Perfect

Perfect

Director – Eddie Alcazar

Writers – Ted Kupper & Eddie Alcazar

2018, USA

Stars - Garrett Wareing, Courtney Eaton, Tao Okamoto

 

The voiceover ranges from teenage existentialism to earnest ad-speak, but no matter how poignant it is trying to be (and such overspeak rarely is), it is clear very early that the full worth of ‘Perfect’ is mostly all in the visuals and vibe. Not that the storyline doesn’t have promise – an oddball young man seemingly waking to a bloodbath, apparently having killed his girlfriend? and so sent to some kind of corrective retreat to “cure” him - but the abstract aesthetic takes over, leaving the storyline somewhat incoherent. But this seems wilful and much of the enjoyment will be, as a viewer, you are won over by the aesthetic and vibe over conventional clarity of story. It certainly works for Terence Malick.

 

It seems our protagonist (Garrett Wareling) is Vessel 13 whose penchant for violence for women during blackouts has to be cured at the institute like a self-help retreat, with added body-horror. An automaton, then, and these automatons sex toys? Certainly, the Pretty Things Posing vibe is suggestive. There’s a seductive glossiness that has this future all for the rich and indulgent, but that’s not an issue that rears its head here.

 

 

The house this is set in is remarkable (The Goldstein Mansion), so much so that when the film eventually reaches a peak, it retreats into a prolonged drone-tour while the narration rambles on (perhaps the voiceover here explicated more, but I was fairly tuned out as it seemed me more existential pontificating). Cronenberg is an obvious touchstone, what with the sci-fi body-horror and obsession with transformation, but there’s none of the clinical-but-exploitative edge of his early work to really make it pop with black humour and genre-bending intelligence. Rather, the floaty abstract glossy designer magazine visuals may not culminate in decipherable meaning, although the nightmare logic and the psychedelic tone almost make the need for that surplus. But this lack of clarity is also problematic in that it isn’t so easy to parse the intention; or as Mariso Carpico writes’ “watching it feels like an 80-minute commercial for an opulent, minimalist lifestyle told through a kink for sexual violence against women.” 

 

Garrett Wareling’s boyish innocence manages a grounding vulnerability, his confusion and internal conflict at least relatable character traits that provide a throughline where all other characters are tokens. As a mood piece, it achieves a distinct aura and, as with most ambience, the reward will be in simply letting it wash over you and do its thing without asking too much. But then there are two shockers at the end that stake the films’ claim on your taste for the Horror genre; and it’s here that ‘Perfect’ shrugs off its trippy elusiveness to imply “See? We were building to something.” Certainly, unforgettable as these are, it’s still not clear what. Hints of Panos Cosmatos, David Cronenberg,* David Lynch, Terence Malick – all the right names, then, and great mood; but despite its message about overcoming flaws, it lacks the definition to make its agenda about superficial sexual models and violence truly and rightfully clear. 

 

 

 

·        * Both version of ‘Crimes of the Future’ indicate how such material can be approached with clinical detachment and/or dark humour.