Praise Jesus — and Marilyn and Elvis and, yep, John Wayne: Lana Del Rey’s much-buzzed-about 27-minute short film “Tropico” has finally arrived.
Billed as “an epic tale based on the biblical story of sin and redemption,” the Anthony Mandler-directed short plays more like a lengthy music video, stringing together dreamy, Lana-esque visuals and songs from her “Paradise” EP (“Body Electric,” “Gods and Monsters” and “Bel Air”) in loosely related vignettes that prove the singer’s not quite finished with her endless love letter to Los Angeles.
The film opens with a Bible passage and candy-colored Garden of Eden where Del Rey (as Eve) frolics with an albino Adam (model Shaun Ross) until she bites the forbidden fruit, which turns her into a stripper.
Her fall from grace ends in a video-game vision of gangland LA, where she works the pole, sips Coke (and blows it, too), and paints those notoriously long nails Bloods-red, until she and her thug paramour decide they want out of this life.
To solve the problem, Ross and his posse bust in on an NSFW bachelor party and rob a bunch of white-collar dopes while Del Rey recites the famous first lines of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.”
Now freed from a seedy life of pelvic tats and cutoff shorts, the two resume their frolicking, both dressed in pure white as they move through a sun-bleached countryside. The extravaganza concludes with the couple’s ascension into a white, fuzzy light. Beamed up by aliens, no doubt, given the absurdity of the 24 minutes preceding.
Last night at the film’s premier at the ArcLight theatre in Hollywood, Del Rey revealed the title of her next album, “Ultraviolence” (a reference to “A Clockwork Orange”). This should certainly quell rumors that the singer is planning an early retirement — which some feared while others have ßbeen praying for since the “SNL” debacle.
For now, get your fill of “Tropico,” a pretentious albeit pretty way to pass a lunch break.