Mister Lonely

Last week, on the day of Michael Jackson’s funeral, it seemed fitting to start watching Mister Lonely, a film starring Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, played by Samantha Morton, who convinces him to come to a commune where her husband “lives as” Charlie Chaplin, her daughter as Shirley Temple, and others as The Pope, The Queen, Buckwheat, Abe Lincoln, James Dean, Madonna, Red Riding Hood, Sammy Davis Jr. and the Three Stooges. A subplot stars Wernor Herzog as a pilot/priest who oversees flying nuns. How could this not be amazing? I loved Mister Lonely, loved its beautiful cinematic long sequences, its genuine and unsettling weirdness, its wonder and hope that slowly revealed its dark tragedy, its entrancing music by Jason Spaceman from Spiritualized. Released in 2007, Mister Lonely was Harmony Korine’s first film in eight years. It’s the kind of film that provokes strong reactions: you either love or hate it, as I hear is the case with his previous films, Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy (which I haven’t seen, though I do mean to). This film is, evidently, not as dark or disjointed as his others, and might even be called spiritual or uplifting if it weren’t for (maybe because of) its sadness. The perfect film in theme and mood to pay tribute to the real Michael Jackson in all his strange sadness as well. Diego Luna as Michael explains his obsession: “I don't know if you know what it is like to want to be someone else, to not want to look like you look, to hate your own face and to go completely unnoticed. I have always wanted to be someone else. I have never felt comfortable the way I am.” It makes perfect sense on so many levels.