MovieChat Forums > Down in the Valley (2005) Discussion > Sometimes you can get caught up in myth ...

Sometimes you can get caught up in myth if you allow yourself to...

posted 14 years ago by Howlin Wolf
4 replies | jump to latest

SPOILERS!

I see so many people having a problem with the fact that the film is unrealistic. Maybe it is. It fascinated me though to see such a noble icon as the American cowboy co-opted by a man who we will later learn possesses none of these heroic qualities. That the denouement quite conveniently plays out on a film set again is probably stretching it a bit, but it reminded me of Southern Comfort, where outsider[s] wander into a self-contained community and try to blend in, without sticking out as people who don't belong there...

There may be a message about how easily people can slip into routine and cliche when they're trying to make something of themselves, so perhaps it's appropriate that it turns out more like a legend or an exaggerated retelling than a sensible chain of events? Edward Norton makes a fine antihero anyway, so even if you do find the story a touch improbable, it's still worth watching it unfold, just for him.

Love United. Hate Glazers.

[–] jamesericmcgee 14 years ago

The point of view of the story is always important. It seems fairly objective, though Martin seems to have reached his Nirvana waking up to the movie set. He is delusional, or maybe just tinting his world like we all do. He only gets a moment to live in this real dream world, though it might serve to simply let him escape to nowhere.

"The only reason I'm paranoid is because everyone's against me." - Frank Burns.

[–] Howlin Wolf 14 years ago

I saw it as fitting, rather than ludicrous.

Love United. Hate Glazers.

[–] jamesericmcgee 14 years ago

Agreed. I think Martin feels that his family life has been so screwed up, that he has now parleyed his stint at the youth camp into a cowboy-culture alter ego. It's really quite touching, though it's not going to work at a gas station in the 2005 San Fernando Valley, so he's gone up a dead-end street again. It's a wonderful myth for him, but the film set is the only world he can feel that he fits into. Harlan is a sad though sympathetic character.

Norton plays Eisenheim in The Illusionist, but the story is told and experienced from the Police Detective's point of view, beliefs, and perception. So we never really know for certain what happens. In DITV Martin is long-gone, and Harlen constructs the reality for us as he searches for acceptance.

"The only reason I'm paranoid is because everyone's against me." - Frank Burns.

[–] Howlin Wolf 14 years ago

Absolutely!

Love United. Hate Glazers.