Word: wastelands
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...narrative continues to suffer unexplained breakdowns, lapsing into semi-poetic word association, noises, and archaic spelling. These breakdowns jar all the more powerfully as they occur within passages of complete textual self-control. They undermine the text's tacit claim of logic leaving a wasteland devoid of any structure, any shelter...
...soon discover, along with the two unemployed concubines who are more or less tourguides for the show, that this is no ordinary spot. It's a sandswept, burning wasteland, oozing with mysterious "black goop." Everyone's concerned only to avoid the heat, and our luckless heroines, Alma Lovin (Brian Kenet) and Gwen Myway (David Nacht) can't even sell their experienced bodies. It's "Just deserts...In the land that God forgot/It's too darn...
...ELSEWHERE, somewhere in the desert wasteland outside Solong, the wandering Prophet Motive (Leonard Dick) and his hapless sidekick Ahmed A'Boubou (Jeffrey Korn) are way ahead of their time, preaching the good 20th century values of capitalism and personal repression. Dick's enormous birdnest of a white wig and his well-developed evangelistic twang are all-too-familiar and consequently quite effective. Their energetic duet, "Moral Hygiene," is yet another showstopper...
...sets, particularly in the second act, underline the comic-book nature of this zany saga. In Technicolor orange and black, Solong has become a blazing, windswept, oil-spattered wasteland of a desert, worthy of Sam Shepard. Designer David Sumner has done an equally masterful job with the romantic starry skies and the eastern spires of the sultan's estate...
...which he used before rock videos and "Miami Vice" even existed, in underrated films like Sorcerer and Cruising. The "look" in To Live and die in L.A., achieved in collaboration with cinematographer Robby Muller (Paris, Texas) and production designer Lilly Kilvert, is splashy and steamy, a meld of industrial wasteland and high-tech decor with a cumulative presence stronger than the characters and story. It is more powerful and yet more subtle than "Miami Vice" where loud musical scores drown out even gunshots...