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Rating: “In order for life to have appeared spontaneously on earth, there first had to be hundreds of millions of protein molecules of the ninth configuration. But given the size of the planet Earth, do you know how long it would have taken for just one of these protein molecules to appear entirely by chance? Roughly ten to the two hundred and forty-third power billions of years. And I find that far, far more fantastic than simply believing in God.” (Col. Vincent Kane)
In a castle rebuilt, stone by stone, in the United States after being “transported” from Europe, the American government has established a psychiatric hospital for soldiers with psychological disorders resulting from the aftermath of the Vietnam War (among them also an astronaut, played by Scott Wilson, who at the last moment withdrew from a lunar mission showing psychotic symptoms). A military psychiatrist (Stacy Keach), young and with innovative methods, will establish a deep relationship with many of the veterans and especially with the former astronaut, seeing thus the fulfillment of his destiny…
For his directorial debut (1980), Blatty (already a screenwriter, Oscar and Golden Globe winner of “The Exorcist,” 1973, adapted from his 1971 novel) chooses to readapt once again one of his books (“Twinkle, Twinkle, ‘Killer’ Kane” from ’66) setting the second piece of an ideal trilogy, dedicated to the conflict between Evil and Good, which he will conclude in ’90 with “The Exorcist III” (the adaptation of his “Legion,” 1983) and winning his second Golden Globe as a screenwriter.
Pretentious (the famous review from the Guardian: "His pretensions are enough to raise the Titanic and make it sink again"), verbose, loaded with philosophical and religious meanings brought to the extreme, schizophrenic in alternating long dialogues and monologues with explosive regurgitations of visionary symbolism and others of seemingly gratuitous violence, it did not achieve great success at the box office but has earned over the years (also thanks to various “director’s cuts” including the latest which reduced it to about two hours) the fame of a cult film.
A film with fascinating premises and at least questionable if not arrogant conclusions (the feeling is that it attempts to prove the existence of God or at least justify the uselessness of Good with the immorality of Evil) sees, on one side, the detractors accusing it of a deliberate and conscious display, for its own sake, of philosophical and religious notions, and on the other side, the admirers delighting in the complex and cerebral syllogisms entrusted both to the script and to the strongly symbolic aesthetic.
As usual, everyone is right and everyone is wrong: neither a fiasco nor a masterpiece but just a film, with a “multi-layered” screenplay (not only conceptually but also effectively since the film seems to start as an anti-militaristic parody and gradually transforms into a psychological drama) but very solid and featuring a direction that's too (deliberately?) static, offering a different attempt to explain many (perhaps too many) themes of existence and fitting within a trend (that of works dedicated to the psychological consequences of the Vietnam conflict) always fascinating. A film that was important in my adolescence but of which I now recognize the inevitable weaknesses that lie precisely in that absolutist spirit that is, paradoxically, part of relativism.
To be seen in any case, for better or for worse (in the info, I attach the version available on the Tube).
Mo.
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