Scathing attack of a movie observing how one nation's work infiltrates another's quiet, innocent existence with issues of censorship and spectatorship at the forefront.

Rating: 8/10 (2 September 2009)

It's somewhat peculiar that the feelings and notions linked to the build up to initially watching South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut many years ago would go so far as to actually contribute to the themes and ideas that the film itself is looking at. Here is a film that everybody it was meant for, as well as those that it wasn't, just had to see at some point in their lives. For those that couldn't, we had to wait until it was released in the latter days of the video cassette and hope to have it bought for us; either that or have a school-mate, whose ill-informed-on-the-matter parents had been easily fooled by the cover's cartoonish qualities and central positioning of four young and smiling children complete with all Hell breaking loose in the background, lend it to us.
The cartoon series hadn't been around long, but it'd been around long enough to garner the sort of attention its creators, Matt Stone and Trey Parker, would have both wanted and expected. Of course, I found the film hilarious the first time I saw it; it was the sort of humour anyone my age would have done, but as the years have gone by and I've watched it ever-so often since; the screenplay and the various situations that play out are still as funny, as the greater study that the film observes unfolds around it, all the time under a huge umbrella of self-awareness and send ups. There must be people other than myself that still evoke a chuckle at scenes such as the one in which a character's mother's televised debate with an angry Canadian individual gets rather heated, as well as a U.S. general's debriefing before a coming together with Microsoft's Bill Gates as they talk of how frustrating it is to work with Windows '98.
The film is absolutely shameless in its opening: a crude and somewhat tame looking establishing shot of something that in any other film, particularly animated, would fill us with awe; that being a mountain range. We zoom out of this badly drawn and uninspiring looking peak to the town of South Park in Colorado, U.S.A. and Stan, one of many characters voiced by Trey Parker, partaking in a spoof-rendition of the opening of 1991's Beauty and the Beast as he observes his home town. It's a poignant start to a film which is, essentially, all about this young boy and his observations of the world and, ultimately, the art around him. If everything established is perfect in this Utopian setting, then it is only by way of an outside agent that anything can interfere. One such line from Stan's opening song sees him remark on the one negative aspect of his town; that "you see homeless people, but you just don't care". The important thing here is that by the end of the film, indeed the journey, Stan will still observe, but will come to care about the things that make something less than perfect, and he will learn to have opinions on the observations he makes.
The film predominantly revolves around censorship, in particular the want to censorship an art form of some-kind. In South Park's case, a patched together Canadian comedy film about two individuals called Terrance and Phillip indulging in nothing but a series of low-brow gags. Naturally, the new 'event' movie sees the four kids of South Park; named Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman; go along to see the latest release from yonder-border â€“ with horrific results. The film opens up all sorts of problems for the boys and shortly after the cinema visit, they're swearing and cursing like nobody's business. The mothers' reaction sees a campaign for a banning order followed by an actual war with Canada when they apprehend Terrance and Phillip.
Amongst all the chaos and the jokes, it's difficult to loose sight of what the film actually does; that being a coming of age tale which explores the importance of spectatorship and viewer awareness when it comes to film. The real life connotations linked to the fact a number of people under the age of who it's for wanted 'in' on the Soth Park film unearths an eerie sense of art echoing life. The sneaking in and the observing of the film causes a war between two nations, whereas one character attempts to re-create what he's seen characters do on screen only for him to orrifically perish as a result, in what is a clear demonisation of this notion. Later on, Cartman will go off into a song number in which he will churn out a number of offensive and racist jibes, much in the vein of the Terrance and Phillip movie, in what is a further demonisation when it transpires he then has some sort of anti-swear hardware installed into him.
But the boys mean good overall, they're just caught in a wave with the rest of the herd. They each share the same idol; an American figure skater named Brian Boitano, an athlete of sorts, whom to them embodies all the necessary positive characteristics of dedication and enthusiasm to win through in the end. Additionally, as an overall study, the film is in support of standing up for what you believe in and promotes individualism in regards to specific subject matter. In this regard, the character of Stan is used for such a message. But its outgoing statement on censorship as a bad thing, and that art is to be viewed as it should be, I have no problems with. The film explores these notions by way of presenting the parents of these children as ill-informed and unaware of what their children are watching, just as they allow them to roam the streets in what was already established by one mother as a would-be ludicrously safe-haven in which nothing can go wrong. Two words: Wake Up. Observe the text yourself before you pass onto others.