I'm not really sure why I've repeatedly given Kenneth Anger's films a chance, considering how I've loathed the experience of viewing every single one of them, but seeing INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER tonight was officially my last attempt.
Basically, with this film Anger shot a bunch of disjointed scenes that he could loosely tie together with some high-school-level occult imagery, and tacked on a long, droning soundtrack which I assume was meant to mesmerize us into a submission of the "possessed". Not even a good try. Wigged-out hippies smoking pot from a ceramic skull, some twitchy-eyed albino kid, a couple nude guys on a couch, tacky use of a kaleidoscopic filter, bad superimposed tattoos, a couple shots of The Rolling Stones in concert, and some loser performing dollar-store occult rituals all flip back and forth on the screen without much use of engaging pacing or interplay. Even Satanic butt-kisser Anton Le Vey turns up dressed like a reject from an lost episode of Batman, circa 1966.
So typical, non-engaging, amateurish and lacking real passion or discipline it's maddening. Then again, maybe I needed to be right stoned out of my mind to get the "deep and hidden meanings, man". Yeah, right.
How Anger ever posited himself amongst the leading American avant-garde filmmakers of his generation, and still retains a level of reverence when he created "esoteric" palp like INVOCATION is truly frustrating and stupefying to say the least. It is rare that I can say I genuinely hated a film, or the experience of having viewed it, but in this case I really feel I need to warn others to avoid this film at all costs.
1/10. A shameful and putrid waste of time and celluloid.
Basically, with this film Anger shot a bunch of disjointed scenes that he could loosely tie together with some high-school-level occult imagery, and tacked on a long, droning soundtrack which I assume was meant to mesmerize us into a submission of the "possessed". Not even a good try. Wigged-out hippies smoking pot from a ceramic skull, some twitchy-eyed albino kid, a couple nude guys on a couch, tacky use of a kaleidoscopic filter, bad superimposed tattoos, a couple shots of The Rolling Stones in concert, and some loser performing dollar-store occult rituals all flip back and forth on the screen without much use of engaging pacing or interplay. Even Satanic butt-kisser Anton Le Vey turns up dressed like a reject from an lost episode of Batman, circa 1966.
So typical, non-engaging, amateurish and lacking real passion or discipline it's maddening. Then again, maybe I needed to be right stoned out of my mind to get the "deep and hidden meanings, man". Yeah, right.
How Anger ever posited himself amongst the leading American avant-garde filmmakers of his generation, and still retains a level of reverence when he created "esoteric" palp like INVOCATION is truly frustrating and stupefying to say the least. It is rare that I can say I genuinely hated a film, or the experience of having viewed it, but in this case I really feel I need to warn others to avoid this film at all costs.
1/10. A shameful and putrid waste of time and celluloid.