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Southland Tales is a 2006 dystopian Black comedy comedy thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly. It features an ensemble cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake. An international co-production of the United States and Germany, the film is set in the then-near future of 2008, and is a portrait of Los Angeles, as well as a satiric commentary on the military–industrial complex and the infotainment industry. The title refers to the Southland, a name used by locals to refer to the Greater Los Angeles area. Original music was provided by Moby.
Southland Tales premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 14, 2007. The film polarised critics, who responded unfavourably to its running time and sprawling nature in spite of its "intriguing vision", and only made $374,743 during its international theatrical run. It has developed a cult following in subsequent years. Kelly has expressed interest in expanding the film into a franchise.
In 2008 Los Angeles, Senator and GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Bobby Frost presides over the opening of US-IDENT with his wife, Nana Mae Frost, installed as its director. Right-wing film star Boxer Santaros awakens on the beach with amnesia after a several-day disappearance. After awakening, he does not remember his marriage to Senator Frost's daughter Madeline and has instead begun an affair with former porn star turned-talk show host Krysta Now.
Meanwhile, a group of Neo-Marxist revolutionaries composed of Cyndi Pinziki, Zora Carmichaels and Roland Taverner hatch a plan to turn the national spotlight against US-IDENT. They have kidnapped Taverner's twin brother, a police officer, and plan to outfit Roland in his uniform and car in order to stage a racially motivated double-murder. Boxer and Krysta have written a screenplay about riots caused by the slowing of the Earth's rotation, in which Boxer will play a police officer. To prepare for the role, he goes on a ride-a-long with Taverner, bringing a video camera with him. Taverner responds to a staged domestic disturbance call where Neo-Marxists Dream and Dion, disguised as newlyweds, fake an argument. Unexpectedly, another cop, Bart Bookman arrives on the scene and actually murders Dream and Dion. Taverner and Boxer run out of the house in a panic.
Boxer is then contacted by one of Frost's aids, Vaughn Smallhouse, who sends a car to pick him up. Taverner meets up with Zora and tries to convince her that something has gone wrong; however, Zora has actually partnered with Bookman to murder the couple and injects Taverner with a syringe of liquid Karma, leaving him unconscious in the street. US-IDENT raids the Neo-Marxist headquarters, with Taverner's brother escaping by jumping into a dumpster.
When Boxer arrives at the Frost mansion, Treer scientist Baron Von Westphalen and his entourage are also present. The Frosts receive a call from Pinziki, who demands $10 million in exchange for Boxer and Krysta's sex tape. During the conversation, it becomes clear that while Frost is seeking the presidency, Von Westphalen seeks world domination using the leverage of his energy machine. Boxer receives a phone call from Starla Von Luft, a US-IDENT monitoring agent who is posing as a character from Boxer and Krysta's screenplay, and asks him to meet her at the Santa Monica beach.
The next day, Smallhouse meets Pinziki at a restaurant to exchange money for the sex tape, and warns him that a more incriminating tape exists (the US-IDENT murder tape). Boxer arrives at the beach and meets Starla, who threatens to kill herself if he doesn't allow her to perform oral sex on him. Private Abilene shoots her dead from his perch at the top of the pier and Boxer runs off, only to be confronted by supposed friend Fortunio, who knocks him unconscious and returns him to the Frosts. The Frosts and the city prepare for a party to celebrate the launch of Von Westphalen's Mega-Zeppelin, which runs entirely on Liquid Karma. Krysta stops by Zora's apartment to buy drugs for the party, and takes the videotape of the double murder, mistaking it for her sex tape. After realizing what it is, she puts it in a Neo-Marxist dropbox so that it will be broadcast live on the internet, exposing the US-IDENT police as corrupt and racist. While attempting to steal back the tape, Zora and Bookman are shot dead by police.
Taverner's brother awakens in the dumpster and climbs out, only to be captured by an ice cream truck-based arms dealer. Elsewhere, Taverner awakens and sets out to find his brother. He encounters a young man named Martin Kefauver in an SUV and stops him from killing himself to avoid the draft. The two go in search of Taverner's brother as chaos erupts all over the city.
On the Zeppelin, an upper-class party gets underway with the Frosts, Westphalen's entourage, and Krysta's entourage onboard. Boxer leaves the main hall of the ship in search of answers, and finds a room with three of Westphalen's scientists, who explain that he was selected to travel through a time rift in the desert along with Taverner at the time of his disappearance, and is, in fact, his future self. Both present and future Taverner (Taverner's "brother") are loose in Los Angeles, with dire consequences unfolding should they make physical contact. Furthermore, the generator has altered the ocean currents, causing Earth to spiral out of control, ripping holes in the fabric of space and time. The scientists show him the corpse of his past self, who they say killed himself. Boxer asserts that his suicide is impossible because he is a "pimp", and "pimps don't commit suicide."
Outside, as a firefight ensues between rioters and the police, both Taverners crash into each other. One Taverner is shot in the eye but survives. Inside the ice cream truck, the Taverners hold hands, causing the truck to rise into the air along with Kefauver, who stands on top with a shoulder-mounted heat-seeking ground-to-air missile. US-IDENT headquarters is raided by rioters who kill Nana Mae Frost. Inside the Zeppelin, Boxer returns to the main hall and takes the stage for a dance number involving Krysta and his wife, Madeline. Krysta reveals that Boxer was actually murdered in a car bomb, confirming his belief that he did not commit suicide. Kefauver fires a rocket at the Mega-Zeppelin, destroying it. As the Taverners continue to hold hands, a time rift begins to grow in the sky. One Taverner offers to kill himself, but the other reminds him that he is a pimp, and "pimps do not commit suicide." Abilene narrates that a new age is beginning, with Taverner as its Messiah.
