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�Nature is Satan�s church,� says Charlotte Gainsbourg in Lars von Trier�s Antichrist, and she�s absolutely right. I cannot for the life of me figure out why people want to go into nature. Sure, nature�s pretty, but you can see it on the Discovery Channel from the comfort of your own home. You can marvel at the beauties of nature without asphyxiating yourself on guano or getting eaten by snow leopards (which is what I�m assuming happened to the people who made Planet Earth). You can enjoy a Manet painting without leaping into the park and cavorting with inexplicably nude women and their clothed gentlemen friends. So why should it be any different with nature?
Well, the protagonists of Julia Loktev�s excellent 2011 film, The Loneliest Planet, evidently feel that nature requires a hands-on approach. We see a young couple (Nica and Alex, played by Hani Furstenberg and Gael Garcia Bernal respectively, who are possibly the most attractive people on earth), soon to be married, who decide to go hiking in the Georgian wilderness (Caucasian Georgia, not American Georgia; think A Hero of Our Time, not Deliverance). Accompanied by their Georgian guide, Dato�played by Bidzina Gujabidze, who�s excellently dubious and inscrutable and�who knows?�is maybe a star of the Georgian cinema, I don�t know, we don�t get enough of it here�I say, accompanied by their Georgian guide, they venture off into the hills and mountains and rivers of rural Georgia.
Now, Georgia is one of the loveliest countries I�ve ever seen (at least cinematically, and I�ve only seen it here and in Sergei Parajanov�s The Legend of Suram Fortress). It�s greener than the greenest clich�d images of Ireland, and it calls to mind the sweeping, wet-green landscapes of Chinese historical epics. So I can understand wanting to look at it� from the safety of my living room, which is what I did when I watched this movie. Now, I�m not saying don�t travel�had Nica and Alex just stayed in Tbilisi, everything would have been fine�but nature has been designed by God (or perhaps Satan) to kill and destroy and despoil. You�ve got your bears, your falling rocks, your ice cold water to freeze or drown in, cliffs off of which to tumble, and you�ve also got your people. Not just any people, but the backwoods rednecks who populate H. P. Lovecraft stories (and I�m aware that that might be a classist or racist sentiment to some, but forgive me, we�re dealing in artistic types here, not real people).
Now, I don�t want to say what exactly happens to Nica and Alex, because it�s supposed to be a �surprise� (at least I think so; every synopsis I�ve read of this movie speaks of something unmentionable that threatens to tear Nica and Alex apart), but suffice it to say: they meet backwoods rednecks, and everything falls to pieces. God, life is so fragile. There are so many ways to get killed or at least emotionally destroyed. William S. Burroughs referred to humans as �soft machines,� and they sure are. They break, they puncture, they weep, they bleed all over the carpet. It�s hard enough just going about one�s day-to-day business in the most technologically advanced of settings. Let�s not compound our difficulties by venturing into Satan�s church.
Post-script:There are no face-eating badgers in The Loneliest Planet. The badgers of the title of this piece are simply meant to illustrate the general tendency of nature.
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| Fucking badgers. |
