[yasr_overall_rating]
A creative teenage girl is placed into a mind-altering procedure to civilise her, while news of a virus epidemic spreads throughout the world.
Once in a while, a film comes along that is so purely insane, both structurally and visually, it defies description. Some such films succeed, others fail miserably – the endeavor to give conventional film structure the finger and venture into the unknown is a brave one. While one may certainly applaud Hooroo Jackson’s ballsy first foray into filmmaking (an adaptation of his own graphic novel “Aimy Micry”) for thinking outside the box, “Aimy in a Cage” fails to live up to its grandiose ambitions.
Imagine the rapid-flow, demented editing of Oliver Stone’s “Natural Born Killers”. Now throw in the ballistic, ultra-close-up, heightened performances of Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Mix in a dash of Wed Anderson camera pans, quirky musical cues, chapter title cards and production design. Set the entire film in one apartment. Boom – you get “Aimy in a Cage.” Yes, it sounds almost intriguingly crazy, and I’d say see it for yourself to believe it, but watching Jackson combining those three auteurs’ most extreme elements is like subjecting yourself to over an hour of eye-scorching, eardrum-drilling nonsense. Occasional inspired moments only reinforce the theory of how much better the film would have been, had one of the aforementioned directors taken the reigns.
The first segment introduces us to Aimy’s demented world, set in an apartment decorated by crackheads and Cirque Du Soleil performers. Aimy (Allisyn Ashley Arm) argues with her Grandma Micry (Academy Award-Nominee Terry Moore, in late-Vincent Price (read: “balls-out nuts, made me super uncomfortable”) mode) about “touching grandma’s possessions” – specifically, a broken wooden doll. Aimy’s brother, Steve (Michael William Hunter), can’t imbue any sense into Amy either – she can’t spend her whole life, holed up in that room, making useless art!
Things get progressively crazier from here. Crispin Glover pops up, wearing a top hat, as Claude Bohringer, a gentleman hellbent on getting Grandma Micry’s fortune. At night, Aimy sees a ship captain (??) arrive and accuse her of having, I’m paraphrasing, “mind problems of astounding proportions”. Her father, Gruzzlebird (Theodore Bouloukos), extra-protective of Grandma Micry, decides to give Aimy an operation, to bring her back to the real world.
Despite Aimy’s crazed resistance, they proceed with the surgery – and next thing she knows, Aimy is being spoon-fed nasty porridge by Caroline (Paz de la Huerta, whose exact role I’m still trying to figure out). Aimy’s wearing a giant helmet, her brain fried, her ambition eradicated…. but, um, not really, as she keeps ranting about being a snake charmer and dancing and jumping on tables, until the family ties her up on a chair. At this point, the film becomes a progressively darker, torture-porn, psychedelic retread of Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth,” with lots of shrill screaming… and exactly one memorable line: “Even a rodent gets a wheel.”
As if that were not enough lunacy, a TV anchorman informs of a zombie-like “Apollo virus” outbreak in the city, making folks “confront social Darwinism at its finest” – and the characters are quarantined inside the apartment. The two storylines – the apocalypse outside, and Aimy’s personal doom – never quite gel, even when the former literally infiltrates the latter at the end, Hazmat suits and all.
The main issue with Jackson’s film is that there is no distinction between Aimy’s world and the real one – we never get that she’s talented and crazy, while her family is sensible and boring. They’re all equally unhinged. Is the tale told from her eyes? Is this film a throwback to late-1960s – early-1970s psychedelic fare? Does all of this take place inside a music box? (Frequent clues, such as the apartment’s boxy structure, cutesy musical cues and Aimy’s doll-like dancing, imply that’s the case.)
On any account, Hooroo Jackson’s film fails to elicit much more than a pounding headache. Add brain-scathing interludes (quick-cuts of random paintings), slapdash editing and an ultra high-pitched tone, and the film’s short running time (barely over an hour) begins to feel like an eternity in bad-movie hell. I’m glad I watched “Aimy in a Cage” on my computer – the experience of seeing it in a theater would have been borderline unbearable.
I haven’t read the graphic novel, but I assume what worked on page just doesn’t translate to the screen here, at least not in the hands of the person who wrote it. The madness is not inspired like the best of Jodorowsky or Gilliam, and quickly gets tiresome and repetitive. The bad acting, especially from the shrill lead, and poor production values certainly don’t help matters.
Unless, of course, I were to take a powerful blend of mind-altering substances. Perhaps then Daphne Quin Wu’s intermittently interesting camera movements, and Chloe Barcelou’s insanely trippy production design would have complemented the nonsense, and perhaps even some of the nonsense would make sense.
Like, say, I’d see how the whole dreamlike narrative is actually an allegory, a universal story of living up to your artistic aspirations, not letting them be suppressed by familal – or societal – expectations. It could also be a parable about coming out of the closet – be it a closet of suppressed ambition or homosexuality, whatever. Or maybe it’s a statement on the collapse of the nuclear family, with Hazmat suits at the end representing the new era, an ever-shifting generational leap.
I’d try it out, but something tells me there are better films out there – say, Roy Andersson’s “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence” – that may be much more fulfilling and memorable.
Available now on VOD and on DVD April 1st
