Palindromes

Like a palindrome, the same forward and back, nothing ever changes, goes the rather obvious message of Todd Solondz’s Palindromes, in which the protagonist Aviva is played by a whole bevy of actors of various shapes, sizes, and colors - although things, then, can take rather different forms to express themselves. Personally I’m not entirely inclined to agree with this hypothesis, but no matter; this theory certainly holds true for Solondz, who has made a movie whose treatment of characters, narrative, and filmmaking is nothing like anything he’s done before this, even while it expresses basically the exact same issues and concerns as ever. In his prior films, Solondz has taken cunning cuts straight through his characters, mocking them so severely that it becomes impossible to reproach their flaws as being even their own individual faults – for Solondz, his protagonists aren’t laughable losers except in the context of a hopelessly cruel world, and it is that world that is the butt of all of his own belated bullying. The same more or less holds true in Palindromes, except maybe for the “laughable” part.

I laughed once or twice throughout 100 minutes (compare to Happiness, one of the funniest movies ever made), although there were a couple scenes that I probably would have found a bit more humorous in the context of another Solondz movie. The best of these is a boy-band-style pop song about Jesus sung by deformed, disabled children with earnest verve (these follow a Brady Bunchish dinner sequence with the kids that includes lines to the effect of “But I don’t know how to microwave,” followed by “Well with Jesus’ help you’ll learn in no time,” followed by great happy laughter to be alive and in such a swell family). The scene, of course, has a horrific hilarity to it, the real verve coming from Solondz’ audacity and whatnot, and Solondz’ detractors would probably claim he’s mocking the disabled kids. That’s hardly the case – Solondz’ real target, I would have previously thought, is the cheesy earnestness of family sitcoms and boy bands, whose nauseous hammering of “values” only holds for the audience as long as the its messengers are blue-eyed, blonde-haired, and buff. Solondz is also slyly indicating that the values themselves are just as superficial as the reasons America tunes in to hear them.

Yet the scene is, somewhat surprisingly, not that funny (well, a bit), and the reason is the context, which made me wonder if Solondz was trying to “target” anything at all. Most of what Solondz writes deals with the conflict between children and adults, which is, for him anyway, a conflict between unsupported sincerity and utter phoniness. One of the key moments in the film comes at the end – after Welcome to the Dollhouse’s Mark Wiener gives a roundabout explanation to explain why he’s not a pedophile, in which he bluntly states the perhaps already obvious and certainly already dour thesis of the film (the world and its inhabitants are hopeless because everything is programmed so that nothing ever changes) that Solondz himself has repeatedly explained in similar words in press releases and in obscure interviews, Aviva replies smartly and somewhat shockingly, “You’re not a pedophile. Pedophiles love children.” Getting over the clever little joke that shows Aviva to be just as naïve in her understanding of the world as ever, there’s a strong point to be made here. Mark’s comments, says Solondz, are the comments that only an adult could make, even if he is right, which is why Aviva responds so indignantly. The difference between a child and an adult is, of course, the difference between happiness and despair (a recurring theme), but the reason isn’t that the child is objectively any better off, but only that a child, unlike an adult, can have the hope that things will improve. Either way, life itself still sucks. In the end, nothing ever actually changes.

Solondz’ previous films have all clearly been the work of an adult who has gotten past the confusion of his characters and can look back with mockery and sympathy alike. Palindromes is a fuzzier matter, both visually and thematically. Solondz cinematography (flat and drab), writing (almost entirely generic and drab) direction (overly earnest and drab) look like the work of an amateur eager to make his points through occasional gimmicks, even if he’s not sure how to do so with much imagination. The sense of storytelling so pervasive in Happiness and, um, Storytelling, is gone here, with the basic premise (Aviva wants to have lots and lots of babies!) more or less an excuse to introduce riffs on Solondz’ message. Emotions, even, despite the vast amounts of sympathy, don’t make much of an appearance (also despite the somewhat haunting lullabies that float in and out over grubby shots of Kingston’s malls, parking lots, and billboards). Palindromes is closer to an essay, and in serving up a wholly unpleasant examination of mankind’s two-sidedness (child and adult) it rather closely aligns itself to the equally maligned Dogville of last year. But Dogville was also the work of a mocking adult, and Palindromes – here, finally, is my point – Palindromes is, for the first time in Todd Solondz’ professional career, the work of a child.

A cruel child, perhaps, but so is Aviva, who exactly like her cousin Dawn immaturely doesn’t mind seeing a happy daughter from a happy family she can’t belong to knocked off. This moment, it can and should be claimed, creates an entirely different Aviva than the usual whimpering tender little thing we’re used to, but the point isn’t as much that she’s changed as that she’s revealed yet another part of her family-wanting personality. This Freudian insight that sweet affection and cruel lust are different, but ultimately irreconcilable and polarized forms of the same thing, love, isn’t entirely new for Solondz – in the most celebrated scenes of Happiness, for example, a father gleefully displayed his love for children as both caring father and crafty pedophile, but the two personas operate only as mutually exclusive manifestations of the same body.

But in Palindromes, it’s not even the same body – that, Solondz says, as only a child could (look at the way Dawn’s treated for her looks in Dollhouse), doesn’t matter for him. In the end, we’re just different pieces at different points of the same personality, and that, for better or for worse, is all there is. Naïve? Perhaps. Harsh? Probably. But in some sense that is as perverse as anything Solondz has done to this point, it is a moral that can inexplicably be proven equally charming just the same. For whatever reason, Palindromes is proof. I think.