Everything you were afraid to ask about "Southland Tales"

Dec. 19, 2007 | It's OK to be confused by Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales."

For half of Kelly's epic film about the end of the world, characters are quoting T.S. Eliot or the Book of Revelation. Its plot hinges on a barely explained back story involving rifts in the fourth dimension. For some reason, Wallace Shawn is dressed like a new-wave Japanese pimp. By the time the film reaches its climax -- which somehow manages to combine modern dance, a floating ice cream truck and the resurrection of Christ -- all semblance of logic has long since evaporated.

Although Kelly's first film, "Donnie Darko," was an obtuse cult hit about time travel and an apocalyptic rabbit, few people could have anticipated a follow-up as thoroughly baffling as "Southland Tales." When it premiered in its original three-hour form at Cannes, last year, the response was acidic. One critic wondered if Kelly had ever met another human being. Roger Ebert called it "the most disastrous Cannes press screening since, yes, 'The Brown Bunny.'" But despite the reaction, Kelly managed to secure a distribution deal and, on Nov. 14, released a shortened version of the film in U.S. theaters. As a tie-in, Kelly has also produced three graphic novels ("Two Roads Diverge," "Fingerprints" and "The Mechanicals" -- now available as "Southland Tales: The Prequel Saga") that explain the film's back story.

The theatrical cut of "Southland Tales" has been extensively reedited -- a subplot has been excised, additional special effects shots have been inserted, a new explanatory sequence opens the movie -- and critics have been considerably kinder to it. As Andrew O'Hehir put it, the recut film "transcends its adolescent awkwardness and approaches being magnificent." But even with the changes, the film is still almost impossible to understand, a trait that probably hasn't helped its box office. It's too bad, because "Southland Tales" is one of the more interesting and ambitious American films in recent memory.

In the hopes of helping you make sense of the movie, we've decided to unravel "Southland Tales" as we've done for "Mulholland Drive," "The Wire" and, of course, "Donnie Darko." If you haven't seen the movie and don't want to have it -- or the graphic novels -- spoiled, you should stop reading this right now. Using the graphic novels, the Book of Revelation, friends and whatever else we could find, we've pieced together everything you need to know (or at least everything we've been able to figure out) about "Southland Tales."

We'll begin with a recap of the film. If you'd like to skip directly to our question-and-answer section, click here.

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"Southland Tales" opens on July 4, 2005, in Abilene, Texas. Kids are shooting home video of their Independence Day barbecue. Suddenly, a bright light appears through windows and a mushroom cloud rises in the distance: Abilene has been nuked. We zoom out to a satellite view, revealing that another nuclear bomb has been detonated in El Paso.

What follows is a hyperkinetic Fox News-style summary of the following three years in the "Southland Tales'" alternate universe: After the nuclear attacks in Texas, the United States reinstates the draft, and by October 2005, war (sponsored by Hustler and Bud Light) breaks out with Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, North Korea and Iraq -- where Pilot Abilene, the film's narrator, is injured in a friendly-fire accident. A blockade in the Strait of Hormuz impedes the flow of oil to the United States, causing an increased demand for alternative fuel sources.

As a result of the attacks, Republicans win the November 2006 elections by a landslide (290 Republicans and 145 Democrats in the House) and they beef up the Patriot Act -- creating USIDent, a think tank that monitors, among other things, the Internet. Liberal extremist cells start to emerge, including a group called the Neo-Marxists. The 2008 election, which is being fought between Clinton-Lieberman (Democrats) and Eliot-Frost (Republicans), hinges on the electoral votes of the state of California.

In June 2008, Boxer Santaros (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), an action movie star with ties to the Republican Party, disappears. Three days later, he is discovered in the desert near Lake Mead.

The movie begins in earnest when Boxer wakes up on a beach near the Santa Monica pier. Above him, Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) sits in a gun turret and recites from the Book of Revelation, Robert Frost's poem "The Two Roads" and an inverted version of T.S. Eliot's "Hollow Men."

"This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
This is the way the world ends,
Not with a whimper, but with a bang."

The first chapter in the film ("IV: Temptation Waits") begins.

Nana Mae Frost (Miranda Richardson), the wife of Republican candidate Bobby Frost, inaugurates the Los Angeles USIDent headquarters. She cuts the ribbon as USIDent employees -- dressed in windbreakers -- applaud. Elsewhere, in a luxurious apartment, Boxer crawls into bed with Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a former porn star with a reality television show. Together the two have written a screenplay, called "The Power," that tells the story of the end of the world.

We quickly learn that the United States is running low on gas and has cut a deal with a "renegade scientist" named Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn) and his company, Treer. The Baron has built an enormous machine off the coast of California that generates an electromagnetic energy field called fluid karma. Surrounded by his entourage, which includes Serpentine (Bai Ling); the Baron's mother, Dr. Inga Von Westphalen (Marion Card); Dr. Katarina Kuntzler (Zelda Rubinstein) and Dr. Soberin Exx (Curtis Armstrong) -- all dressed like a Cirque du Soleil troupe -- the Baron explains how fluid karma works: by "quantum entanglement."

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