Mullum99 Script Review

It is a measure of age that I still think of 1999 as not that long ago. It feels like yesterday. I throw myself into that plunge pool of memories. I bathe in a frenzied slideshow of thoughts.

My favourite books from my youth were anything by Douglas Adams (my ‘nom-de-plume’ has always been Dirk Gently, do you remember?), or Terry Pratchett. I still love to re-read those books from time to time. Adams in particular still makes me ache with laughter.

Having watched your film once through I realised my homework this week was to watch Buffalo ‘66. Hence the wait. I had to source it, then find a practical time to watch it.

Having watched it now, I think I see what you mean by ‘dishonest victim’. Let’s call her Wendy (I know her real name is Layla, but she slips into the Wendy character very easily). Wendy doesn’t fit in. When we meet her, she is tap dancing with people in leotards and she is in an inappropriate sundress and cardigan wearing tights.

At some point in the film, the cardigan turns into a jacket but to be honest I just took that to mean she had it in her car. She is waiting for something to happen in her life and Billy walks in and kidnaps her. She cannot believe her luck. She is given numerous opportunities to get away from the hapless Billy Brown, but she never takes them, preferring to wait for him to return to her kidnapping.

In some ways her story is more intriguing. We don’t know what made her so casual about what is being done to her. I take it to mean that she is as unloved as Billy, as forgotten and ignored, and with Billy she see’s a kindred spirit.

Without wishing to be a ‘spoiler’ we also see an alternative ending where she is Billy’s saviour. Her narrative purpose from the start is to save Billy from himself. The viewer has to decide if she is successful in this unselfish and loving act. Wendy is also the saviour of the ‘lost boys’ in Peter Pan. Not sure that is relevant though.

Good Evening.

The Steinbeck quote could be taken a number of ways. I like to interpret it as a critical thinking exercise. As a thought experiment into what constitutes truth, and the permanence of recorded opinion. It is useful, I think to include the word ‘recorded’, Steinbeck was considering only the written word for most of his life. But recorded speech is as permanent and as verifiable. Only spoken word can be misinterpreted and suffers impermanence. Your art is recorded art. It is permanent.

Before I answer that, I should say here that I genuinely love Christina Ricci as an actor.

She has got her acting chops around some very tricky roles and has never shied away from roles that she knew the MSM (main stream media) would unfairly use to taint her ‘real’ personality. I wonder how many people would consider Vincent Gallo as a man on the brink of unspeakable violence in real life.

In Buffalo ‘66 she has so few lines, but she is integral to the story and her responses are so measured and perfect. She is not the star. Gallo’s performance is sublime, but she is the perfect actor to play off against.

So what do I believe is the essence of a person?

A person is both a measure of their qualities, and their inadequacies. A person is made up of many variables that change over time. Each day will bring a different person to the fore with character being a relative constant, alongside variables such as emotion, fatigue and health which is integrated into experience. As referenced below; I do not think you can apply formulae. But I do think that due to the never ending changes that take place within ourselves, we are not the same person today, that we was yesterday.

I don’t expect that was a very good answer though.

This music is played at the end credits of Buffalo. I like the song. Never heard it before. I like the line ‘stabs it with a spoon’.

I was trying to work out where nature and nurture fit in here. I mean; I guess ‘guiding principle and influential person’ could be interpreted as nurture, and ‘significant place’, nature?

(TITLES)

I am no expert at these things but I have never equated the word ‘victim’ with ‘guilt’ personally.

Agreed. But that is another subject entirely.

I guess Mothers have a huge influence on our ‘essence’ as beings. They genuinely mould us into beings. I personally believe that not enough money is spent by governments on ‘early years’ development (the natural progression into firs stage education) It is has a huge impact on future generational behaviours. Learnt behaviours can often be traced back to early years development.

This is what makes Billy’s mother so abhorrent. She reminds me of Mrs Wormwood from the book ‘Matilda’ by Roald Dahl. She is entirely selfish and absolves herself from any responsibility for her child.

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Like the lip sync singing by the pervert father, Wendy’s tap dance sequence is purposely badly mimed. However it was not until this point that I realised she still had her sparkly tap shoes on.

