Tarnation

Reviewed by Erin Wiegand
03.06.05

The official website for Tarnation, Jonathan Caouette's first feature film, describes the movie as "a documentary self-portrait, chronicling his chaotic upbringing in a dysfunctional Texas family and the unexpected relationship that develops with his mentally-ill mother, Renee." The description is slightly inaccurate. Tarnation, in its original run at the Sundance Film Festival, was classified as an 'experimental film,' which is a better description of this self-obsessed montage of home movies, answering machine tapes and photos. In Tarnation, the line between reality and fiction is distorted, and the result is more like a personal diary or blog than a documentary. Facts are few, the timeline is somewhat loose and confusing, and questions are hinted at but never actually asked—and certainly never answered.

The plot, as well, cannot really claim to be about Jonathan's family or his relationship with them. His family members play supplemental roles in the telling of the 'real' story, that of his personal development as a person, actor and filmmaker. At times, the movie drags on with extended scenes of Jonathan acting, lip-synching to pop songs, or posing dramatically for the camera. We watch unnecessarily long segments of his high school play (a musical adaptation of David Lynch's Blue Velvet) and early attempts at indie filmmaking before Jonathan remembers his family, and throws in a clip of his grandmother combing her hair, or reminds the audience that his mother was still in a mental hospital at the time.

While the film is obviously one that Jonathan has made about himself, he also seems to make attempts to distance himself from the movie. He eschews narration in favor of title cards—written in the third person. In fact, large parts of the movie—particularly the beginning and ending, which consist of new footage filmed specifically for the movie—feel staged and fake, a strange contrast to the hyper-reality of the home movies and old photographs.

Tarnation is also, at times, difficult to watch. An interview with Jonathan's grandfather is given a deep red tint and cast in shadow; disturbing audio clips are looped over panoramic shots of a bleak suburban landscape. Flashing images of distorted still photos, brief glimpses of Renee (Jonathan's mother) in a manic state and second-long clips of stock footage showing a person being given electroshock are as terrifying as any horror film. The most disturbing scene, though, is a single shot: a long clip of Renee, after a lithium overdose, as she laughs uncontrollably and verbally jumps from thought to thought, singing about a pumpkin one second and a doll's head the next. After the first solid minute of this, one has to wonder what Jonathan must be feeling—and how he can justify filming such embarrassing footage of his mother, footage he intends to use in a feature film. Worse, still, is that there is no context or explanation given for the scene. Is her state the result of her overdose? Is this a usual occurrence? And why is Jonathan silently filming this rather than interacting with his mother? Should footage like this really have a public audience?

A large portion of the movie is ostensibly about Renee and her traumatic history, but the political-moral implications of her plight are grossly understated. Nowhere in the film do we get anything more than a quick title card explaining that Renee received over 200 electroshock 'treatments' in a two-year period, or that she spent the greater part of her adult life in and out of mental hospitals—all the result, according to Jonathan, of an early misdiagnosis that led to her initial shock therapy and the disintegration of her original personality. One would think that if Jonathan truly believed this, more time would be devoted to a criticism of the mental health system and its abuses.

In the end, Tarnation is not a movie about mental illness, nor is it a family memoir, nor is it about Jonathan's relationship with his mother—because Renee never really gets a voice. Most of the information we learn about her is in textual form, compiled from Jonathan's memories. The few clips in which we see Renee actually talking about herself are those in which Jonathan is prodding her into saying specific things for the camera—for his movie.

Jonathan claims to have made the film "to talk about my mother's being a victim of the archaic Texas mental health system of the 70's" and to bring up a subject—the treatment of mental illness—that is too often glossed over and whitewashed. It would have been nice if he'd followed up on that intention.