ANGRY AND FILTHY: Postal
by MARK SLUTSKY
Uwe Boll is probably not the worst director of all time, but he’s certainly the most hated. Mostly known for adaptations of video games like Bloodrayne, Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead, the German-born director’s films are routinely panned—although cursed would be a better word—on movie and gaming Web sites, and there’s almost 300,000 signatures on an online “Stop Uwe Boll” petition. Boll even challenged two of his fiercest detractors to a boxing match a couple of years ago—and won.
His latest is somewhat of a departure. No less trashy than his other films, Postal (also based on a game) is a lurid satire of American culture involving Nazi theme parks, bickering 9/11 hijackers, dwarves being sexually assaulted by chimps and perhaps most disturbing, a naked Dave Foley.
Boll is nothing if not an enthusiastic, often hilarious, heavily accented conversationalist: at one point, speaking to the Mirror from Vancouver, he delivered an uninterrupted five-minute monologue touching on why nobody in Chicago wanted to interview him and he had to fly home after the screening, neo-Nazis, why Alone in the Dark was just as good as Elektra, why Paul Haggis’s Crash is “pathetic,” and how Postal is an incisive indictment of America. All topped with the line, “And this is the thing what is pissing me off.” There’s not nearly enough space to print the entire interview, so here are some highlights.
On Postal being misinterpreted
“They think I’m a poor genre guy who is making very violent movies and not even great movies, bad movies, whatever, trashy movies. And now I come around the corner with a very controversial political movie, which is, of course, at the same time really dirty. And if you read the daily reviews of the movie, you find way more negative reviews about the movie than positive reviews because the movie is maybe an order too offensive and dirty and trashy for the normal newspaper reviewers.”
COURTING CONTROVERSY: Boll
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On Postal’s subject matter
“The reality is that we’re living in a completely dirty, fucked up world! We’re destroying the planet and we have a totally corrupt regime in America, which is not far away from any African dictatorship! They’re starting wars against Iraq, they’re lying in front of the UN and what consequences are there? Nothing! I thought to make a movie that really nailed the political situation we’re living in—it’s only possible to take the hammer out and to hit people in the face so that they wake up… Every single scene has a lot of anger, and a lot of commentary about movies, about what happens in society—to say it’s a stupid, idiotic comedy is completely wrong! This movie has 10 times more brains than Stop-Loss or Syriana or Lions for Lambs or In the Valley of Elah!”
On casting himself, a German, as the owner of an Auschwitz theme park
“The reality is that Germany subsidizes movie after movie and tries to get Oscar nominations every fucking year, with movies showing how the Germans tried to fight against Hitler, or that some people tried to kill him, how we were not all Nazis, and what I did, it’s like, a ban in Germany for my lifetime! So to not see what fucking courage I have to do this, to give so much shit to the Germans that they hate me now forever for it, it shows that people can not think any more.”
On the film’s critical reception
“If people have a problem with it, and they think it’s another very bad Uwe Boll movie, okay! It’s their point of view, because they feel better if they’re ass-kissing the studios 24 hours a day and writing great reviews for 10,000 B.C., Jumper or Speed Racer. Then I have to say I give a shit about those reviewers because they’re fucking retards!”
On the challenges of directing
“It’s tough enough to finance the movies and to sell the movies and to go out there and try to get actors and distribution if you have the whole time, like a wall against you, of these completely ignorant fuckers, writing shit!”
On baiting his critics
“I’m striking back! The thing is, at one point, I gave up trying to be convincing for the critics, or nice, or whatever. At one point, I really went into that mentality that it doesn’t matter what I say, it all ends up in the same shitty reviews! So from this point of view, I feel way better if I put all my frustration on the table, actually, and I say how frustrated I am right now!”
On boxing his critics
“I was so pissed off at the Bloodrayne reviews that I felt like I didn’t give a shit about anything now, and I wanted to box those assholes. So from this point, they agreed to fight against me, and we did it, and I don’t regret this.”
Postal is now in theatres
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