THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION (2001)
A film by Jonathan Weiss, based on the novel by J. G. Ballard. Released by REEL23.
It took Jonathan Weiss ten years to bring J. G. Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition to the screen, working with little resources and no budget. First published in 1968, Ballard’s novel is a demanding text to read, let alone to translate into film. Rather than a ‘novel’, The Atrocity Exhibition consists of a series of short fragments, which Ballard described as ‘condensed novels’, and which were published separately during a period of four years.
Centred on a psychiatrist undergoing a mental breakdown, the book deals with media violence, psychological alienation, the death of affect, and the dark unconscious drives shaping the technological environment. It expounds the now renowned Ballardian thesis that the barrier between interior dreamscape and the outside world has collapsed in our hyper-mediated and manufactured world. For fans of Ballard, the book is significant as a preview of themes that would later be unpacked in more depth, and with more success, in novels such as Crash and High-Rise. Although it provoked much controversy on its publication, Atrocity would most certainly have been forgotten or become a minor cult curiosity, if it wasn’t for the fact Ballard wrote it, and that it provides another perspective on his remarkable artistic vision.
The main problem with the book, and with Weiss’s film adaptation, is the outdated cultural references that saturate it: Marilyn Monroe, Nixon, the Vietnam War, etc. The strength of the rest of Ballard’s work is that it’s not set in any specific era; at best, his novels and stories mostly take place in an allegorical near future that blends with the present. The locations, for that matter, are mainly symbolic (the obvious exceptions here are The Empire of the Sun, The Kindness of Women, and to a lesser extent Millennium People). This imbues Ballard’s worlds with their characteristic interiority and topicality. It’s also the same quality that makes Kafka’s nightmarish worlds still resonate with us, the fact that they take place in their own tome and space.
It’s hard to justify Weiss’s choice of sticking so faithfully to the book, especially since so much has happened since the late sixties, and its cultural icons and motifs don’t have the resonance they once did. Examples from, say, the Gulf War, the death of Princess Diana or modern advertising would have rendered much more effectively the prophetic nature of Ballard’s intuitions, as well as reinforce the themes of Atrocity. Weiss sometimes does use some more contemporary footage (most notably, from the Challenger disaster), so why not take the same liberty with the rest of the footage? In an age where we can watch surgical procedures on reality TV, the footage of plastic surgery procedures and Vietnam war atrocities seem strangely quaint, not to say banal and self-conscious. Perhaps the modern world has become too Ballardian for this film to tell us anything that we can’t learn from an average afternoon on television.
Another big problem with this adaptation is the nature of writing in general, as opposed to that of film. In writing, Ballard’s clinical descriptions convey the pornographic and violent nature of scientific rationality. This does not translate well into film. For Ballard, writing is, among other things, a space in which to reflect on the nature of media images, and take some distance from them. His style often parodies scientific or pornographic texts, as much as media imagery. But how do you reflect on media images with media images?
Textual imagery does not translate well into visual imagery, and Weiss’s literal approach is doomed to fail from the beginning. On the page, Ballard’s obsessive, solipsistic dialogue can be poignant and humorous. When spoken by actors, it sounds preposterous, and often unintentionally funny. A description of a surgical procedure might acquire an unexpected poetic tone on the page; on the screen, a surgical procedure just look just plain repulsive and pointless.
The book can also be read at random; flicking through the pages, the reader can make his own novel (a bit like Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch). In the film, one is trapped into a linearity that clearly conspires against the spirit of Ballard’s original.
On the positive side, the film is well crafted and photographed. Although the images cannot successfully outweigh the aimlessness, Weiss must be commended for his perseverance and discipline. Individually, the images work, but the overall effect is flat and contrived. Nonetheless, as a first feature film, it is an impressive effort, showing great focus and marking Weiss as a promising talent. Another standout feature is the music by Jim Thirlwell (aka Foetus), which lends great atmosphere to the images. The film’s extras include a running commentary by an enthusiastic and indefatigable Ballard, in conversation with the director. This in itself is worth the price of the DVD.
Lastly, Reel23, the Netherlands-based company that released the DVD, has produced a beautifully packaged product. Overall, this is a nice cult object, and perhaps an interesting failure.
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posted by Andres Vaccari @ 5:36 PM