*This review may contain a spoiler, so perhaps you do not want to read it before seeing the film, but I have kept this sufficiently vague, in my view.
I have to comment on another reviewer who wrote that this film represents Larry Clark's disappointing and lackluster comeback film. I have not known any of Larry Clark's filmography. I do not believe I have seen a single one, so I was a bit surprised Mr. Clark had a comeback to make. Mr. Clark is foreign to me and the actors are also completely unknown, which has the added bonus of keeping production costs low, but seems to degrade the overall quality of the film. Sometimes I even felt as though the actors were searching for lines or emotions, but did not know where to look. Perhaps the director had stepped out for the moment.
No doubt, I am equally foreign to this film. I considered stopping the film 5 or 10 minutes in because my initial reaction was one of bewilderment (why are these people in this film?) and one of disgust (why are these border patrol agents harassing a young, and why is a teacher, moments later, spanking him in a school room with a paddle fashioned out of wood). By foreign I felt as though I was in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, playing the role of Gregor Samsa. The world I see portrayed in Marfa Girl is totally foreign to me. It is a world with brutal quasi-police forces who prey upon the public. It is a place where all hope is lost and where people turn to spiritual healing for some substitute of courage and intellect. It's a world where the only place to find entertainment is apparently in a semi-abandoned apartment complex/RV park where teenagers are dancing dispassionately to music of a guitar strummer and a kid with an electronic sound board. More fascinating is why anyone would want to visit this southern border town. The young artist known as Marfa Girl (played by model Drake Burnette) mixes with the locals like oil to water when she suggests to one man that he should model nude for her sketches. I nearly laughed, but instead wondered why he didn't slap her coming on to a taken man in an ultra-conservative town in America.
Admittedly, part of my foreign feeling toward this film lies in my lack of relativity to the main character, whose mother at one point reminds him that although lightly browned, he is "not a wetback." Admittedly, in my K-12 years I didn't fall into bed with older women/moms, I didn't roam aimlessly around my little middle-American town, and I didn't grow up in a place where I was treated as if I belonged to another species on another planet. Young people go through difficult times as adolescents; we get that. Young people do and say stupid things, and we get that as well. It's just that Clark does not quite bring this one home for me. Even at the end, I was still searching for something to cling to, but could not find it. Indeed, the reason for this review might very well be the fact that the film was so forgettable that I had to write down my thoughts lest I forget about it tomorrow.
You might have wondered from where the film's title is derived. It turns out that the title is taken from the very real town in which the film is set, Marfa, Texas. As if the film had not turned me off the place, a review of Google Maps and Wikipedia resources suggests that it is a place on Earth that I am highly unlikely to ever find myself. No doubt, I am better off for steering clear, and you are better off for skipping this film.
I have to comment on another reviewer who wrote that this film represents Larry Clark's disappointing and lackluster comeback film. I have not known any of Larry Clark's filmography. I do not believe I have seen a single one, so I was a bit surprised Mr. Clark had a comeback to make. Mr. Clark is foreign to me and the actors are also completely unknown, which has the added bonus of keeping production costs low, but seems to degrade the overall quality of the film. Sometimes I even felt as though the actors were searching for lines or emotions, but did not know where to look. Perhaps the director had stepped out for the moment.
No doubt, I am equally foreign to this film. I considered stopping the film 5 or 10 minutes in because my initial reaction was one of bewilderment (why are these people in this film?) and one of disgust (why are these border patrol agents harassing a young, and why is a teacher, moments later, spanking him in a school room with a paddle fashioned out of wood). By foreign I felt as though I was in Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, playing the role of Gregor Samsa. The world I see portrayed in Marfa Girl is totally foreign to me. It is a world with brutal quasi-police forces who prey upon the public. It is a place where all hope is lost and where people turn to spiritual healing for some substitute of courage and intellect. It's a world where the only place to find entertainment is apparently in a semi-abandoned apartment complex/RV park where teenagers are dancing dispassionately to music of a guitar strummer and a kid with an electronic sound board. More fascinating is why anyone would want to visit this southern border town. The young artist known as Marfa Girl (played by model Drake Burnette) mixes with the locals like oil to water when she suggests to one man that he should model nude for her sketches. I nearly laughed, but instead wondered why he didn't slap her coming on to a taken man in an ultra-conservative town in America.
Admittedly, part of my foreign feeling toward this film lies in my lack of relativity to the main character, whose mother at one point reminds him that although lightly browned, he is "not a wetback." Admittedly, in my K-12 years I didn't fall into bed with older women/moms, I didn't roam aimlessly around my little middle-American town, and I didn't grow up in a place where I was treated as if I belonged to another species on another planet. Young people go through difficult times as adolescents; we get that. Young people do and say stupid things, and we get that as well. It's just that Clark does not quite bring this one home for me. Even at the end, I was still searching for something to cling to, but could not find it. Indeed, the reason for this review might very well be the fact that the film was so forgettable that I had to write down my thoughts lest I forget about it tomorrow.
You might have wondered from where the film's title is derived. It turns out that the title is taken from the very real town in which the film is set, Marfa, Texas. As if the film had not turned me off the place, a review of Google Maps and Wikipedia resources suggests that it is a place on Earth that I am highly unlikely to ever find myself. No doubt, I am better off for steering clear, and you are better off for skipping this film.