Head

Saw Head (thanks, Lea!)  It was a vehicle for the band The Mokees scheduled to run after their TV show was cancelled.  The Monkees would start disintegrating the following year, so this film was created at a point where the point was being lost, the bits were getting stale, and everyone was starting to wonder why they were doing this anymore.  How appropriate for this film!

The film purposefully makes no sense.  The Monkees had been regarded as an artificial, insincere, corporate product, the plastic imitation of the Beatles.  They didn't write their own songs or select their own wardrobe (“That’s not even Michael Nesmith’s real hat.”)  Here, they lean hard into the artificiality and pointlessness of the film, indicting themselves and the short, indifferent attention span of modern America in the process.

I didn't have to decode this either.  They tip their hand basically at the opening of the film, with a chant-y song, gleefully announcing "Hey hey we are the monkees, you know we like to please, a manufactured image, with no philosophies."  They sing this after footage plays of someone idly flipping TV channels, seeing the horrors of the Vietnam war juxtaposed with the comforts of a campy Bela Lugosi film.  Their only point is that they have no point.  No point is not needed.  There are too many points jostling for our attention right now, man, who can make sense of it all?

So the film is very surreal.  There's moments of genuine delight (such as when a giant Victor Mature pops up over the horizon) but a lot more proto-70s unfocused angst (at one point, they rant against birthday parties.  Whatever...)  I think at the time (late 60s) there was kind of a rebellion against insincerity going on.  People wanted something "real" by which they meant raw, unprocessed, unfiltered, just speak what's on your mind!  Most people however don't have a lot to say that is very interesting so they quickly descend into petty complaints.  They used drugs to unlock their subconscious but drug trips are not always that interesting, you know.

Anyway, anyway, anyway, this film is nuts.  It makes no sense and this sort of wears after a while.  I took a long break at the one hour mark myself.  It's a movie you should see with other people.  It made me think entertaining thoughts about late 60s counter-culture, but I think that might be more me than the movie.  I dunno.