Six Shooter
Loris noted that he wasn’t explicitly mentioned in my posting for “Leviathan”, which is surprising since we watched it together. That made me realize that I don’t explicitly mention people much at all, not even O who is doing very many interesting things these days, now that he talks and talks.
So, to make up for “Leviathan”, it so happens that “Six Shooter” is the kind of film I would have expected Loris to have seen already. It’s short, it has Brendan Gleeson in it and it’s a movie by one of the McDonagh brothers. However, Brendan Gleeson wasn’t even all that interesting in this particular film. He was kind of an everyman, much unlike the guy he met on the train, who kind of reminded me of the main character in “Trainspotting” (though this may be a somewhat unfair comparison).
In fact, that guy is rather intriguing and most definitely the main attraction of the film. I read an article on matricides and how incredibly rare they are. I discussed it with Loris and told him that I thought all the mother murderers described in the article seem much more crazy than the guy I saw in the film. I wasn’t actually able to explain why. Certainly the guy is quite crazy and most definitely a psychopath, judging by the way he spoke to the couple, but there is something strangely relatable about him (or otherwise Brendan Gleeson’s last scene with him wouldn’t be so emotional) that made him human, whereas your typical mother murderer seems like a total monster. Many things fit his description: He killed his mother in a cruel manner; he said that she was essentially abusing him verbally every day; he has no empathic feelings for anybody whatsoever. But there was no indication that his mother wouldn’t let him go, or that their relationship was so sick that he had to resort to the most absurd murder of all times to get out of his suffering. In fact, he seemed like he didn’t have a single worry in the world, and that nothing could ever disturb him. Maybe that is it that ticked me off, I don’t know.
Of course, “Six Shooter” isn’t really supposed to be an exercise in realism or psychoanalysis or whatever, and there is more going on in the film than just the young kid, so the way he is being portrayed makes a lot of sense to drive the plot and perhaps the film was also a little funny in a dark and twisted way.