Wednesday, February 10, 2021

DOC'S KINGDOM



The most intriguing aspect about Doc’s Kingdom is it's timeless, borderline sci-fi ambiance. Part of the reason it feels so timeless is because the majority of the film takes place in a part of the world that time has forgotten (a regional of Portugal). The movie was made in the late 1980's but it could just as easily be 1960 or 2020. It’s almost like Tarkovsky’s Stalker. Not exactly but kind of. The architecture in Doc's Kingdom doesn't look dated and there aren’t any cars or other obvious artifacts to give away the time period. The clothes worn by the actors are basic white t-shirts, simple blazers, button down shirts and khaki pants. These are clothes that could be worn at any point in time. Even the music - a progressive mixture of electronic, live instrumentation and light sampling - makes it even more difficult to pinpoint a specific year. 
All of these elements combine to form a really cool fever dream of a movie.

Stalker /
Doc's Kingdom

Stalker /
Doc's Kingdom

Stalker /
Doc's Kingdom

Stalker /
Doc's Kingdom


In addition to Tarkovsky, there also appears to be a clear Bresson reference later on in the film...

The Devil Probably /
Doc's Kingdom


While there is a lot of seemingly pointless meandering throughout the film, the basic plot is about a young man (Jimmy) who sets out on a journey across the world (from New York City to Portugal) to find his estranged father (Doc) after his mother passes away.
Doc’s Kingdom feels like a first cousin to Claire Denis’ L’Intrus. In L’Intrus you have the estranged father/son relationship, a similar timeless feel and the same overall disorienting tone. Both movies take us across the globe in the same way. Kind of like in a dream. Sometimes when you dream you find yourself in different surroundings every few minutes and you can’t remember how you got from one place to next. In L’Intrus, one minute we’re in the French countryside and the next minute we’re in Korea. Then we’re suddenly on a nameless Polynesian island (L’Intrus also kind of does a reverse Doc’s Kingdom in that the last half of the movie is about an aging man looking for his son). The connection between the two movies is even stronger to me as Doc’s Kingdom features Claire Denis regular Vincent Gallo as Jimmy.
We see Jimmy sitting on the stoop of his New York City apartment and the next minute he’s landed somewhere in another country. Again - this approach makes things disorienting but in a way that keeps your attention & curiosity (the entire second half of the movie feels like a noir as we watch Jimmy follow his father at night, peeks through windows, etc).
The science fiction element of the story has to do with Doc’s mysterious disease. It isn’t clear how he got it. The symptoms of this vague disease (which include “transparent skin”) allows your mind to wander (to bring it back to Claire Denis for a bit - the disease in Doc’s Kingdom is similar to the disease in Trouble Every Day in that they’re both vague with odd side effects).
Jimmy’s intentions in searching out Doc are unclear. Does he want to make peace and get to know his father? Or does he want to confront him for not being around? Early on in the film we learn that Doc’s shady criminal past is part of what brought him to Portugal.


I’m a sucker for movies like Doc’s Kingdom. Besides the score, Vincent Gallo’s presence and it’s subconscious connections to the aforementioned movies, director Robert Kramer uses spotty & somewhat intentionally unreliable voiceover narration similar to that of Terrence Malick (Kramer is more of a political filmmaker so he doesn't strike me as the kind of person to intentionally reference other directors, but the similarities are still there).

I don’t want to call something I just watched a masterpiece but this is an excellent film that I’ll be revisiting very soon.

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