SCARS * out of **** Mentally scarring "It seemed like art. Flesh, that's my medium." - quote from SCARS The above quote could easily have come from director James Herbert. Flesh is certainly unavoidable in SCARS, displayed as if by default. Although the settings and the choice to film in black and white may give this some surface sheen of art (think of the instant dignity black and white photography lends to coffee table books and advertising campaigns, for example), SCARS gives off something else - the rank smell of an indefensible enterprise. Herbert, better known for REM music videos, happened upon the subject of SCARS by, ahem, accident. On site in pretty Tuscany one summer, actor and equipment in hand but lacking a concept, Herbert started his new film by having his actor talk about himself, so said actor goes on about a skateboarding scar, doffing his clothes (unnecessarily) in the process. (I really should dispense with the word "actor" here, since said actors don't really do much acting in revealing themselves body and otherwise, but most significantly they don't do much acting - period.) Hence the essence of SCARS: two pretty young things get naked (unnecessarily) and talk (incessantly) about their scars, physical and, supposedly, emotional, though traces of the latter are harder to believe. This may have once been a promising concept, but would only have worked here if the participants were sufficiently interesting. Unfortunately for us, they're not; Herbert seems to have picked up the nearest available uninhibited rabble - young Americans doing the tourist in Tuscany, skateboard in hand and not much else. To compensate for the vacuity of their babble (the male is guilty of the earlier quote, and she confesses, "All these people rolling around. I don't want to talk about it. I'm confused. I find it difficult to express."), Herbert has said pretty young things pose at all times languidly and thoughtfully - thus ridiculously - in scenic Tuscan fields, ruins and the like. The result is a cheesy soft-porn travelogue with a voiceover that would be lulling were it not irritating. All the while I was thinking, "Put your skateboard down, put your clothes back on and read a book, for gosh sakes. And get the heck out of Tuscany - you're ruining the view." In SCARS, the shameless should have been anything but. D- SCARS Directed by: James Herbert U.S.A. 1997 Review completed on September 21, 1997. |