Review of Chapter 27 (2007) by Heather M — 10 Nov 2010

A short horror movie.

Without reading up on it, from bits of the movie I saw, I thought it was about some fat guy going through bankruptcy. The whole movie's based on Jared Leto's performance, almost a monologue, and it's good. He plays a disturbed, socially inept guy very well. Even small things like how he holds his hands is convincing. I only wondered a little when he spoke to his wife and the child because ya figure the crazy has to stop somewhere. However withdrawn he is you figure there's some people he's more normal with (like his wife) even if he's never completely normal. With the kid you figure universal child-rearing instincts would have him be playful. Maybe, "hello John Lennon" was a joke but it came off as really creepy.

Lindsay Lohan's roll is the largest other actor's in this film but it's still small. She pulls it off well. From her eyes and getting her jacket you strongly read the shift from, "this guy's a little weird but maybe he'll be cool" to "this guy's disturbing and I don't want to be near him". In her real life she probably has had some contact with eerie types, if only through letters, so her performance came from a real place.

The movie's set up as if Mark was right and he really is some physical manifestation of Holden Caulfield.

[Sidenote: Holden Caulfield's a character I reckon most teen boys can relate to (or older men feeling nostalgic) and The Catcher in the Rye's a good book that has nothing to do with John Lennon].

He narrates throughout, it's constructed to be over 3 days, in winter, he keeps quoting from the book, it's NY and he ends up in a mental institution. The movie doesn't explain his origin much. The narration's similar, even in succinctness and word choice, to The Catcher in the Rye. Mark's made creepier by being this character who's a mystery, drifting in out of nowhere and giving us a random slice of life.

There's some nice bits edited in of surf (for Hawai) and grain fields. The editing's very good for giving a sense of Mark's mental workings. My favorite shot in the movie is the low-angle one toward the end when Mark's debating whether to leave or not and his jacket's bottom nearly covers the camera.

Insanity's an unsolved mystery. One of the things I think the film did well (intentionally?) was demonstrate how psychopathy insulates crazies from detection. If you pass a bum talking to someone who isn't there (like the main character does early in the movie) you know he's wrong in the head. But how wrong? You don't want to investigate his madness. Your instinct is to keep yourself healthy, uninfected, unaffected. But for all you know the guy who gives you a bad vibe and just seems OFF on the metro is a serial arsonist.

It's odd too how such strong associations are made between unrelated things. If you study any book repeatedly, like it's holy, your language will move closer to the author's so you'll literally think more akin to the book's characters. But that doesn't mean you are one of the books characters. It's somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy and it's delusional to convince yourself it's fate when you're choosing the course. But I suppose we all do that. We hope for the best and strive to make it so. Our anticipation of fortunate outcomes motivates us to work and our work makes the fortunate outcomes we desire more probable.

Fan obsession's something I can't relate to. The content creators I most admire are men I'd be happy to collaborate with or befriend but, as pleasant as such a thought may be, these scenarios still have us in a regular relationship. Me befriending or working with someone isn't special treatment I'd just be more eager to have such a relationship with someone I respect already than a stranger. But a true fan is already over-invested in someone she's never met. I write "she" b/c this behavior seems most typical of teen girls. As odious as a horde of screaming fangirls is, I suppose that's better than a lone guy who keeps his extreme admiration pent up until he shoots the guy. That's a downside to celebrity. Out of a large enough sample group there'll be a % of people who want to kill you without cause.

Although surely there are genuine crazies I'm always skeptical. Is this guy really nuts or did he feign madness thinking an insanity plea would leave him better off than a saner sentence? Or even in a non-criminal way, folks acting in unconventional ways have greater motive to lie. H.H. Holmes changed his explanation for his actions alot. Why presume they can rationally explain their actions or introspect if they don't comprehend the world around them? Alternatively, if the guy keeps switching between stories (like this movie's main character going back-and-forth on being an embodiment of Holden Caulfied, grown up and fat) maybe he's repeatedly giving up on and reattempting a lie.

The movie portrays Mark as regularly hearing voices. Did he really? If so, where do they come from? There doesn't seem to be a satisfactorily specific scientific explanation for where such a voice/s would come from. But, as Alan Moore pointed out in Promethea, there's no definitive proof to explain an internal monologue. If you're reading this now in your own voice, in your own head, where is your voice coming from? How can you hear it? I reckon it's a pattern of simulation streamlined and quickened until the process isn't noticed. As you learn to read, you learn to imagine the sound a word when you don't hear it. That's why as you start out you read slower. It takes your mind longer to do word searches and locate the corresponding mp3s. But after your neurons have grouped themselves into an efficient highway system those sounds stream commercial-free.

The idea of an alien voice which can talk to you inside your head is horrific. There would be no escape. And what would the voice be? A malformed mental doppleganger? A demon? Some lovecraftian horror seeking adoration? Arioch?