Natural Born Killers

The best film of the 1990s for me. The general compliment is that this film does good satire about the media's obsession with violence. Yes, this film and many others have made that a normal subject in film, but Natural Born Killers is so much more. First the filmmaking isn't just chaotic or repititive of indulgent editing. Natural Born Killers has shades of numerous cinemas and histories in filmmaking. The purpose isn't just to excel at film language. Films that do try to transform their stories to the genre or style of reference. Natural Born Killers molds the references to fit its greater designs. The film has rythms and tendencies that make for a common thread in filmmaking, but each viewing shows how dense this really is. Stone allows editing to dominate the film. This isn't to capture numerous angles of a situation, but to add varying notes of feeling and reference. The wild imagery mixed with the brutal soundtrack makes for one of the most detailed and powerful filmed expressions of madness I've ever seen. Stone doesn't just visualize the extent of insane visions, but shows their fears, histories and deepest pains. Natural Born Killers deals with characters and a situation that has become stock in movie-land, but because each new situation for the killers focuses on the "how" and then branches into the "why" - which implicates society - the film becomes both a personal and societal study. The film shows how deep the excitement of violence runs within all of us. And don't believe Oliver Stone isn't aware of his attraction to Mickey and Mallory. He ends the film on a dream-come-true for Mickey and Mallory as they drive off together happy and with children. Nothing about this scene suggests the ironic or comedic. It is Stone's visualization of two killers who, by the end, looked more sincere than other characters.