The star rating system really fails when it comes to reviewing a film like this one. A person’s own personal beliefs on the subject of drugs come into play when watching and appreciating (or not appreciating which ever the case may be) what the film is trying to do. I guess the best place to start is to present what apparently the filmmakers were setting out to do. They wanted to make an objective look at one man’s trip on LSD.
Directed by Roger Corman (THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH) and written by Jack Nicholson, the film stars Peter Fonda (EASY RIDER) as Paul Groves, a commercial director who is getting a divorce from his wife Sally (Susan Strasberg, PICNIC). Paul wants to experience an enlightening trip on LSD, so he enlists his friend John (Bruce Dern, DIGGSTOWN) to watch over him while he’s tripping. They go to a lavish hippie hangout in the Hollywood Hills where they get the LSD from Max (Dennis Hopper, RIVER’S EDGE).
So you may be thinking that the film is just pro-drug hippie propaganda, which is not entirely true. Paul’s trip isn’t completely positive and the film does present some of the negative results of LSD, if only briefly. Could this film encourage someone to take drugs? Yes. Just like a violent film can influence a violent person to copy that film’s violence. Films don’t make people do anything; they can only inspire the already curious or the naïve to take an action they most likely would have done eventually. But that’s why you don’t let your 15-year-old watch this film.
I make this point because for some people anything that could possibly influence someone to do something one deems as wrong is a negative thing to have in the world. I disagree with this argument, but that’s a debate for a different time and place. The only reason I mention it is to illustrate how one’s own personal feelings will play a big part in how they view this film. Someone who already believes that drugs can take a person to a heighten state of consciousness will obviously view this film in a more positive light than a member of MADD would.
So again how does one critique such a film? I say you critique the effectiveness of what was intended. Yet, you can’t rid you own beliefs from judging the material. Additionally, the film’s objectivity also influences our feelings as well. If the film were clearly on one side or the other than it would be much easier to judge, using facts and our beliefs as our guide. So this is all a lead up to stating how I went into looking at the film.
Making a film that tries to capture the experience of taking LSD is not inherently wrong to me. We watch films about things we find wrong all the time. How many murders have we witnesses in a darkened theater? So as long as the film appears to be honest from our point of view than it works. I believe that the hallucinations of an acid trip mean nothing. The drug makes you see and hear things that already lie within yourself. The only meaning that the funky colors one sees possess is the meaning the beholder puts upon them. It’s no different than believing that God is speaking to you by making the image of the Virgin Mary appear on your toasted cheese sandwich.
Therefore, the film works when it presents kaleidoscope like colors and random images. Inherently these sequences hold no meaning outside of the meaning the viewer wants to put on them. This to me is what a trip is really like therefore as a filmic representation it works.
However, watching meaningless images for an hour and a half is, well, meaningless. So is it really worth one’s time? Maybe it would work as a short subject, but not as a feature. Other interesting parts include a laundromat scene where Paul sees images in the falling clothes of the dryer. It’s funny to watch the woman who’s washing her clothes observe the crazy behavior of Paul. It also does a nice job of showing how reality and hallucinations mix during a drug trip. So THE TRIP gets an average score for the parts that work.
However, what really brings down the film is the heavy-handed metaphoric images in the early part. This is the area where the film loses its objectivity by bringing clear meaning to Paul’s hallucinations. Images and memories of his wife would make sense, but the laughably clichéd visions of Paul running on the beach and black clad grim reapers chasing him on black horses are a joke. There is one part that accumulates every on-the-nose image representing death the filmmakers could dig up. When Death from THE SEVENTH SEAL showed up, I couldn’t help but laugh.
So the film just didn’t work for me. It’s not as objective as it sets out to be and when it is objective the inherent meaninglessness of its subject matter makes for a thoroughly pointless experience. It’s not necessarily a bad trip, but it’s certainly not a good one either.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
