Review #47: 'Rubber' (2010)

I first came across the basic premise of this film in a short piece in a magazine that I do not recall the name of last year. The basic idea of the film is simple: A car tyre (named Robert - go figure!) finds pleasure in killing, and so goes on a rampage in the desert. Sold! Of course I had no high expectations of such a silly idea, and was just expecting a run of the mill genre piece in the vein of something like, insert silly killer-thing movie here (that's right, I can't think of any at this point). However, this is not such a genre piece, and is in fact a movie with pseudo-arthouse pretensions. This next sentence does come from me, who revels in the silly, obscure, and utterly bizarre side of cinema: but this film is fucking odd. I have no deep analytical ideas of what the writer/director (Quenten Dupieux) is exactly trying to achieve. Only that I believe it is an observation/criticism of cinematic spectatorship as it stands today. The only way I can represent this film is by simply describing what happens; something I generally try to avoid when writing about cinema. So here it goes.

The film opens in a desert. The police lieutenant of a small town (played by Stephen Spinella) approaches a group of people positioned below the camera. He then begins his address, which is also directed at us as an almost latecomer to the 'audience'. (Now, all of this is ad libed as I saw this about a month or so ago and will not remember word for word.) The Brectian distanciation that follows describes a few Hollywood movies where things that happen in them 'for no reason'. The one that sticks in my mind is that in Oliver Stones JFK, a man assassinates the president of the United States 'for no reason'. (I remember this one for its absurdity). Lieutenant Chad (as he is called) completes the monologue by essentially stating that in this film, things happen for no reason. Don't question, just enjoy the movie. The camera then directs us onto the onscreen audience who are all handed binoculars and advised to enjoy the movie, and they are left alone to wait, and wait for 'something' to happen.

This is where that basic premise kicks in and Robert, the car tyre, awakens from the sand to make its first steps (sic) into his new consciousness. After a tricky few attempts at keeping up right, Robert runs over a plastic bottle. He does this delicately as you can almost sense the pleasure he gets from the act of crushing the object. Suffice to say, he moves up to animals. Firstly a scorpion. However, he runs over a metal can which he discovers is not so easy to crush. So, he rewinds and 'looks' at the object from a slight distance. A noise of distortion and high-pitched screeching develops and he begins to throb. Then, the can explodes. So we discover that Robert has some kind of telekenetic powers of destruction of the type seen in David Cronenberg's Scanners. Pretty ordinary comedy-horror right? Wrong.

Ok so Robert does eventually, and obviously, move onto humans, by which time he has honed his powers so that he only blows up the heads of humans. However, this is not the odd and interesting part of the film. As the desert audience of people are commenting and observing the 'movie' they watch through binoculars, the 'organisers' of this event wheel in a rack of meat, which the spectators devour very quickly (except for one redneck type who continues viewing from the comfort of his deck chair). Shortly after this the audience all die from food poisoning. Part of the way through a scene being acted out in the town the audience watch, Chad (the Lieutenant) calls all together, advises that they have all done a good job, and they no longer need to continue as the audience are all dead. Then the same organiser that presented the meat to the audience, approaches Chad to tell him the news that there is still an audience member watching. He then orders all back, and then tells them the news, and that they all have to carry on with the film till the end (an end we later discover has never even been written).

Ok, so this is enough description of 'what happens'. It really is a film that defies what you expect from it. I genuinely did not expect any of this, and really thought it would be simply about a killer tyre. So, this is why I'm writing about it. Its something that I have never seen before. In fact, it has been one of those films that has stuck with me. When I first finished watching it, I was not even sure if I enjoyed or liked it. However, the narrative as a whole played over in me through the proceeding days and I just about told everyone that would listen about it (to be fair, none of them have watched it). I don't know why, cause I talked about it with such passion, that I only really usually have for films that have touched me on an emotional or intellectual level. But this touched me on a level that I can only guess at as bemusement. As I've played the concept over in my head, I can only assume that what Quenton Depieux wants to illustrate is that audiences will watch any old shit. not much of an analysis, but people do watch shit to death (in this film literally). It defies categorisation, and is certainly on my list of films that I recommend to people just for its shear originality. Unless there is anyone out there that can suggest any film comparisons (I'd very much like to hear from them). Enjoy!


Directed by: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick, Wings Hauser
Country: France/Angola

Rating: ****

Marc Ivamy