Badlands (1973)

Recently, I watched the film Badlands (1973) directed by Terrence Malick and have to say I quite enjoyed it. It featured some of the most interesting and complicated characters I have seen and makes you think about the ethics behind their actions.

The film is set in the 50's when everyone has a cigarette in hand and people walked around in jeans with greasy hair. The setting of the film is well done and it really never makes you think the film exists in a fake world. Throughout the film, Kit and Holly, the main characters, take you through many different locations ranging from Holly's home to the badlands of Dakota. The characters themselves go through many changes. Kit starts off being a relaxed young man with a job into an unemployed maniac on a killing spree. To much surprise Holly seems to change a lot less. Although in theory she should loose her mind after the death of someone very close to her, Holly, contrary to Kit, becomes more sociable and more talkative to the people around her. While Kit is tying up innocent victims, Holly is having conversations with them.

When Kit and Holly escape into the wild, in my opinion, what they do is not very believable. They run around the forest and build bases and hideouts in what seems a very short amount of time. For me this detached me from the film for the span of the forest hideout period and then grabbed me back into the plot when they leave. For me the "on the run" aspect of the film was far more interesting and believable than Kit and Holly becoming woodland creatures.

For me Holly is the main character in this story. Yes Kit changes more visibly and faster than Holly does but Kit's line of change is straightforward. He falls in love with Holly and decides that society has screwed him over and that it is time to leave. He takes Holly with him on his adventures and slowly starts to become less and less sociable. He starts to become paranoid and shoots all his victims for the sad reason that they saw them. Once he realizes he has been caught and that the fight is over does he go back to his normal self. The scene of him talking with the soldiers in handcuffs reminds the viewer of the old Kit that they saw at the start of the film. Holly on the other hand becomes more social. She talks to the people they meet but never defies Kit's actions or questions them to a great extent. She just is like she was when her father commanded her every move. Only near the end of the movie she starts to realize Kit is not on a future strong path and decides to hand herself in. Her display of emotion is extremely minimalist compared to the rages Kit experiences through out the film.

Badlands is a suspensful and suprising film that is ought to shock the viewer. It is a film complete from start to end and without all the puzzle pieces figured out, can be questioned for being a mess. The plot surprised me from start to finish while never letting loose on the suspension. Overall, Badlands displays interesting ideas and concepts while keeping true to the fantastic crime genre.