television and in his native Germany).

Alone in the Dark is not much better, though it does feature some of the most confusing mythological mumbo jumbo I have ever heard, used to explain the nature of these beasts that are attacking some city. Or something. Boll’s films very often ask the audience to take large leaps of faith, not to ask why things are happening but instead to ask how they are going to be resolved. Boll is a man of ends over means.

What is truly amazing about Boll, both as a director and a public persona, is the way he forces the audience to have as little fun watching a movie that, allegedly, is action packed and exciting. His newest film, Postal, takes this several steps further by being neither funny (as intended) or exciting (perhaps also intended, though this one is less clear. It’s hard to tell if Boll is condemning excessive violence or glorifying it). Rather than dwelling on the interminably long first act (conflict is introduced into the story somewhere around the 35 minute mark if I recall correctly) and the failed attempts at political commentary, it is important to focus on one particular scene in Postal. In it, Boll plays himself. He is being interviewed at some Germany-town celebration and is introduced as a man who ‘made millions adapting video games’ at which point he explains that he finances his films with Nazi gold. I could not help but wonder, what exactly is the point of taking a pot shot at yourself in your own movie, which - probably - anybody watching has already paid for? This moment became too meta, too fast. As I struggled to recover, I attempted to rack my brain for any other examples of a director playing themselves, in their own film. I could think of but one example: Jean-Luc Godard, in any number of his films but most recently 2004’s Notre musique. Boll proceeds to engage in fisticuffs with a man who is identified via freeze-frame text as the creator of the game on which the film we are watching is based. Whoa! Boll is eventually shot in the groin and falls to the ground, moaning “I hate video games.” The question here is this: what other director would have a) the audacity and b) the lack of self-respect to feature such a segment in their own picture? The answer, I believe, is none.

Boll is in many ways no better than any number of directors making film after film (by the end of 2008, he will have completed eight films in five years, a ratio worthy of another Godard comparison) but in other ways is the culmination of all of them, a sort of super-director if you will, who possesses and lacks just the right qualities to ensure that his work will continue to be made, released and hotly debated. Having seen his recent films, I can certainly say that his directorial style is improving - in tiny baby steps, mind you - with each new project. The hand held camera in Postal is vastly preferable to the faux-complex dolly shots of Alone in the Dark. There are shots in Postal that even seem both difficult and clever. Boll has advanced from a loser to an amateur, and at the rate he is going he will have earned the title of hack that so many already decry him as by the time he does his detractors a favor and retires. For the sake of my own entertainment, I hope that is many, many years from now.