Repo! The Shakespearean Opera
Content Warning: A lot. (Blood, guts, nudity, drug abuse, the list goes on)
So I started this post with the idea of talking about final battles and tragedies in general, but after the playlist assignment with Othello, Repo! The Genetic Opera and the Devil's Carnival movie soundtracks have been taking up the majority of my Youtube history. I feel like these movies simply don't get enough attention. Horror movies as musicals - why aren't there more of them (though it's also understandable considering how graphic they are)? Heck, I don't even watch horror movies yet I really got behind these.
So in revisiting Repo! and still being required to make blog posts, there's no denying the Shakespearean quality to the story. Just as there's no way to explain it without massive spoilers.
First off, what defines a Shakespearean tragedy? A tragic hero? A fatal flaw? Comedic relief? An ending with no clear winners? The internet says all these and more. And Repo!? All of that and more. On top of that, Repo! is set in a dystopian world, which makes terminology and summarising a pain and a half to explain but that's fine. And since this can all get a bit confusing, let's start with some character descriptions.
Shilo Wallace - The film's 'primary protagonist', has spent the last 17 years of her life shut away in her home under the pretense of a rare disease Rotti Largo - Owner of the megacorporation 'GeneCo' and the antagonist. Also terminally ill. Nathan Wallace - Shilo's father and a GeneCo Repo man Luigi Largo - Rotti's son, anger issues to the max, comedic relief character Pavi Largo - Rotti's other son, sexed-up face-stealing maniac, also a comedic relief character Amber Sweet - Rotti's daughter, addicted to plastic surgery, also kind of a comedic relief character but not nearly as much as Luigi and Pavi GraveRobber - an actual graverobber and the narrator of this story Blind Mag - The 'voice of Geneco' and Shilo's godmother
Marni Wallace - Ms. Not-Appearing-In-This-Film, Shilo's mom
And since I don't trust myself in explaining the plot any better than the Wikipedia article, let's just jump into the similarities between this and Shakespeare. But if you'd like to hear the gist of it from the movie itself, GraveRobber's epilogue is a pretty good start.
Love ruins everything: Rotti and Marni were a thing, Marni met Nathan, Marni and Nathan get married and leave Rotti on a needlessly complicated revenge plot.
Everyone's a horrible person: The only one who could be remotely described as innocent in this show is Shilo and even then, she's not a saint. Heck even the comedic relief is just horrible people yelling at each other.
Near-interchangeable comedic relief characters: One's a murderer, the other's a rapist. Which might be more differentiation than we'll ever get for Salami and Cilantro but still, there's not much going on there.
Chorus sums up everything: (Skip to 0:50 seconds for the singing to start) By far one of my personal favorite characters, the GraveRobber is both the first and last character we really hear from. He sets up the universe, builds the world, and explains the ending. Why, he even tells us about the hottest new drug in the form of a nursery rhyme.
Who dun it?: Marni's been dead since Shilo's birth, but there's one question that comes up, who killed her? Well, it doesn't exactly come up, since the characters already know. Or rather, they think they know. We the audience are informed of what really happened fairly early on but some of the characters go the entire show never knowing the truth.
Bloodbath: How many characters were named before? 9. How many end up dead? Like, 4. 'Nough said.
'Happy ending'?: The bad guy is dead, the girl is free, but was it worth the literal bloodbath that was the final act? Did the characters really get what was coming to them? The answer is no on both counts.
So I started this post with the idea of talking about final battles and tragedies in general, but after the playlist assignment with Othello, Repo! The Genetic Opera and the Devil's Carnival movie soundtracks have been taking up the majority of my Youtube history. I feel like these movies simply don't get enough attention. Horror movies as musicals - why aren't there more of them (though it's also understandable considering how graphic they are)? Heck, I don't even watch horror movies yet I really got behind these.
So in revisiting Repo! and still being required to make blog posts, there's no denying the Shakespearean quality to the story. Just as there's no way to explain it without massive spoilers.
You have been warned.
First off, what defines a Shakespearean tragedy? A tragic hero? A fatal flaw? Comedic relief? An ending with no clear winners? The internet says all these and more. And Repo!? All of that and more. On top of that, Repo! is set in a dystopian world, which makes terminology and summarising a pain and a half to explain but that's fine. And since this can all get a bit confusing, let's start with some character descriptions.
Shilo Wallace - The film's 'primary protagonist', has spent the last 17 years of her life shut away in her home under the pretense of a rare disease Rotti Largo - Owner of the megacorporation 'GeneCo' and the antagonist. Also terminally ill. Nathan Wallace - Shilo's father and a GeneCo Repo man Luigi Largo - Rotti's son, anger issues to the max, comedic relief character Pavi Largo - Rotti's other son, sexed-up face-stealing maniac, also a comedic relief character Amber Sweet - Rotti's daughter, addicted to plastic surgery, also kind of a comedic relief character but not nearly as much as Luigi and Pavi GraveRobber - an actual graverobber and the narrator of this story Blind Mag - The 'voice of Geneco' and Shilo's godmother
Marni Wallace - Ms. Not-Appearing-In-This-Film, Shilo's mom
And since I don't trust myself in explaining the plot any better than the Wikipedia article, let's just jump into the similarities between this and Shakespeare. But if you'd like to hear the gist of it from the movie itself, GraveRobber's epilogue is a pretty good start.
Love ruins everything: Rotti and Marni were a thing, Marni met Nathan, Marni and Nathan get married and leave Rotti on a needlessly complicated revenge plot.
Everyone's a horrible person: The only one who could be remotely described as innocent in this show is Shilo and even then, she's not a saint. Heck even the comedic relief is just horrible people yelling at each other.
Near-interchangeable comedic relief characters: One's a murderer, the other's a rapist. Which might be more differentiation than we'll ever get for Salami and Cilantro but still, there's not much going on there.
Chorus sums up everything: (Skip to 0:50 seconds for the singing to start) By far one of my personal favorite characters, the GraveRobber is both the first and last character we really hear from. He sets up the universe, builds the world, and explains the ending. Why, he even tells us about the hottest new drug in the form of a nursery rhyme.
Who dun it?: Marni's been dead since Shilo's birth, but there's one question that comes up, who killed her? Well, it doesn't exactly come up, since the characters already know. Or rather, they think they know. We the audience are informed of what really happened fairly early on but some of the characters go the entire show never knowing the truth.
Bloodbath: How many characters were named before? 9. How many end up dead? Like, 4. 'Nough said.
'Happy ending'?: The bad guy is dead, the girl is free, but was it worth the literal bloodbath that was the final act? Did the characters really get what was coming to them? The answer is no on both counts.
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