Review of Tarnation (2003) by Sick D — 30 Jan 2005

A lot of people have led fucked up lives. But Jonathan Couette was fortunate enough to have video and photographs of his highly dysfunctional, unstable family and then have the high-powered backing of Gus Van Sant and John Cameron Mitchell to make this documentary about his life and his mother.

On the surface, it seems pretty narcissistic, really. But also on the surface, he's made a stunning, powerful film, full of haunting, visceral images.

He mixes family photos and home video with text to form a storybook of his nightmare life - born to an unstable Texas beauty, seeing her raped when he was just three or four, separated from her and put in foster homes where he says he suffered abuse and then adopted by his grandparents - his mother's parents, who had put her through shock treatment under questionable circumstances. So she's pretty messed up and a lithium overdose didn't help matters.

He's mixed up from the get-go, and he further scrambled his mind by smoking two PCP and formaldehyde joints. And then he watched Zoom (who remembers Bernadette and that arm twisty stunt she did?), The Wiz, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Mary Hartman Mary Hartman, and other varied media and dreamed of having a musical based on his life, starring Robbie Benson, Zero Mostel, Joni Mitchell (as his mom) and the cast of Zoom.

The mix is the best part and it held my interest throughout, but still, I kind of scratched my head and wondered what the big deal was.