Rewind: ‘Lords of Chaos’ Review
Stars: Rory Culkin, Emory Cohen, Jack Kilmer, Sky Ferreira, Valter Skarsgard, Anthony De La Torre, Jonathan Barnwell, Sam Coleman, Wilson Gonzalez, Lucian Charles Collier | Written by Jonas Akerlund, Dennis Magnusson | Directed by Jonas Akerlund
Rory Culkin, starring in one of the most interesting and weird true stories of all time should be a slam dunk, and it almost is, except when I think about it, it is miles away. Mayhem was an extraordinary component of the Norwegian Black Metal scene of the 80s and early 90s. Suicide, murder, church burnings and huffing from a bag of dead stuff was the order of the day. Whenever I meet goths in real life, they are unfailingly the nicest people you would ever be lucky enough to meet. Here they are not quite so cuddly.
The early (black) humour and shock value sadly quickly fall away, and what is left is a very good performance by Rory Culkin and a lot of parts that don’t really fit together. For one thing, the narration (from Culkin) seems to be on a different page, to the rest of the film. The final narration seems completely at odds with the violent end we have just witnessed as the film draws to an end. It reminds me of watching a foreign film with subtitles, and the subtitles are a different translation to the dub. But here, the narration is hopeful and defiant, when the final act is anything but those things.
As this is largely based on a true story, there isn’t much that can be done about this, but the most interesting character in the piece is only in it for the first third of the film. Death seems like a thoroughly nice bloke, but the actor fails to get through to me quite how deeply troubled the young man was. The topics around this feel under-explored and a real missed opportunity. This is also the case of sexual feelings, plus how our protagonist really feels about his suck-up, come bandmate, come deadly rival.
The centre of the film is either the relationship between Death and our protagonist or the relationship between Varg and our protagonist. The “rivalry” between Varg and our protagonist is (for understandable reasons) poorly observed and explored in the film, and this is a real shame, as it is supposed to be the intensity of this deeply strange relationship that fuels the increasingly gonzo behaviour. In general, I didn’t believe the character Varg, he just seems dull, which cannot possibly be the case in real life and is entirely at odds with what he represents in the film. Our protagonist has just declared that all was self-promotion, “marketing” and yet as a narration is accusing the viewers of being posers. It doesn’t add up. Varg meeting the journalist was the perfect chance for us to try to understand the “why” and it was really interesting for the journalist to debunk as childish and idiotic, the confused and sick utterances of Varg but more of this would have helped.
If you were left unclear, this is a violent film. The violence is prolonged and nasty. Not as prolonged and nasty as Snowtown, but Snowtown gave such a profound sense that “this is an awful, evil thing that is happening” that it took me three sittings to make it to the end. As profoundly affected by the film, as I was, it was too intense, too deeply appalling that I had to take breaks. The director here seems ambivalent, to the awful acts on screen. He thinks it is kind of cool (it isn’t).
There is a particular, homophobic murder, that was troublingly under-explored by the film that left a sour taste. But really, a long-in-the-tooth horror fan like me shouldn’t be contemplating fast-forwarding the violence as it strikes me as gratuitous and lingering longer than we need.
What does any of this mean? Is a fair question. This is based on real life, and real life is messy, and confused and incomplete. However, with the dream sequences, the conversations between our protagonist and his girlfriend, and his narration, the director is trying to suggest something that never quite seems to be anything. As the famous quote goes. Arty dream sequences, for arty dream sequence’s sake, do not an art house film make. This isn’t an arty film. It is a key part of art, for the viewer to take out of a piece of art more than the artist intended. However, here I get the feeling the director is trying to pretend there is more here than there really is. I don’t think this adds up to anything more than a really good performance from our lead. If this was a game of poker, I would be calling the director out. I think he’s holding a pair of twos.
Rory Culkin is almost worth watching, just for his performance. Almost.
