'Bulk': A Midnight Memey

'What if my narrative was confusing for the sake of being confusing?' isn't exactly a new phenomenon, but Ben Wheatley's Bulk might be the first movie to do it for the sake of a fucking meme. Seriously, this piece of post-industrial DIY filmmaking is a loosely stapled-together excuse to squish your brain, to point and laugh at the purposely horrendous green screen, to giggle at the metaness, and to ogle at the Brits' closest attempt at Wakaliwood. It's as though Wheatley has taken it upon himself to revive the midnight movie, and so has tried to create an event so stupidly self-satirising that you've got to be there to understand it. It's a good bit, but it gets to a point.

I'll do my best here. 4 scientists have created a machine to merge a person's entire memories and persona into one, but it goes catastrophically wrong. There's a big explosion, and in desperation, Aclima (Alexandra Maria Lara) puts them in a sort of 'life raft' in which they are now stuck and unable to escape, modelled after the lead inventor's childhood house, Anthon Chambers (Mark Monero). Harlan (Sam Riley), a journalist, or a scientist, or both, must now find his way out, with the help of many clones, especially of Noah Tyler, who is many hundreds of police officers.

Truth be told, it doesn't matter. At all. The movie itself even says so: Harlan throws out lines about how narrative is a curse and how anything over 90 minutes is self-indulgent. You get the gist, and the gist is that there's a big explosion and they gotta find a guy. So ensues 90 minutes of pop-up picture book entertainment, more of a ride than anything else, in which you can feel the audience go with the waves as you watch. The form is so strange that it's easy to get lost under its spell for segments at a time, especially the stop-motion stuff, which made me think, 'What if Mad God met Eraserhead?' That, with an actual narrative, could be my favourite thing ever made.

Alas! Even at just 90 minutes, this thing is scrambling for things to do half of the time. Whenever it slows down to even try to get into exposition, it’s so easy to check out because the prior legwork isn’t there. Skimping on the setup and loading the centre just doesn’t work with a concept this obviously confusing, and relying on the shock humour of the 15th Noah Tyler of the movie showing up runs thin pretty quickly, especially the section with the monk in the desert. Everyone is acceptably hammy, and I love the laser beam segment, but there’s simply nothing here beyond form and Bill Nighy’s classy voice-over.

Which will work for some. It’s admirable, really, to try to resuscitate something so long dead, and in such a way, but maybe if this is what it needs, it should stay dead. Stay for the credits. Bulk.