I've been a huge Terrence Malick fan ever since I saw THE THIN RED LINE on the big screen back in high school. Later, I was able to see DAYS OF HEAVEN on the big screen in college, and it only cemented my love even more. Still, somehow, his first film, BADLANDS remained unseen by me until just a few days ago.
This is the last (and best) of the "lovers on the run" flicks for Romancefest 2014, starring Martin Sheen as a wandering 25-year-old who has just quit his job as a small-town garbage man and Sissy Spaceck as the 15-year-old schoolgirl who he falls in love with. After a disagreement with her father (Warren Oates) turns Sheen into a murderer, the two lovers split town and hit the road, first living in a treehouse in the wilderness but eventually fleeing cross-country as Sheen's trigger happy ways lead to bodies piling up.
This is a more straight forward narrative than what Malick would eventually become known for, but it also has all of the more poetic elements that would eventually become his trademark, spending equal times with nature and scenery as he does with his main characters, allowing the film to wander between Scenes Where Stuff Happens and smaller, more microscopic moments that don't make it into most films.
Sheen and Spaceck are both great, about as naturalistic as you can get, which is insane, since they're both super young. Or, maybe it's because they're both super young. I don't know.
One of the interesting things about this movie is how Spaceck's character straddles the line between hostage and willing participant. A lesser movie would make a definite decisions -- she'd either be out for blood, or she'd be cowering and look for escape. But BADLANDS is too realistic for that. This is the kind of movie where shades of gray exist. I mean, how many people have followed someone they wanted to get away from? A lot.
How perfect is it that a movie so beautiful should be about a subject as mundane as teenage love and senseless murder?
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