Death and the Compass (1992)

After watching this, I could only ask myself, did Alex Cox even read Borges before making this film? For those who have not read Borges' short story of the same name, check it out here, it is not long, and makes for great reading. Part of the appeal of Borges is the way he combines familiar genre elements with linguistic and intellectual games, plus a healthy dose of surrealism and mysticism. Borges is weird, yes, but he is also lucid and playful. If he has a cinematic counterpart, it would be Raúl Ruiz, but certainly not Alex "Repo Man" Cox. And, yes, cinema is a distinct and separate art form from literature, but this film is also bad as a film. Set in a futuristic totalitarian city overrun by crime, Peter Boyle plays Detective Erik Lonnrot, the only honest cop on the beat. When a series of occult, ritualistic murders begin to plague the city, Lonnrot is determined to catch the killer. Relying on some rather unorthodox methods, Lonnrot soon finds himself caught up in a web of dastardly deeds and complex conspiracies. This film, to put it lightly, is an aesthetic mess. Cox's visual style is too anarchic, grungy, and messy for the refined Borges. The whole affair looks more like an 80s MTV music video than it does a feature film. And while this approach may have worked for Repo Man, it certainly does not work here. Cox's apocalyptic city is immediately recognizable, right down to the shot of bodies hanging from a bridge tinted with smoky blue. The world of Death and the Compass is a labyrinthine, glass-like world, not the hyperactive fantasies of a perpetual adolescent. For some reason, Cox muffles and distorts the sound, rendering certain portions inaudible, or, on the flipside, bombastically laughable. Peter Boyle is seriously miscast as Lonnrot, who is more of a low-key, introspective lone wolf. Again, I understand that this is a film, and as a film it is not meant to be a perfect adaptation of the source material. No adaptation should be done word for word, the director has to take creative liberties to tailor the material for the cinema, but when the author's name is splashed right across the top of the poster, there is a limit to these creative liberties. Cox pretty much stated from the start that this is a "Borges film", and yet, it certainly does not feel like one. For a good Borges film, see Invasión by Hugo Santiago (Borges himself wrote the screenplay). Avoid this juvenile travesty.
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