|
|
Once long ago, before there was such a thing as time, the world was shrouded in darkness. Then came the splendor of light … precious light is protected, harbored in the souls of unicorns, the most mystical of all creatures
-Ridley Scott’s Legend, 1986
We’re the Unicorns
We’re more than horses
We’re the Unicorns and we’re people too
-The Unicorns, “I Was Born a Unicorn,” 2003
Although everything around them glows, glitters or flutters in a cornucopia of taupe, ruby, lavender, mauve, eggshell, and good old pink, the world that Jack and Lily inhabit is not so colorful at it’s core. A world of harshly polarized moralization is brought to the screen with the (usually) adroit bravado of Ridley Scott in his dippy, 1986 fantasy, Legend. It’s a straight up battle between good and evil. Good is Tom Cruise (as Jack), Mia Sara (Lily) and a rollicking band of fairies and pixies and shit. Evil is an almost ridiculously horned Tim Curry, as Darkness--in one of modern cinema’s most frightening body suits--and his band of goblins. Good and Evil are battling over the fate of the last two Unicorns.
I rented Legend the other night to help answer a question that had been bucking about in my brain since seeing The Unicorns play live: who handles the symbolism and ethereal nature of Unicorns better, The Unicorns, an up-and-coming band of indie-twerps from Montreal, or Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner?
According to the spotty bio on their label’s website, The Unicorns were formed by high school chums Nicolas Diamonds and Alden Ginger who proceeded to tour around Canada in some sort of motor home. How they gained notoriety is not fully explained. It is simply stated that now they are on tour, “backing up their reputation as Canada’s next most promising new band, and planet Earth’s next big thing.” Waltzing visions of Alanais Morrisette and Bryan Adams severely temper the phrase, “Canada’s next big thing,” but the Unicorns have a sound that is well informed if nothing else. Diamond’s vocals are spin-off of Jason Lytle‘s (Grandaddy) nasally storytelling. Ginger’s wailing falls right out of Thom Yorke‘s (Radiohead) slack jaw, but when the two run circles around each other, the results are sometimes compelling. Their comic sensibilities lie somewhere in between the Flaming Lips’ esoteric ideals and They Might Be Giants nerd musings as they ponder topics like ghosts (in trilogy), colonialism (vaguely), love, commitment, US foreign policy (laughably), and of course faith in the almighty Unicorn. Their namesake track, “I Was Born a Unicorn” handles this like a fifth-period art project, molded stoned, just after lunch. Taken seriously enough to keep the art teacher at bay but with a waning level of devotion. I guess it works well, the album rolls along cutely enough.
The band has amassed quite an aura of legend. The hearsay never stops, what with tales of inter-band fistfights, derelict sit-ins, and young fans that come to the shows to fist-pump and pogo with paper mache horns affixed to their pimpled foreheads.
Their already legendary stature really adds to the mystique of their name and begged the “versus Scott” question further.
The “who fucking cares” question didn’t occur to me until I’d already watched Legend twice. The first time was a straight run, lights out, beer in hand. The second time I turned the volume low and started The Unicorns’, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?, right as the word LEGEND burned crimson on the screen. Much like playing Dark Side of the Moon over The Wizard of Oz, I thought that as the two mediums overlapped in rugged harmony, the deepest secrets of both might be revealed.
Things looked promising at first. As Darkness’ henchman, Blix, first skulked into the frame, The Unicorns sang, Our day of deceit is almost complete/Our fingers on the pulse but where’s the beat/We don’t want to die. The lyrics served as sort of vague foreshadowing to Blix’s eventual capturing and maiming of the male Unicorn. Symbolism kicked in again with track three, a warble-fest tailored for the Smurf Village, “Ghost Mountain,” did a eerie job of ushering in some of the film’s stark symbolism. There was heat from the fire/but I still froze when I saw the ghost, chimes in appropriately as Lily watches a cuckoo clock over the fireplace at her friend’s house suddenly become covered in snow and ice; a vision of impending darkness.
Lyrical reference lays low for quite a while as soundscapes take the reigns. “Sea Ghost” starts with some childish Celtic flute tailor-made for the meadow scene, and as it skips upbeat, Jack and Lily play with birds. The analog synthesizers of “Jellybones” do a nice job of setting up pre-Unicorn time, and right as the song goes spiraling into tunnel-drums, the movie Unicorns come scampering down a riverbed. The song holds tight through all of the equestrian foreplay that ensues. A handful of other metaphors drizzle down, but the hammer really drops after the male Unicorn has been de-horned and the world has turned perpetual December. Jack is awakened by the woodland dryads from his forest slumber and at this moment the signing Unicorns break into their anthem proclaiming one after the other: I was born a Unicorn. As the ragtag crew of nymphs introduce themselves, the Unicorns do the same in verse. They take turns leaping from one Ween-pillared pulpit another: I’ll still believe in you/if you stop believing in me, I’ll stop believing in you/If you still believe in me.
In Scott’s universe, The Unicorn is the keeper of light. Light saved the world from darkness so Unicorns are either god or the sun. Maybe they represent all that is warm and nourishing. In the real world, Unicorns are something different. They are always good, sure, but mostly they represent the gathering of powerful positive forces; all of it, crammed into that golden fucking horn. In the pop-rock arena, Unicorns (not the band, mind you) are the warm synthesis of all creative energy. Any note out of any instrument anywhere, is a Unicorn. It is the Unicorn. It exists as part of the seething, swirling mass that is Unicorn. Now by name and by deed, the Canadians in question seem to think that they themselves are the epitome of this creation. It is bold of them to act as if they are the Unicorn. But their flawed logic is revealed during the scene in the move when Jack is introduced to the woodland sprites and pixies. As The Unicorns chanted, We’re the Unicorns/We’re more than horses/We’re the Unicorns, and we’re people too in the background, it clicked: they are not the Unicorns, they are the little gimps that inhabit the world working in defense of the Unicorns. The glitterbugs in the movie are the servants to the Unicorns and they know it. These elusive Canadians are also slaves to the unicorn; but completely deluded ones. So embedded in their quest are the trio that they think that they themselves are the light; that they are the Unicorns. Fools! The Unicorn is an imperceptible force! It is no mere band of men.
To begin with, the album hardly sat still long enough to sync up, so true to form, it hung ever looser onto the film from there on out. It ends, very abruptly after a frantic duet of Diamond and Ginger sniveling, I’m ready to die, abandoning Cruise and company just as they are confronted by Darkness‘ charred and formidable tree castle.
I can’t blame them for not wanting to stick around. It’s another 45 minutes of hack Shakespeare dialog and mind-numbing set pieces. Legend is too much. It is pure fantasy and there’s no reference point. It’s too simple, too pure, and too stupid. While it would have been an electrifying silent picture, in it’s lacquered, overbearing form, it is shit. The evenly-split doctrine of the film offers a rank and dated ideology to the generations X and Y. Things can no longer be explained in one of two ways. We need our values and systems of designation sieved through, and fractured by, narcissistic rock and roll musing. The Unicorns are a bit much too, but their meringue brand of self-love is just enough to poetically enshrine the muddled plight of the modern 15-to30-year-old, adolescent.
So who handles the mythology better? The ethereal nature of the beast? Ridley Scott.
Although he indulges in it to the point of lunacy, it works as a study in over-the-top adherence to the realm of fantasy. The Unicorns make fun of it with tongues in cheek without realizing that they are the butt of the joke. Sitting in remedial English all summer long, they are slaves to what they think they are: too cool for school. True unicorns are sleek perfect things of chaste beauty and goodness, The Unicorns are a fucking mess.
|
|
|
|
