It is very likely that any cinephile, no matter how serious or casual, has encountered a ‘film bro’; someone who tells them they’ll never know true cinema until they’ve watched Fight Club, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or Pulp Fiction (not to say any of these films are bad films, of course) and feels the need to be nothing but condescending whilst saying so. If you were then to tell a film bro you had, in fact, seen the film which they revere so dearly, they would then proceed to ask you, “Well, did you really GET it?”
It is hard to define exactly who is and isn’t a film bro, but for the time being I offer this definition: it is an individual who simultaneously judges other’s film taste whilst also engaging in minimal criticism of their own taste, thus citing the same, usually male-dominated, films as the truest form of cinema.
As an antidote to this ever-so-slightly annoying epidemic I would like to highlight a film which, although certainly an acquired taste, has something any film bro, or any viewer for that matter, can take from it. Andrzej Zuławski was a Polish director most renowned for his 1981 film Possession, in which a man fears his wife’s estrangement is rooted in an affair, until finding out the reality is much more sinister.
Some others may also know him for On the Silver Globe (1989) which recounts the experience of a group of astronauts discovering an uninhabited planet. Most of Zuławski’s films, particularly the more popular ones, are considered horror films and certainly do not try to make the genre more palatable in any way, so those averse to horror films should perhaps steer clear.
Cosmos (2015) is Zuławski’s final and lesser-known project based on a novel of the same name by Witold Grombrovitch, receiving mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike. Set in the dreamy and verdant landscapes of the Western Portuguese coast, the film follows a French student/writer who escapes to Sintra National Park in order to write. During his trip he resides with a fellow French traveller in the boarding house of an idiosyncratic family. He begins to follow a series of mysterious events and nonsensical situations which he believes have a connection to a deeper meaning. Without giving too much away, the viewer, following the protagonist, is thus shown a series of red herrings which have no symbolic purpose.
So what does this have to do with film bros? On a wider level, the underground nature of the film could be enough to end a film bro, but this film takes it even further. The viewer, instead of being offered a series of motifs and metaphors wrapped in neat little packages to unwrap along the journey, is given a rat king of empty images which serve to confuse, and perhaps even infuriate, the viewer. For most film bros, the most enticing part of a film is to say you got the (not-so) deeper meaning all by yourself.
But in classic Zuławski fashion, he constantly invites the viewer to look away, building to an ending which achieves no analytical satisfaction. The melodramatic tone and mismatched non-diegetic music gives it a self-conscious attitude, the absurdity of the situations and the characters’ behaviour means not even the film takes itself too seriously.
Similarly, the story actively avoids a narrative which exalts the male protagonist, we just see a man creating his own suffering who does not triumph or even have much conviction in the ending of his creation. He instead becomes a caricature of a lonely male artist trying to get the girl, constantly uttering lines of complete gibberish for the sake of his art.
This then places Zuławski in an ironic position as auteur, who offered in his past films, particularly Possession, extended sequences of esoteric dialogue and lawless mise-en-scene that have no doubt been rigorously scrutinised to find the true meaning behind all of it. But now, as he reflects on his corpus of creation in Cosmos, he perhaps invites us not to take it so seriously and to just enjoy the dizzying journey. A film bro who thus tries to approximate both Zuławski and the protagonist as a cultural connoisseur sees himself ridiculed to no end.
The characters who do not choose to obsessively chase meaning at every turn, are the ones who find some sort of peace in the chaos, or rather, never had such gripes with the chaos to begin with. We as viewers would enjoy Cosmos, and most things, much more if we choose to approach the situations in the same way as these characters, which is certainly not apathy, but with the ability to find humour and enjoyment in our confusion. This may seem like a bit of an odd approach given that the film does feature some disturbing moments but there still remains something so absurd about the disturbance.
All that said, we are now faced with a bit of a paradox. Having discovered that the lack of a deeper meaning is, in essence, the deeper meaning, how can we say that we ourselves have not become the very film bros we scorn by arguing that our taste is better because only someone of a certain mind could understand it? Would my argument in favour of some obscure foreign film not be just as pompous? But maybe you have to fight fire with fire?
Regardless, I think entering into this debate would be a bit pointless. The point of the matter is not to revert to an endless cycle of humiliation rituals for those who don’t get it by those who do, but instead to allow more freedom in the whole act of film viewing. Everyone can enjoy what they enjoy, whether it is niche or popular, and the point can be that there is no point; over-intellectualising, especially in a way that undermines the film, ruins it for everyone (again, I am aware of the potential irony here).
My favourite film may be a film nobody knows but that doesn’t mean that Shrek wouldn’t be just as good of a choice or that it isn’t just as artistically produced. Cinema emerged as both an artistic and popular medium of creation and should be embraced as such, whether these aspects exist in confluence or conflict.
Unfortunately, the very individual we’ve classified as a film bro is very unlikely to read an article that would allow them to expand their aesthetic taste or engage in any self criticism but, nonetheless, I hope that next time you encounter a film bro you ask them if they’ve ever heard of a little film called Cosmos.