I clearly do not know Mullumbimby. It sounds lovely. (According to visitnsw.com – https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/north-coast/byron-bay-area/mullumbimby)

Mullum is (obviously) a shortening of Mullumbimby. But I like the full name better. Personally. I also like the fact that 99 is an inversion of 66. And 66 and 99 have sexual undertones to them. As do the two films presented.

To be honest I think the term ‘act out’ is perhaps a cultural reference. It is not much used in England. It clashes in my mind with the term ‘act as his wife’.

Having watched both films, I tend to disagree here. But I suspect I have missed something important.

This is the bit where Billy explains to Wendy what her role is.

In your case though. I had the impression that you were Billy, until you state below that you saw yourself as Wendy. I guess I was influenced by your backstory.

Love this version of ‘I’m a Believer’. Is it the one from Shrek?

I was not aware. Thank you.

It is not a huge leap for us to imagine that we are a sum of our experiences, but I guess it was a bit of a leap back in the day.

You see yourself as Wendy? Or is this just another clever example of your linguistic trickery.

This sped up film of you naked in a car is a very erotic segment. The music is very appropriate.

I realise that the film of you naked in the car was taken after the ‘lived experience’ but nonetheless. Being naked in a car is a bold move.

The statement will you get home safely, is moot. You intimated you had already had sex with the guy driving. He is unlikely to want to have sex again so soon, but then again you may have been willing to comply with that anyway, given the fact that you had not bothered to get dressed afterwards. In the shown film you are clearly aroused by the situation, regardless. Perhaps it is the risk of being caught that is fuelling your adrenaline.

If you are implying your ‘stranger’ could have turned violent in the car, then this point is valid; but my assumption is that you had unconsciously carried out a mental risk assessment before climbing in. This is where Wendy’s story is as intriguing as yours. What made her/you act (out) that way?

Fella driving.

Billy is clearly damaged. He does not comprehend and process what other’s see as ‘acceptable behaviour’. It is not his fault, but his experience in life is one of bad things constantly happening to him, to the point where he has built a wall around himself. A wall that Wendy see’s as a challenge to climb over.

The Stranger driving we know nothing about. Not even the one we can observe (very slightly) in your film. We know they are talking to you, sharing a joint. We know they have a superhuman ability to keep their eyes on the road despite constant incentive not to.

Not sure I agree with the word ‘throw’. But I do agree that she is willing.

Again. I tend to agree to disagree here. She is trying to seduce him, that is apparent, but he is too scared (and naive) to respond to that. It is not until she hurls the four letter word through the door that he is moved to respond to her.

I am not so sure. If I saw a naked girl in a car, would I immediately assume that the guy with her has made her strip naked? Possibly. But my first thought would be ‘lucky so and so’, before grinning widely and applauding. Which would be a terrible thing to do if the girl had indeed been kidnapped and stripped beyond her will. I have taken the situation not to be that. I have taken the situation to be the girl is comfortable with being naked in the car.

The trouble is, the argument is quite circular. The guy would happily take the role of villain if he gets to see (and possibly do more to) the girl who is naked. The girl who is naked want’s to relinquish responsibility for her being in such a state, so is looking for the guy to take the blame, which he is happy to do.

Kidnapped is a bit of a leap. I think.

This is a classic narrative to be fair. There is a great episode of the ‘Modern Family’ TV series, where Phil Dunphy takes his wife Claire to a hotel as a way of escaping family life and boosting their love life. She suggests a role play where he picks her up in the bar as a stranger. Things are not going too well until he says the lines ‘I want to take you to a room and do all the things your husband won’t do to you, because he respects you too much’. At which point she downs her drink and says ‘stop there’ and drags him to the room.

My point is she wants to relinquish responsibility, she wants to be made to do things outside her comfort zone. But she doesn’t want to initiate them.

Naked car girl cares not one jot about who initiated what. She just knows that she cannot be held responsible for being naked. That she has a perfect alibi in the clothed man in the seat next to her.

