“Valley of the Gods” contrasts abundance and poverty through three separate storylines, featuring a middle-class writer, an eccentric trillionaire, and a struggling Navajo community. Post-divorce, copywriter John Ecas undertakes the biography of the richest man on earth, who is dead-set on mining sacred lands for uranium. When modern advance runs afoul of long-dormant guardians from ancient legend, even the most unimaginable wealth may soon meet its match.
I have done so much research. I don’t WANT to dislike a movie. I work desperately to avoid disliking something. “Valley of the Gods” is the first movie in a long time I have desperately disliked. Between its clumsy plotting and vaguely intertwined narratives, the whole project feels slow to the point of burdensome and extremely disconnected in general. Director Lech Majewski seems to lean on visual allegory and weaves in Navajo folklore surrounding a very real and majestic place to say something to the audience, but he compounds his message so densely among bizarre displays of opulent wealth (or staggering poverty) that it feels either distractingly dense or too nuanced. I’d imagine a second viewing might help the audience decipher Majewski’s message but I can’t imagine a scenario to convince me to watch this again. “Valley of the Gods” works too desperately in metaphor, devoid of narrative, to successfully entice the audience and loses lots of steam before coming to an utterly bizarre ending.
Josh Hartnett’s been on a winning streak for me. His run on “Penny Dreadful” and his recent role in “Inherit the Viper” (which I reviewed here) had me hopeful he might be on a comeback (albeit one straight-to-Blu-ray.) Whatever motivated him to take this role might be the same that motivated John Malkovich: travel to Poland to film in a literal palace as well as visit the actual Valley of the Gods. I’m sure a reasonable paycheck secured their investment, but good Lord, Majewski underutilizes his two stars to a criminal degree. Malkovich is known for his voice and character-acting yet he literally plays a semi-mute character throughout the course of the film. Alternatively, Hartnett gives his role everything he’s got as a writer in the middle of a divorce. It is only great actors like Joseph Runningfox, Saginaw Grant, and Steven Skyler that hold this movie together if at all.
The movie follows three tales: the world’s richest man, a depressed assigned to write his biography, and the local Navajo tribe dealing with the aforementioned rich man buying their land for mineral use. These tales weave only briefly and hardly at all. Not for lack of trying but the film’s preference for atmosphere eats up the runtime normally reserved for actual dialogue. When we are hoping a new scene might clarify the narrative thread we are granted only the most cursory insight.
A great example: Josh Hartnett’s character plays a writer who, we learn, is going through a rough divorce. He’s taking it personally and his therapist convinces him to “embrace the absurd.” So Josh Hartnett goes on a mission to practice absurd and ridiculous things. He climbs a hill with pots and pans tied to his feet. He walks backward, blindfolded. This challenge of writing a biography falls within that purview. TO what end? We are given little narrative arc or conclusion other than he drives to the foot of a Navajo sacred mountain and begins writing. Assumedly he conjures up a mountain baby that stomps through Los Angeles destroying everything in its wake. Is Josh Hartnett’s character a God bringing to life the Navajo mythology hinted at throughout the course of the movie? Or did the Navajo tribe summon the rock baby?
Ultimately, the few things that do work are its lush settings: opulent European palaces with marble statues contrast sharply with the harsh American west pained in rose gold hues throughout the day. If anything, this movie made me want to travel out west and see some of this topography for myself. I can’t say I’d be curious to learn more about the production of the film, however. It uses cheap special effects (something I normally forgive) for what seems like no reason. In one scene, John Malkovich catapults an expensive car off a mountain as part of some ritual. There are so many instances of events happening without context that do not become clearer. The three timelines do not really meet and so provide little context for each other.
The movie feels like a travesty. After my initial first twenty minutes, my interest waned. It declined so much that I actually stopped procrastinating and started working. I wanted to like this movie but given how sophomoric it felt I delayed reviewing it for as long as possible. I wish I had more to go off of, but this movie feels like a genuine time suck. Skip this movie and watch anything else instead.
Available on Blu-ray™, DVD & Digital August 11th
I love this movie!
Can we talk about how Majewski utterly ripped Sorrentino throughout this film? I mean, this is so blatant it’s essentially plagiarizing Sorrentino. It enraged me to watch–I can only imagine how Sorrentino himself must feel. Completely derivative.