While walking home from the store one night, mild-mannered accountant Casey Davies is beaten by a biker gang. This traumatizes him, and he begins desperately searching for some means to defend himself. First, he goes to a gun store, but when he learns about all the dangers associated with firearm ownership—an increased likelihood of suicide, and a greater chance of getting shot—he decides it’s not for him. Then, while walking through a rundown strip mall, he sees a karate class, taught by a charismatic, enigmatic figure known only as “sensei.” Sensei is everything Casey is not—confident, aggressive, charming—so naturally, Casey believes that he can become so as well by enrolling in courses. Over the next few months, Sensei molds him into his idea of manhood, not just by teaching him karate, but by instructing him on what music to listen to—Metal—and what language to learn—German. Desperate to please his new teacher, Casey goes along with everything the man says, even when the requests get much more violent, and considerably less legal.
The Art Of Self-Defense is a film caught in an identity crisis. It wants to make big statements about toxic masculinity and violence, and yet, perhaps unintentionally, it winds up endorsing many of the same troublesome ideals it is ostensibly striving to tear down. On the one hand, the filmmakers show a man, Casey, losing his job, his dog, and his only friend in the world because manipulative people have brainwashed him into performing a toxic, hyper-aggressive form of masculinity. At the same time, however, the film goes out of its way to paint Casey’s life before joining sensei’s murderous fight club as pathetic and lonely. And, spoilers ahead, when Casey eventually does decide to stand up to sensei, he doesn’t do it in a manner that would suggest he’s learned that violence is wrong. No. Rather, he murders sensei, takes his place, and to prove his dominance over the dojo, has his new dog rip a student’s throat out. And then, immediately after that, he has another one of the students come up and say, “you’ve been taught that violence and aggression are the key components of karate. This is not true.” Are you kidding me? You just murdered two people, and yet you also want to turn around and tell us that violence is wrong? It’s possible that this was a deliberate choice on the filmmakers part. Maybe they wanted to comment on how, once toxic masculinity sets in, it can never be overcome. Or maybe they wanted to make fun of the inherent hypocrisy of violent media which also seeks to make statements about violence. Maybe. Or maybe they just didn’t fully think through their own messaging.
Now, on the off chance that you don’t care about themes and ideas, and are just curious about whether or not this is a good movie, the film is very slow, very quirky, and very much not for everyone. All the actors deliver their lines in a stilted, monotone manner, eerily reminiscent of Wes Anderson movies, and the dialogue is oddly lacking in contractions. No one ever says “I’m” or “don’t.” It’s always “I am” or “do not,” which gets very annoying after a while. And the humor is very strange. Characters will say things that don’t make sense, like, “you must learn to punch with your feet and kick with your hands” for comedic effect. And while it occasionally works, I just found it to be too much. And, bear in mind, I’m a person who loves weird, quirky independent cinema, like Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, and the films of Jim Jarmusch. So if I’m finding the humor to be stilted and off-putting, that should tell you something. And speaking of Kumiko, this flick is produced by that film’s director, David Zellner. He even has a small acting role. And while the flick does have some similar elements to his work, slow pacing, quirky, surreal humor, it lacks the immaculate cinematography and emotional poignancy found in films like Kumiko and Damsel. You get the sense that Zellner loves his weird, pathetic characters. In this film, by contrast, it feels like the director hates Casey, and everyone else in the movie, even nice characters, like Grant, Casey’s far too accommodating boss, who gives him two months paid leave after the assault, and who, for his kindness, winds up getting punched in the throat.
Guys, if you’re in the mood for something weird, and quirky, this might be for you. And if you like Jesse Eisenberg, and his odd, neurotic ticks, you might find the flick enjoyable. For me, I found it boring, ideologically muddled, and too quirky. Make of this what you will.
liusviews 