Rubber

Intentionally Nonsensical

The film opens to various chairs arranged across a stretch of road. A car starts down the road, going out of its way to knock over all of the chairs, and finally halting to allow a police chief out of its trunk to introduce the film. This sheriff/chief argues that in every aspect of life, or at least once in every film, something doesn't make sense; it just happens. He declares the following film to be an homage to that idea, he departs, and his listening audience of people turn watch the film from afar using binoculars. They watch everything we do as a tire picks itself up from the Californian dirt in a valley below, and rolls into town using pyscho-kinetic powers to blow peoples' heads off. A few characters aid the story. There is the tire, Roxane Mesquida as the tire's love interest (or the monster's stolen dame reminiscent of 50's horror), the sheriff, the audience, and a young boy who believes the tire is a killer. The film is quite slow to start off, setting up intentionally ridiculous sequences centered around the tire, and a few other offbeat premises that build on the idea that there is an audience watching the "film" in the town go on. RUBBER makes absolutely no sense, but it is not so nonsensical as to not have a sense of humor, or a comprehensible storyline and vague statement. Many of the sheriff's examples from the beginning of the film about how things don't make sense, frankly don't make sense themselves. But that fact alone in a way supports his silly statement, and more importantly, as an audience we can see how things don't have to make sense in order to be fun. There's a level of acceptance you have to have in order to view RUBBER. I didn't find this a very hard level to achieve, and I was pleasantly surprised at a lot of the gratuitously inclined craft within the film. It's damn good summer midnight entertainment.

Rubber: ★★★