Movie review: Slaughterhouse-Five

January 29th, 2008

Make way, Jonathan Ross, I’m coming after you.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) dir. George Roy Hill
Starring: Michael Sacks, Valerie Perrine, Ron Leibman
Adapted from the novel ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut

Rating 4/5
    

Here’s an interesting one. I bought this DVD as part of a box set, without having seen it, because the book had been described for several years as “unfilmable”, and then they made a film of it. It had come top of some ‘top ten’ kind of listing of such films. Then I forgot about it for a couple of years. Then I read the book and, some time later still, watched the film.

We should start with why it’s unfilmable. Aside from the fact that a good quarter of the book involves the author speaking directly to the reader, often about the process of writing the book itself, it is one of the most disjointed storylines imaginable. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, has an unusual affliction where his conscious mind is able to slide in and out of any moment in his life. He skids backwards and forward as the fancy takes him, revisiting the bits he likes. His connection to the ‘present’, whatever that means, is tenuous.

Billy Pilgrim’s life is not an easy one. Drafted into the US Army while still relatively young, he is taken hostage by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. After the war he marries a woman he hates and watches his children grow up, working as an orthodontist. He is abducted by aliens who force him to mate with his favourite B-movie actress. The various events that take place in these three very different phases of his life are muddled around in the book as Billy slides around between them. You are probably starting to see why this was described as ‘unfilmable’.

So what of the film? Made from a book like this it could easily be messy, but it flows remarkably well. But it’s hard to tell how much of it would still have made sense if I hadn’t read the book first. Certainly the film would not have made so much sense if it hadn’t come from such a well-written novel, and even then, some of the rougher edges have been carefully smoothed off to shoehorn its strange plotline onto the screen.

As a film, it’s certainly not comfortable viewing all the way through, but its various depictions of the firebombing of Dresden and alien worlds work remarkably well, and the occasional shot of a naked young actress is also quite welcome. But the real wonder here is the performance from the various lead actors – the lead three or four characters are remarkably well played, understated to offset the rather outlandish plot line, and it’s strange that the people playing them have sunk into relative obscurity.

All in all, a brave and largely successful attempt at some pretty bizarre subject matter. Funny and surprising, it’s definitely worth a shot and another easy four jams.

This film on IMDB

Entry Filed under: Chris,Movie review