Are we talking about Billy or the Stranger? (Just realised that Billy Joel wrote a song called ‘The Stranger’ – all about mask wearing, it is very good).

Here’s the thing. Billy could have been sent to jail for kidnap. But I doubt Wendy would have testified. Likewise the stranger could have been sent to jail for kidnap, but that would suggest the naked girl would be willing frame the stranger as a kidnapper?

If it suited her to do so. It would take a cold dead heart to do so, but…..

She was found naked in a car with a stranger. How far would she go to protect her reputation?

The concept of ‘reputation’ could therefore explored, but instead you have chosen to explore her motivation:

She does what she does, for the purpose of ‘control’. She validates her life by means of ‘controlling’ people to do what she wants.

Most males have become willing victims in this game. It has played itself out down the centuries.

There was a history programme on TV the other night, where a couple of female historians were discussing prostitution in the middle ages. They were honest enough to say that for most women born into that age their only way out of poverty was to sell themselves, either to many as a prostitute or to marry the wealthiest man they could snag (prostitution one man at a time), love was for the losers. Not saying that lots of women did not choose the ‘loser’ route, but many did chose the more cynical sexual provocation route, and were successful doing so.

Tertiary? Who is the secondary then? The brother?

This starts a montage of clips that are played under the following words. The message of the clips is that society has moulded itself into the righteous and (well lets call them the) wrongteous. You make a case that the wrongteous were right all along.

Music changes. I like it.

I remember talking to a chap at work. Years ago. About his wild daughter. She used to frequent a local lorry park and have sex with the drivers in the back of their cabs. He would try and find her and if he did, he would pull her out. But more than once ended up in a fist fight with the lorry driver. But who was the victim? I never really worked it out, or why he told me about it at all.

‘IT MAY COME’

‘IF YOU WAIT’

Music stops. A garage scene in Breaking Bad (I recognise the actor). A pile of money is revealed to show that it is all about cash. As the Rutles sang in their parody of ‘All you need is Love’; ‘All you need is Cash’. It makes the world go round. Apparently.

‘DRY IN JULY’

Music starts again.

We and all those around us only exist in our brains. We perceive life through a lens that shows the world upside down. Our brains extrapolate that data and using other senses make our world real. Once we have satisfied all physical and scientific criteria, the brain searches for narrative. We are pre-programmed to invent stories. Like we are pre-programmed to see the human face in ink blobs.

Once we have satisfied our natural need for a narrative, we start to conceptualise order. We rank things, which is where your value system starts to emerge. It is basically about prioritising.

Ah. You say. But I was talking about flawed internal reasoning. Where the brains ability to prioritise is damaged.

Yes. I say. That is possible, but rare. So let’s consider that Billy has a damaged sense of self worth and his priorities are all out of order. He wants to murder someone he does not know based on an unsubstantiated story he has heard. The narrative arc shows us that redemption is possible. Even for Billy.

THEREFORE

I tried. But I can’t mix emotion with logic. Sorry.

Good line. No. VERY good line.

This soundtrack is absolute filth. Catchy though.

OH, YEAH,

What? Actually did not enjoy typing that out. I think I might have to go and take a shower.

I do not believe in the power of prayer. However I would like to know if this is a quote. It feels like a quote. I cannot imagine why you would write this otherwise.

Being self aware is fun until the drugs wear off.

This starts the quick montage of various clips that move towards a sermon about guilt.

Ooh. say that again….Beautiful words.

I think I deserve my soul getting stripped to the bone. I own a corrupted soul, do you?

(CREDITS)

Not sure where that last bit came from, as to me it does not fully integrate with the theme of the rest of your film.

It may be that you wanted to send a political message about MSM, and the value of truth. It may be that you felt that control is rarely held and wielded at an individual level, as it is mostly at the mercy of big data. Or it may be another dig at your previous platforms that no longer support you.

The film as a whole was amazing. It has all the great Missy attributes; Film analysis; Philosophy; History; Sexual Intrigue; Erotic imagery and a soundtrack to die for.

It is always a pleasure to review your films. I am sorry it takes so long. Hope you are well and happy

All the best.

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