VIOLENCE PORN

This trailer for Gareth Evans's THE RAID received some criticism for it's violent content.
They likened it to "Violence Porn" and "Trash" prettied up with appealing modern movie making.



So here's my take.
The ugly can be appealing, it is just expression, and ultimately all film by the mere fact that it is filtered through one POV is compromised and artificial. Critics years ago focused on John Woo's (HARDBOILED) violence as if this was reality, while simultaneously condemning that it is also falsifying brutality by making it "appealing". The mere admission that it is appealing on a pure cinematic level raises it from "trash". "Trash" are gratuitous 'Faces of Death' type of images, it is "porn" because the visuals are devoid of pure cinematic content. Raw record keeping lacking journalistic integrity, sold merely for pleasure. Only the torture and violence is left without a trace of the director's fingerprints. Meaning anyone who can point and shoot ala surveillance cam uploads equals trashy violent films. Fans of Woo admire the masterful use of movement, composition, tone, and can differentiate the art from the trash. Lumping ALL violent imagery together as if the aesthetics and motion language of movie making itself does not matter is replacing moral judgement for artistic merit.

Looking forward to up and coming director Gareth Evans's latest effort. Perhaps he shall be the future of "trash". But then again, one man's trash is another man's treasure.