Review

by kim b

Why Badlands rules.

Y'all know the background to Badlands, directed by Terrence Malick way back in 1973 it shaped a genre and introduced an incredible directing talent to the world. On the surface it’s a story of two young lovers on the run, in the same vein as Bonnie & Clyde and They Live By Night, but Badlands is so much more than that. Kit (played to James Dean perfection by Martin Sheen) and Sissy Spacek’s innocent/strangely adult Holly, are the most detached young lovers I’ve ever seen. Behaving more like animals in the wild than civilised people in a relationship. They just don’t seem that into each other. There’s a moment in the film a few days into the tree-house living when Holly’s dreamy voice over tells us she often wonders about the man she will one day marry… There is no hopeless romantic love here, just a bizarre type of companionship. Watch it now!