Some times a film is made on the basis of certain scenes. People sit around all day and spitball. They come up with enough scenes that they think would warrant a screenplay. They join the dots and at the end of a six week period believe that the script's ready.There are numerous films which are truly made on such flimsy pretext and Descent is one such example. The film is about an uppity college student who gets attracted to a smooth operator. She goes out with and is date-raped. Maya transforms into disconnected being whom no one can identify. She surprises herself when she descents to depths unimaginable. She hangs out at rave parties and ends up befriending a kingpin of a black DJ. A few months of kite like aimless existence in which she often ends up waking up next to some stranger with a hang over thanks to getting blown out of her mind the night before, Maya takes a long look at her self in the mirror and knows that it is time to get back to her college. She comes face to face with her tormentor who shamelessly pursues her. Maya invites the guy over and promises him a night he won't forget. The guy arrives, Maya seduces him, blindfolds him, handcuffs him and unleashes the black homosexual DJ. The dude gets medieval on white boy and Maya avenges.
Now on paper this sounds like a daringly different chick flick and perhaps that is why Rosario Dawson got attarcted enough to the material. She not only plays Maya but also produces the film. The DVD jacket would fool you to believe that it's Dawson's towering performance that makes this film wonder but trust me it's one of the worst films you'd ever see. For most part of her screen time Dawson looks glazed and stares into the camera. I saw most of it in fast forward as there were scenes that refused to end. Talia Lugacy, director, skillfully shows the hell (read a disco) that Maya descends into but the same sequence is repeated thrice over. Then the scene where the DJ rapes the white boy there are shots that extend to more than three minutes with nothing but the most tirade dialogue ever heard (Take this...you like this...ahhhhs and ooohhsss!!).
It's fine to shock the audience for that's the easiest way to attract them but there is a limit. Miike Takeshi's Visitor Q would easily qualify as the sickest film you'd ever see but (there is a scene in the film where a man has sex with a corpse and if you thought that was gross then what follows just raises the ante, rigor mortis sets in! I could still endure Vistor Q for there was some reason why Miike does that does that. Other films like Last Tango In Paris, Audition, Dumplings (Fruit Chan's part of Three Extremes) all shock you with the bizarre but Descent is the pits. I can't fathom why such a film was made. After all the non-sense of shocking you with the white boy being raped things hit rock bottom when he smiles as the DJ rapes him ostensibly suggesting that he, too, is a homosexual who is now enjoying it!!
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