Search - Red Garden, Vol. 2: Breaking the Girls on DVD

RACHEL'S BREAKDOWN

Sesho | Pasadena, TX USA | 11/04/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Volume 1 of Red Garden ended with Rachel flipping out and bashing out the brains of one of the dog men with a baseball bat as the other three girls looked on in horror. The second volume takes up right where Volume 1 left off. Rachel's mental state continues to deteriorate over the first half of the dvd as she begins to question whether or not what the girls are doing even constitutes being alive. Going out at night and killing without mercy or thought, without knowing the why or wherefore? Is that really life? The mysterious Lula told the girls that they were already dead so what point is there in going on? It would be so much easier just to lay down and die for good. She begins to become paranoid, thinking her friend is stealing her guy and that everyone she sees on the street is a potential beast. While the other girls have not reached the level of existential angst that Rachel has, they are having their own problems. Claire and Kate decide to investigate the mansion where they were all allegedly killed but are unable to convince Rose to join them. Rose is having second thoughts about taking any unneccesary risks because if something happens to her, there is noone to take care of her little brother and sister. Kate is having trouble living up to the exacting standards of Grace because of her nighttime roamings and Claire is putting up a brave front but is in danger of losing her job and her apartment because she has to answer Lula's calls to kill. Meanwhile, the deceased Lisa Meyer's boyfriend, Herve, who is perhaps at the root of everything, including the dog men, begins to play a bigger role in the show.

If Red Garden is a bit operatic at times, that's because it's meant to be. I see gleanings of Berg's Wozzek at work here sometimes with its hyper-emotions and breakings into word songs in the times of greatest emotion. Now, if the girls start into song when they're beating up one of the dog guys, the show will be dead in my eyes at that point. There is a lot of crying by the ladies of Red Garden, crying which seems at times a little fake and unfelt. But it all feeds into the Greek Tragedy of it all. Even the girl's grotesque profiles of upturned witch noses that they all sport seem more like the masks of Sophoclean drama. Perhaps I'm pushing a little far with this line of thought. But Volume 2 is not all gloom and doom. When the girls are told there is a possibility that they can reclaim their own bodies and become human again, a ray of hope enters the series."