Generations

Generations
Directed by Jalal Ansari
Written by Andrew James Thomas aka Ramza Brave

Exagerrated voices, sneering insults, violently angry replies, homoerotic situations, and lots and lots and lots of penis jokes. I'm not talking about Generations, by the way -- no, this is something anyone who's followed the ongoing feud between Ramza and Doughboy and Thomas Bown should be way too familiar with seeing. The corpses of effort that could have been put to much greater use litter the New Releases forum: The Poony Toons shorts, Killing Ramza Brave, the fake 3DMMers United Magazine issue....it even partly inspired a new series of spoof movies by Pogo that capitalized on the Bown/Doughboy/Ramza movie and board battles (and on occasion actually has interesting and relevant things to say about them). This has since dissapated quite a bit, but a formal cease-fire wasn't ever declared. Enter Generations, written by Ramza and directed by Jalal Ansari. The direction balances on that precarious "average" category, the dialogue is often obvious and unsubtle, the jokes, while relevant to the subject matter, are crude and sophomoric, and at times the cheesiness of it all threatens to overwhelm you -- but when you get right down to it, Generations, if a bit awkward, is a heartfelt, genuine gesture to let bygones be bygones and form something far more constructive to a creative community: friendship.

First and foremost, huge, huge congrats to Jalal. The direction here far exceeded my expectations; he's come a hell of a long way since Death and Guns. It's never less than competent, with well-made scenery (the stars during Ne'Zul's cameo are phenomenal), good if conventional two-shots during conversation scenes, and some surprisingly great camerawork and angles where its needed. In the Bown/Ramza/Doughboy saga, Generations trumps all in terms of direction, standing well above what we'd consider the norm for joke/hate movies. The enormity of what Ramza is trying to do and the history associated with a movie like this often come dangerously close to pushing Jalal into the background, but when you consider how everything comes together in the film and consistently stays relevant to what's happened in the past, remember that Jalal is orchestrating everything.

We begin with something not unlike the opening to Killing Ramza Brave in terms of story. Bown, Doughboy, and several other 3DMMers are in a (not so) crowded theater watching Ramza's latest movie. B&D are killed onscreen and the words "Replay 2" come up. The tone of the movie is set right off the bat; when even Ramza is aware that an insult war has gone on for a ridiculously long time, something's gotta be done. Bown and Doughboy leave the theater not itching to get revenge, but visibly frustrated that this grudge between them and Ramza won't die. The logistics of the world they inhabit come into play in a sequence involving the loss of control of their bodies and many giant dicks, but rather than being played entirely for 'laughs', it establishes a sort of continuity with all of the other hate movies. KRB Revival marks the first time the characters Bown and Doughboy represent themselves and the character Ramza uses to represent himself actually meet each other (since no one ever portrays the target in a hate movie on equal terms with their own character), and Generations goes one better by constructing a world that manages to intelligently comment on the nature of hate movies. The rules are set when Bown remarks that they have to be careful because Ramza is writing, and therefore painful things involving dicks are just a personal insult away.

Generations took a lot of guts for Ramza to make. It would have been much more effective two months ago and beyond, but in terms of the effort and creative control a film like this takes, the gesture isn't late. What unfolds is a heartfelt (if unsubtle and a bit corny) examination of the long, ongoing flamewar, written by Ramza but from Tom and Matt's perspective. It's easy to miss the sheer impact of what this means, and a few lines of dialogue made several runs through my brain before the enormity of what it meant that Ramza actually wrote them finally hit. There's a more obvious world-weary, apologetic tone to the movie, but several zingers are quite easy to miss: When Bown and Doughboy genuinely try to figure out the "one person who could talk to Ramza without being insulted", that's Ramza, as the writer, admitting in a comical way that he's often unfair to people. And then, in a heightened form of self-parody, an army of giant dicks chases the two of them down the street, reminding us that we're in a world created by Ramza that he only has marginal control over.

Technically, it either lacks polish or has that kind of rough polish where the quality in each aspect of the film is competent but rarely excels. Jalal still does have a ways to go to attain fluid character animation (Doughboy is right that his turns and falls and whatnot happen too jerkily and don't feel real). And to be perfectly honest, Ramza sounds almost comatose. It's occasionally very difficult to hear him, and when it is he seems to have very little energy. We've heard him act in various movies before (GITS comes to mind), but here, playing himself, there's a weird kind of expectation built up for him to be violently explosive that he doesn't go far at all. This seems even stranger when you realize that Ramza used exagerrated voices for Bown and Doughboy (although that was admittedly so they wouldn't read the script ahead of time, which I think they did anyway). But the idea is consistent, I guess: they did establish that this was one of Ramza's movies earlier on, so out of necessity it isn't going to be impartial. The musical score is one of his better ones, but the main theme is overused a bit, starting up at areas where it really isn't necessary, and the repetition makes it feel really sappy when it needs to be more effective. But the slips in quality wouldn't be problematic if we weren't genuinely interested in what's being communicated here, and as a whole the film succeeds.

The climax of the film teeters just on the edge of being too ridiculous to take seriously in any way. The confrontation between Ramza and Bown is a neat idea, but some lines make it hard to understand exactly what Ramza as the writer was going for. And I suppose you could interpret the way the giant dicks -- you know what, forget it, there's no way to word this sentence that would make it not completely retarded. Let's just say that the end of the film might be a subtle commentary on the conventions of hate movies destroying your presence, creatively, from your films. Or it may just be Ramza's character being attacked by a bunch of giant dicks. Either way, the movie seems to understand that giant dicks = bad, and the final punchline of this sequence disarms the weirdness of it all by being even MORE weird.

There's a humble, almost subdued quality about Generations; it can be compared to KRB Revival in that the two represent the optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints on how the feud should finally be put to rest, but also in that KRB Revival is loud and exagerrated and Generations communicates its point at a quiet, on-the-surface level, with any exagerrations making sense in the context of its hate movie roots. The cheese is easily forgivable when you consider the gesture Ramza is trying to make here; attacking its minor stumbles in tone or quality would be a cheap shot in my opinion. It's not the most perfect, amazing, mindblowing version of itself possible, but it has to be one of the most honest.

Critical Score: 70/100.
Personal Score: 90/100.

Edit 2006: The irony of this review is pretty staggering in retrospect. But then again, so is the whole movie. That's the problem with making any film about your personal goals and resolutions, I guess.