cinema cauldron: instinct

There are a lot of movies out there which fall under the celebrated category of “underrated” Hollywood flicks and Instinct is supposedly one such movie. Directed by John Turteltaub, the man behind the national treasure movies, Instinct stars Anthon Hopkins and Cuba Gooding Jr. Released in 1999, this movie didn’t rake in much at the box office and understandably so, did little to move the critics. I just watched the movie for the 2nd time and felt a need to describe the sense of watching a classic example of an underrated movie.

What makes this movie rank mediocre amongst audiences is clearly the story line. A normal human being (Anthony Hopkins) is obsessed with his study of apes and eventually becomes a part of their herd. He is brought back within human confines but ends up in a detention center for the mentally disabled. A rookie psychiatrist is quickly drawn into this ape man and is determined to reach through to him and set him free. Now the story seems out of a run-of-the-mill fiction factory, but what makes me watch it is the clichéd dialogue that strangely seems to work for me.

The undertones of the story that try hard to tip the surface were clearly visible as I begin to dig deep and forget the technical aspects of movie making. The direction is quite second-rate but the intent and the broader subjects that the story hinges on is an appealing aspect of the film. So by now one can unearth the reason for an underrated movie’s existence; it is simply because of a single aspect of the movie that’s overpowering the rest. While in most cases it is the underlying theme of a story (like in instinct), it can vary from camera work to theme tracks where they play a dominant role than the rest in a movie.

Another important observation which argues from the converse side of things is the success of cerebral movies like say a Fountain or a Donnie Darko. These movies, though possessing undertones of lateral meanings, are successful amidst fans and critics because they are deeply rooted in their themes. Any sort of deviation from the theme could have been disastrous for such movies. Instinct on the other hand failed because of this very deviation where in an attempt to reprieve his audiences from a profound story, the director mellowed the characterization with external elements (actors).

Now to refute my own argument and introducing another side of the coin, this is the audience itself, the ultimate judge! Now one ought to clearly understand that a vast audience with huge diversity is not the right judge of a movie and neither is a small group of critics. As cinema assumes different meanings in people’s life’s, the success or failure is highly subjective amongst the masses and only breaks that norm amidst fan boys and redundant movie buffs. And hence the creation of a language that introduces the terms “underrated”, “overrated” and ”gay” et al.

Finally to end on a rather interesting note, I believe that directors making intelligent cinema have the capacity to influence their viewers and change them. While instinct with all the possibility failed in doing so, there are movies out there that are meant to make a difference. The name Micheal Gondry might not seem right to be placed under such a category as change makers, but his innovative direction and his depiction of emotions with sweet surrealism is sure to make a generation of his viewers smart, creative and sensitive. Check out Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, Human Nature, Adaptation all written by Charlie Kaufman.

Peace!