Whatever it means, you’ve got to hand it to “Masked and Anonymous;” watching it, you really have no idea what’ll come next, and it does have nerve and energy. It also contains many very good, self-contained episodes. As a disturbed man Fate meets on a bus, Giovanni Ribisi embodies the futility of violence nicely as an aimless soldier. First he was disillusioned with the rebellion when he learned it hopes to establish another government just as lousy as the existing one. (What was it that Thomas Merton said? “Power will pass from one party to another, but…the situation will be essentially the same as it was before: there will be a minority of strong men in power exploiting all the others for their own ends.”) After that, Ribisi tells Fate, he joined the counter-revolutionaries, whom he discovered were funded by the government. At which point he joined the government, only to be decieved into burning down his own village.
Another good scene is Mickey Rourke’s first speech as the new dictator, although for my money Woody Allen’s “Bananas” still contains the finest presidential decree I’ve ever heard. (It advocates that underwear should be worn outside of pants so that cleanliness can be checked at regular intervals, and that “all girls under the age of 18 are now 18.”) Director Larry Charles, of “Seinfeld” fame, has a natural eye for filming Dylan and his band rehearsing and performing, including an energetic reendition of “Dixie.” I’ll admit Dylan does look a little creepy when he sings, and the thought going through my head during such songs was “what storytelling vacancy is being filled by this musical number?”
The two-and-a-half star rating is sometimes like a holding pattern for movies that haven’t quite landed in my brain. Maybe after I’ve seen “Masked and Anonymous” again, or read some analyses of it, I’ll be able to push it up to three stars or down to two. Until then, I feel like I’ve seen the movie version of a rock concert given by a brainier-than-average act like U2 or Pearl Jam. Between songs, they throw out some monologues and deep thoughts, but I’ve yet to discover a cohesive, linked point at the end. There’s little doubt in my mind that giant fault lines will divide the film’s advocates and detractors. I think I’ll wrap things up by taking a line from Dylan, who suggests “don’t criticize what you can’t understand.” Great soundtrack, though.
P.S. The meaning behind Bob Dylan’s pseudonym “Sergei Petrov” is as cryptic as everything else. But I do know that astronomer Sergei Petrov, hockey player Sergei Petrov, and Austin-based realtor Sergei Petrov will all be getting many more hits on their websites in the coming weeks.
Finished August 13, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Friday & Saturday Night
Page one of "Masked and Anonymous." Back to archive.