Wood Harris appears as Neo-Marxist activist Dion Element. Zelda Rubinstein and Beth Grant portray Dr. Katarina Kuntzler and Dr. Inga Von Westphalen, respectively, both being members of the baron's entourage. Janeane Garofalo appears as General Teena MacArthur and Will Sasso plays Fortunio Balducci. Eli Roth cameos as a man who is shot by US-IDENT while on the toilet.
Kelly's breakthrough film, Donnie Darko, was released in the United States on October 26, 2001, the same day the PATRIOT Act was signed. Two months before Southland Tales was released, he announced the launch of Darko Entertainment.
Kelly said: " Southland will only be a Musical film in a post-modern sense of the word in that it is a hybrid of several genres. There will be some dancing and singing, but it will be incorporated into the story in very logical scenarios as well as fantasy dream environments." Kelly said the film's biggest influences are Kiss Me Deadly , Pulp Fiction , Brazil , and Dr. Strangelove . He called it a "strange hybrid of the sensibilities of Andy Warhol and Philip K. Dick". The film often references religious and literary works; a policeman says, "Flow my tears," in reference to a Philip K. Dick novel of that name. ("Taverner" is the name of the main character in the same book and suffers identity problems of his own.) Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake) quotes Biblical scripture from the Book of Revelation in narrating the film and allusion is made both to Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken , Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and an altered version of T. S. Eliot's The Hollow Men''.
Universal Studios had originally optioned the U.S. rights, but after the Cannes screening, it was sold to Sony, although Universal still retained studio credit only and some international distribution rights. Kelly sought more financing to finish visual effects for the film, and he negotiated a deal with Sony to cut down on the film's length in exchange for funds to complete the visual effects.
Kelly edited the film down to the basic storylines of the characters portrayed by Scott, Gellar, and Johnson. The director also sought to keep the musical number performed by Timberlake, based on "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers which he felt was the heart and soul of the film. Editorial changes were made to restructure the order of the film's scenes, including re-recording all of Timberlake's voice-over. The director also added 90 new visual effects shots to the film and removed 20 to 25 minutes of footage from his initial cut.
The soundtrack for Southland Tales was released in stores and online on November 6, 2007. Amongst the songs not available on the soundtrack but featured in the film are Muse's "Blackout", The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done", and Blur's "Tender". Additionally, tracks from Radiohead, Louis Armstrong, Beethoven, Kris Kristofferson, and several tracks from Moby's are likewise absent from the album. The reason for the exclusion of some of these tracks, like the song by The Killers was as a result of a dispute with the record label.
The track "Memory Gospel" was used from time to time by the CBC Radio One program Q in the background of an opening monologue given by host Jian Ghomeshi.
They have been collected together into one single volume:
The titles of the parts in the film are:
On September 8, 2008, it was announced that it would be one of the five films released on Blu-ray on November 18, 2008. The only new special feature announced was an audio commentary by Kelly. On October 26, 2020, Arrow Video announced a remastered version approved by Richard Kelly released on Blu-ray on January 26, 2021. This release includes both the original theatrical cut and the Cannes cut.
Many critics responded unfavorably to the film's long running time and sprawling nature. Roger Ebert described the Cannes screening as "The most disastrous since, yes, The Brown Bunny." Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir called the Cannes cut "about the biggest, ugliest mess I've ever seen." Jason Solomons, in The Observer (UK), said that " Southland Tales was so bad it made me wonder if Kelly had ever met a human being" and that ten minutes of the "sprawling, plotless, post-apocalyptic farrago" gave him the "sinking feeling that this may be one of the worst films ever presented in Cannes competition." A handful of the American and European critics, however, were more positive. Links to many post-Cannes reviews, including multiple positive reviews by American, French, Spanish, Polish, and other reviewers. The Village Voice critic J. Hoberman, for example, called Southland Tales "a visionary film about the end of times" comparable in recent American film only to David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.
Glenn Kenny, in his review for Premiere criticized the film's style, "Kelly's camera placement and framing are at best textbook and at worst calamitously mediocre." In her review for the Los Angeles Times, Carina Chocano wrote, "You get the sense that Kelly is too angry to really find any of it funny. It's easy to empathize with his position, not so easy to remain engrossed in a film that's occasionally inspired but ultimately manic and scattered." David Edelstein's review in New York magazine criticized the film's writing, "Kelly aims high and must have shot off his own ear, which is the only way to account for the dialogue."
On the program Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper and guest critic Michael Phillips gave the film a negative review. While Roeper called the film "Two hours and twenty-four minutes of abstract crap," Phillips felt that "the film has a head on its shoulders despite the fact that it can't find any direction" but nevertheless gave the film a thumbs down. Southland Tales review on the At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper website. In his written review, Ebert gave the film 1 star out of four, stating he admired Kelly as a "cinematic anarchist", but criticized him for having "no sympathy at all for an audience unable to understand his plot", lambasting the narrative and dialogue as incomprehensible.
J. Hoberman defended the film, yet again, in his review for the theatrical cut. "In its willful, self-involved eccentricity, Southland Tales is really something else. Kelly's movie may not be entirely coherent, but that's because there's so much it wants to say." Manohla Dargis also gave the film a positive review in The New York Times, writing, "He doesn't make it easy to love his new film, which turns and twists and at times threatens to disappear down the rabbit hole of his obsessions. Happily, it never does, which allows you to share in his unabashed joy in filmmaking as well as in his fury about the times."
The film remains enigmatic to many viewers and even some of its makers. In a 2011 interview, Justin Timberlake himself said, "To me, Southland Tales is performance art. I still don't know what that movie is about." In 2013, Kelly said he considered this work as "the thing that I'm most proud of, and I feel like it's sort of the misunderstood child or the banished child."
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