‘Mister Lonely’ shows us where 20th-century pop culture goes to die

The only good thing about the British director Michael Winterbottom is that he consistently works with a great cinemato-grapher, Marcel Zyskind. And two of Zyskind’s three best-photographed films star Samantha Morton: Code 46 and Mister Lonely. Code 46 is about the future of globalization; Mister Lonely, which is directed by Harmony Korine, is about the death of 20th-century popular culture.

One of the witnesses of this slow and sad death is a Michael Jackson impersonator, Diego Luna. The impersonator is lonely and he performs in the busy streets of Paris. One day he happens to meet a beautiful Marilyn Monroe impersonator, Samantha Morton. Monroe, dressed in white, face glowing like an angel, tells lonely Jackson of a fantastic place where celebrity impersonators (Sammie Davis, Madonna, Charlie Chaplin, Shirley Temple) go to spend the rest of eternity. This fantastic place is in Scotland. Had Michael Jackson not fallen in love with Monroe so fast and hard, he would not have followed her to the end of the world.

That is one of the two stories in Korine’s movie; the other story concerns flying nuns, promiscuous natives, miracles, and Werner Herzog. The two stories have no point of connection. The movie has several wonderful moments: Jackson and Monroe walking in a park; nuns dreaming of God in the jungle; Sammie Davis Jr. tap dancing at the top of a castle because he loves the pure air of Scotland. Korine, the Rimbaud of cinema, has this as the spring of his genius: constant amazement at the fact that humans exist at all. He does not want to explain why we are here on earth, why we were living, fucking, crying, hoping, dying; he just wants to show us the extent of his amazement and wonder.

MISTER LONELY DIR. HARMONY KORINE | NOT RATED | AT SELECT THEATERS

Tags: Film, harmony korine, mister lonely, pop culture