Despite the Gods, The Documentary of Jennifer Lynch's Failed Exotic Monster Movie

Despite the Gods is a great documentary for lovers of lost film. Now, the subject of this documentary wasn't quite lost entirely; but like we saw with Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau film in the recent documentary Lost Soul, what we ended up with was very different than what was intended. In this case, we've got a terrific look at the rise and fall of Jennifer Chambers Lynch's third feature, Hisss. This is less of a tribute to what could have been, like Jodorowsky's Dune, than just an unadulterated behind the scenes look at all the problems that befell the shooting, along the lines of 2002's Lost In La Mancha.

The film works as a stand-alone documentary (as opposed to a DVD extra like it was probably intended to be), well, for two reasons. One because Hisss was such an oddity that became a disaster right before its lens. I mean, what we have here is David Lynch's daughter trying to make a comeback by going to India to film a Bollywood inspired monster movie. She takes her 12-year old daughter along and stays there for over half a year, taking a very hard-headed approach to the vast cultural gap she encounters. Hardships conspire against our hero, from huge rainstorms to an extra falling unconscious in the background of a shot, and you're with her every step of the way as she struggles to keep the production on track.

But also two, because Lynch gave Despite's director so much access. We see Lynch's emotional moments at home after filming with her family, and overhear delicate conversations between her and the film's producers. We start out at her home months before she goes to India and come back to her for a "four years later" postscript. We follow her adventures in a foreign country, thwarted ambitions, and even get into the struggles of her love life. We're given a surprisingly complete picture, which is perfect, because Hisss is exactly the sort of film that makes you wonder about every little aspect of what could have gone into the making of it.

Now, I've seen Hisss. It's a disappointing and frustrating mix of some good elements lost within a bad film. A great example of this is the special effects: it has excellent snake transformation make-up by Robert Kurtzman (the K of KNB), but that's often forgone in favor of really cheesy, awful CGI effects like some direct-to-video feature from the late 90s. The movie has great locations and striking visuals at times, but more often looks like a junk SyFy Channel Original. Sometimes they're making corny snake jokes like Halle Berry's cat gags in Catwoman, other times we're watching extended scenes of brutal rape. The updating of the Nagin snake goddess legend is cool, but then they weigh it down with this awful B-movie plot where an evil American industrialist is out to capture her so he can steal her cells (or something) to cure his cancer. The lead actress has zero lines, and so the film's perspective is often passed off to a generic police inspector trying to catch up with the rest of the story.

It's like Lynch just couldn't decide if she wanted to make a dumb B-movie for Beer Night or a sincere attempt at a mature film, and just started shooting it both ways. It's also got sort of a pseudo-Bollywood thing going on, where there's just one big dance number in it, and they half justify it by having it take place during a street parade. So it's just enough of a musical to not work as a credible narrative film, but not enough to actually qualify as a musical. It's just a mess. And yes, the producers took the film away from her and recut it their own way, so you can't lay all the blame at Lynch's feet; but I can't imagine how a director's cut could turn this into a genuinely good film. Maybe it could've been a slightly more interesting mess, though. Honestly, the producers should've just let Lynch finish it her way, because they surely didn't improve their property any, and they could've avoided burning the bridge between them. I mean, I might've actually bought Hisss on DVD, despite the film itself, if it had a director's commentary on it.

But then again, as puzzled as I was by what Hisss was trying to be, Despite the Gods does give us a solid glimpse at the answer. There's a very telling argument where the producer tells Lynch, "this is a 3 million dollar movie, it's going to look like a 3 million dollar movie. We're trying to make it look like a 10 million dollar movie. But we're not going to be able to make this look like a 500 million dollar movie. It's not going to look like The Titanic. And in the effort to do that, you're screwing up the scenes. If you can't hack it, quit!" Hard cut to Mallika Sherawat sensually licking a giant rubber snake.

BrinkVision gave us a pretty straight-forward DVD release in 2015. The film is in what you might call full widescreen: 1.78:1, and it feels like we're looking at the digital footage pretty much just like it came out of the camera. This film was supposedly shot in HD, so it's possible this could look a little better on blu; but it's got a very raw, handheld style that probably translates just as well to 720. Scenes look flatter in low light and high motion gets blurry, but I'm sure that's the original footage. It's anamorphic with no interlacing or anything else I'd consider a flaw in its presentation.

