Arizona Dream is a film of details, rather than one of plot and character. Though the scenes do connect in a loose way, and the same couple of people are regularly featured in them, they could barely be said to form any aesthetic worldview when placed in conjunction with each other. Rather, that task falls to shot composition, lighting, and frequent shots of flying fish. Whether or not you will respond to this film’s vision of absurdist comedy without a single guffaw, or love it in the way it seems to outright demand to be loved really depends on just far out there you’re willing to go, or how amused you are by the sheer oddness of things (and the odder, the better). I’ll admit that I was unable to fully engage with this film, but I chalk this up to an issue of taste rather than form; there’s definitely a strange technique at work here, even if it's hard to discern out of the nonsensical behavior and surreal imagery.
Axel (Johnny Depp) works with fish in New York City, in that he takes them out of the water, one by one, and gently electrocutes them for natural purposes (this doesn’t kill them). When his car salesman uncle (Jerry Lewis) asks him to come be best man at his wedding, he is at first reluctant, but is eventually brought there by his friend Paul (Vincent Gallo). Once he is there, he befriends Elaine Stalker (Faye Dunaway) and her stepdaughter Grace Stalker (Lili Taylor). Though Elaine is initially interested in Paul, she and Axel quickly strike up a romantic relationship, and spend much of their time building a small airplane that looks a lot like the gyrocopter from The Road Warrior. That’s pretty much the plot of the movie, kind of. Grace is mad at Elaine most of the time, and Axel is having the usual sort of swoony indecisive angst that is common to characters his age in film. Some of this is cleared up in Axel’s long, dreamy monologues, but, as a somewhat refreshing change of pace, his voiceovers provide almost no expository information. They give background, sure, since there are almost no deadlines or driving forces in this film, they never feel as if they’re shoehorning in a structure that isn’t there.
Let me give you an example of this film’s creative physics: Paul starts driving Axel in his car (starting in New York), and when Axel wakes up, he finds that they’re in Arizona, and that Paul has tricked him into going to meet his uncle. No matter what way you slice it, that’s a several day journey, during which time Axel has presumably been asleep. There’s really no accounting for that making sense, but that’s only in the first couple of minutes of the movie, and only the first such creative leap of faith. That’s to say nothing of the way that the characters interact with each other, which, in its own way is far more confusing. They laugh, they fight, they act, they play, all in essentially the same way that people normally do; it’s the combination of these behaviors and their reactions thereof that’s so disconcerting. In essence, they are mere extensions of the scenery, their relationships just another device with which the director creates his mood piece.
Like any film that’s this dense with idiosyncrasy, some bits are bound to be charming, while others veer to the edge of undisciplined and indulgent. Personally, I felt that the opening bit featuring Eskimo fisher men veered towards the former (for a film called Arizona Dream, it’s not something that you’d expect). Later on, a character attempts to hang herself with what looked like a piece of stocking and, instead of dying, proceeds to bounce up and down from the ceiling as one would expect in, say, a Terry Gilliam film. The degree to which something like this would inhibit your enjoyment of a film that’s already so bizarre is probably minimal, but it does contribute to the sense that this film is less a coherent vision than a carnival of the director’s whims featuring actors who would normally not participate in a film like this.
DVD Bonus Features
None.
"Arizona Dream" is on sale March 16, 2010 and is rated R. Drama. Written and directed by Emir Kusturica. Starring Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Depp, Lili Taylor, Vincent Gallo.
