Life Lessens

The Air I Breathe (2008)

Rating ... F (2)

"I've always wondered, when a butterfly leaves the safety of its cocoon, does it realize how beautiful it has become? Or does it still just see itself as a caterpillar?" Coincidentally, I have pondered a similar conceit - namely, just how long will this hipster house of cards posing as filmmaking hold up, supported solely by its flimsy foundation of showy contrivance, juvenile histrionics (politely referred to as drama), and hand-holding platitudes? If the film's predecessors, Crash and Babel, have taught us any two things, it's that no matter how meaningless or tenuous the link, Everything is Connected, and also that dilettantes flock to this treacle like ravers to epic trance, so film-goers are probably in for the long haul.

So what exactly should we expect from The Air I Breathe? Clumsy, message-mongering voiceover a la Hammer-time Haggis's Crash? The deejay-worthy AV wankery from Inarritu's Babel? How about the insulting, bafflingly unnoticed racism from both? Better yet, we'll try most of the above, and more, not limited to phony attempts at gravitas by basing the narrative on a Chinese proverb's emotitive tenets - Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love - even going so far as to have the four protagonists adopt the intangible states as nomenclature. (It's because these feelings are that with which particular characters grapple, geddit?) Anything goes, as long as it aids in misdirecting audiences away from the material's conspicuously diaphonous quality, including lines like this: "Sometimes the things we can't change ... end up changing us!" Would somebody please add Soviet Russia to the film's list of shooting locations?

Four tales arbitrarily overlap in The Air I Breathe, and it's probably best and certainly easiest that I spoil one of them to provide a complete picture of what occurs during this monstrosity. In the first vignette, Forest Whitaker plays a meek lil guy by the name of Happiness (I wasn't lying!) who spends lengthy passages of time in front of his TV set - a metaphor for his emptiness, no kidding - ruminating on his unfulfillment. (The term rumination is a polite way of saying angst.) He talks in a quiet voice, frequently cuts himself off and repeats himself, because this is in fact how mild-mannered individuals with little self-confidence act. One day - to make an irriating story shorter - he robs a bank, exits out the front, jacks a delivery boy's moto, makes four left turns to end up where he began, evades the police by escaping to the, uh, roof, and proceeds to get gunned down, the exhiliration of which, uh, imbues his life with new meaning. Providing him happiness you could say! Needless to say, a trite 360 shot not only captures Whitaker's sudden redemption but also serves as the perfect example of the film's futility - a fruitless struggle to stretch fortune-cookie wisdom and hackneyed storytelling over material entirely devoid of understanding, insight, and actual development. And the best part? You can multiply that by four.