The audio is given a 5.1 mix, but we're mostly hearing native sound spoken directly into the camera, so there's not a lot to play with. There are no subtitles (except a few, burnt in when peoples' voices are unclear or not speaking English) or other options. Just play the single, basic movie file.

And in that vein, unfortunately, this release is essentially barebones. The only extra is the trailer, which is a shame, because I would've been interested to hear the director talk about her experiences on the Hisss set or something that updated viewers on what became of the film after it separated from Lynch, or even Lynch's opinions on the final cut that was ultimately released... although I'm guessing it would be a Herculean task to get her to sit down and watch it. But yeah, I certainly wasn't expecting a packed special edition for a film like this, but a handful of deleted scenes and a little Q&A footage would have been appreciated.

So I wouldn't recommend Hisss, but I'd absolutely recommend Despite the Gods. Especially if you enjoyed the handful of similar docs, like The Death of Superman Lives or Lost In La Mancha. This is as good as any of those, and better than some. And while the DVD is totally no frills, it's fine. The film looks as good here as it's likely to anywhere, and it's inexpensive, so you might as well just go for it. It's an experience.

Boxing Helena: The Director's Cut (Laserdisc/ DVD comparison)

In 1994, Orion released Boxing Helena on laserdisc, and they released the director's cut in 1995 as a special edition boxed set. MGM issued the film on DVD in 2001, and again as part of their "Avant-Garde Cinema" collection in 2003. Both of those DVDs were the unrated version, as opposed to a slightly censored R-rated version that originally played in theaters; but it's not the director's cut. That version, and the wealth of special features from the special edition, have never been seen again since that boxed set. So just what is everybody who wasn't on the laserdisc train missing?

Boxing Helena is the oft-maligned and misunderstood debut of Jennifer Chambers Lynch, daughter of course, of the great David Lynch. But, let's face it, not all of that maligning is based on misunderstanding; some of the criticism is fair. Boxing Helena is a crazily overwrought melodrama, which is clearly intentionally over-the-top and unreal. Writer/director Lynch consistently refers to it as a fairy tale, so anybody expecting a realistic, down to earth drama just needs their expectations adjusted. But even for a fairy tale, it's a bit dopey.

Julian Sands plays a goofy surgeon with huge, on-the-nose oedipal issues and a truly blind, unrequited love for Sherilyn Fenn, who plays her character to such a selfish, nasty degree that they clearly meant her to be some sort of hypothetical archetype rather than a relatable character. Anyway, she doesn't like him back - she's currently involved with Bill Paxton, but seems to resent him almost as much - and continues to push Sands away. So when she's hit by a car outside his house, he leaps at the gruesome opportunity to amputate her legs and keep her completely dependent on him in his house. And yes, at some point he also cuts off her arms and puts her in an ornate box.

It explores the possessive, demanding side of love relationships to comically exaggerated degrees - we see plenty of the Venus De Milo in Sands' opulent home - but not without real substance or compelling things to say about them. It's probably the film's rejection of the more conventional Hollywood entertainment style, specifically that it persistently refuses to allow the audience to empathize or side with any of the characters that turns most people off. We're exploring the bad sides of our characters here; and while I think you could say it has a naturally feminist perspective, it certainly doesn't deliver the expected, pat feminist message either. It wants to be both challenging art and a trashy erotic romp at the same time, and that's not the kind of thing most people will receive well. But there's definitely a lot to appreciate in this movie if you're of the right mind-set.

Plus, hey, almost everybody judging this film is basing it on the DVD, catching it on cable, the old VHS or whatever. Unless you've seen the limited edition laserdisc, you've never even seen the director's cut "including footage not seen in the theatrical or home video versions," as it says on the back of the box. It's not fair to judge the film based on a version the director doesn't endorse, right, when you haven't even seen the whole thing? So, just what is different about the two versions?

"Hasta la whatever" is actually Paxton's exit line in this scene - how can you not love that?

Basically nothing. Despite rumors on the imdb message boards of a scene where Fenn "poops herself," there is not a single scene, or even a single camera shot, in the director's cut that is not in the unrated version, or vice versa. I have synced up both versions and they do not go a single frame out of time with each other from the opening credits to the closing credits. There are no alternate shots in the sex scenes to make them any more or less explicit. The director's cut is unrated, so any references you hear about missing shots do not apply to the laser or the DVD. Neither version has any different music in any scenes.

