FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Terrence Malick - Badlands

The Filmkunstbar Fitzcarraldo is open again as Späti! You can buy alcohol at late prices, cocktails of course and you can get cigarettes, sweets and chips. But most of all, our beloved video store is opening again and offers staring packages like 1 bottle of Prosecco + 1 bag of chips + 2 DVDs overnight = 10,00 Euro

Holly describes her life like a Pulp novel. "Little did I realize, that what began in the alleys and back ways of this quiet town would end in the Badlands of Montana." It is her questioning narrative voice that lingers throughout Terrence Malick's film. Sometimes it seems as if human existence simply disappears behind the majestic landscape. Holly is playing with a twirling stick as she meets Kit. He worked in a garage. She's fifteen, he's 25 - but we don't learn about his former life. He simply takes Holly with him and within two days he has shot her father and set her house on fire. Both are on the run to South Dakota. Terrence Malick tells an essentially familiar story. A criminal couple fleeing through a neglected America. Malick films these crimes without seeking meaning in them. He never psychologizes! Kit is simply an attractive psychopath that Holly adores. She herself is still a child - quite simple and unworldly. Holly describes her odyssey in the third person, as if everything that happens is fate. Holly lives in one of these country houses, which will appear more often in Malick's work. Own memories? He now throws his couple from one breathless sequence to the next. They live in the forest and cross the Great Plains in a series of stolen cars. "At the very edge of the horizon. We could make out the gas fires of the refineries at Missoula, while to the south we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I'd ever seen." Badlands is definitely one of the greatest films from the New Hollywood era of the early 70s! Malick's debut introduces actors Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, both of whom were still unknown. Sheen came from TV, Spacek appeared in her second film. Sheen in Blue Jeans looks like one of the rebels of the 50s, like a real movie star! Spacek, with red hair and freckles, looks like a girl, not a woman. Both characters have little depth and that is in contrast to their death instinct. Two basically uninteresting people who kill a family without motivation. "Listen to your parents and teachers. They got a line on most things, so don't treat 'em like enemies," Kit comments stupidly on his actions. He thinks his words have a meaning now that he's famous. The truth is that neither Kit nor Holly are the focus. It's the little birds and animals, the grass as it moves in the wind. In love with detail, Malick films the beauty of the landscape as only he can. Technically, Badlands is a road movie. For me it is THE genre, the New Hollywood movement. A genre that can open up to everything that happens along the way. Only the travelers are constant. Kit and Holly flee to nowhere. Kit vaguely talks about wanting to go north, Holly follows him out of love. Another reason she goes with him is to break her father's (Warren Oates') ban. His death, it seems, is comfortable for Holly. "It hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who only had just so many years to live. It sent a chill down my spine and I thought where would I be this very moment, if Kit had never met me?" Did their existence ever have any meaning at all? Terrence Malick is one of the real Hollywood legends. A hermit. If you google his name, you'll discover just a handful of pictures. Interviews with Malick? No way. I think he's simply a private person who is absorbed in his work and otherwise lives on a ranch. Probably he is happy without publicity, simply in the circle of friends. Colleagues describe him as a friendly, cheerful man. Malick is not an intellectual, but a pure humanist. This is certainly the reason why his complete oeuvre (in more than forty years!), now comprising seven films, is so unique!