Smith's gone for the dictatorship. It's a Tarkovsky film in slow motion with the sound off. It's an utter and complete refusal to fight,to take the bull by the horns. It's passive,but not a resistance. Passivity can only attain dignity by going all the way,into nihilism.
Mere weariness is mere weakness.
Somehow The Cure express this vulnerability and spiritual vapidity,and energise it with authenticity. They're the Edward Hopper or even Mark Rothko of melancholy rock. Look in the eyes of anyone in the front half of their audience,see if I'm not right. And it's in this way that The Cure are definitively,perhaps irredeemably,modern,contemporary. They are the sandmen we deserve,pitiful generation that we are.