There is exactly one change differentiating the director's cut. Sands' very last line of the film (which I won't spoil here, of course), that plays in voice over at the very, very end... does not play in the director's cut. She didn't want it to be in the film, so the music plays out into the credits and it's all exactly as you see it on the DVD, video tape, etc... but you don't hear that line. That "footage not seen" claim only applies because the old VHS release was the edited R-rated cut.

Orion laserdisc on top; MGM DVD middle;
and a combination of the two bottom.

So let's talk about picture quality. That is very different. The laserdisc opens with one of those "the image has been formatted to fit your screen" messages, because surprisingly - the special edition director's cut is fullscreen! So was the previous, standard laserdisc, for the record. The laserdisc is... mostly open matte. The majority of the film plays where the framing is the same except the laser has more information at the top and bottom which has been matted out of the DVD. Sometimes there's more above, sometimes there's more below, often it's centered, but that's how most of the movie looks.

Orion laserdisc on top; MGM DVD below.

Some scenes, however, have been "Pan & Scanned," so the laserdisc is missing information on one or both sides. Notice how in this second set of comparison shots, there's now a lot more on the sides of the DVD version. On the one hand, that's better, because it shows they've made an intelligent decision about what is kept in the frame; but on the other hand, the DVD is in the correct aspect ratio and the laserdisc really should've just been widescreen, end of story.  ...Although Nicole Scorsese fans might see a benefit in the open matte transfer, I'll admit.

...The image is also fuzzier, lacking detail and over-saturated, but part of that can be blamed on the imperfect nature of capturing an analog image from a laserdisc onto a computer to screencap it. So give the laserdisc maybe a 10-15% benefit of the doubt when judging the image quality based on these frames. But yeah, the DVD looks yards better.

I'm sorry; I just don't buy that those are her curtains.

So the director's cut is kind of disappointing... But what else is in this laserdisc set? A load of excellent extras? Yes! Real great stuff. First there's a feature -length commentary by Lynch and her producer Carl Mazzocone. The discussion is lively, thoughtful, self-effacing, addresses all the questions we as viewers want answered about this movie (including the reasoning they had for adding and removing that missing last line from the movie), and tackles some interesting topics (did the TV series Dynasty spoil the depiction of dreams in cinema for everybody?). Julian Sands even pops in about halfway through and shares some thoughts.

The usual collection of non-video extras that laserdiscs often have, which I don't think work so well or add much value, are also on hand. There's the complete screenplay, production stills, the shooting schedule. That kind of stuff. But then there's plenty of good video extras, starting with an on-camera interview with Lynch and Mazzocone, this time being interviewed by a moderator, that pretty much fills in the blanks of anything they didn't cover in the commentary. It goes on pretty long, taking up almost the entire side of one disc.

Then there's a short, but very fun featurette with the guy who built and designed Helena's titular box - he makes similar boxes for magicians and illusionists, so he refuses to tell us all its secrets, but it's still a cool little piece. Then there's a comparison of alternate scenes between the R-rated and unrated cuts, where we see full versions of both, with optional audio commentary by Mazzocone, where he takes the opportunity to talk about Madonna and Kim Bassinger, who both agreed to star in the film and later backed out, rather then the footage on screen, but it's still quite interesting. They also include the alternate ending with that last line of dialogue put back into the final scene. It's a pretty thorough set. Curiously, the one absent extra in this set is the theatrical trailer. And it's the only other thing on the DVD.

And you can't argue with the packaging. The set comes in a cool, black box with a note from Lynch and full color photos on the insert. An entire second laserdisc is devoted entirely to the extras. And there's also a bonus 19-track soundtrack CD, which includes both the score and pop songs - a 24K gold CD, no less! And remember, that one techno/ choir song by Enigma got more famous than any other aspect of the movie, so the soundtrack was a big feature.

So look, I respect the director's vision enough to say that the ideal way to see this film is without that last line, but I don't think it's a big enough difference to recommend anyone spend over $100 (the going rate, apparently) to cop the director's cut laserdisc from EBay. Especially not with the drastically inferior picture quality. Just watch the DVDs. BUT for any major fans of this film or the Jr Lynch, the wealth of extras do make the set worth owning. So whether you should track this down boils down to how much you care about the special features... the fact that it has the "director's cut" sound difference would just be an extra little bonus. And as for the movie itself? Yeah, more people might be inclined to laugh at it rather than with it; but I think there's enough there to make at least one interesting viewing.