Saint Pauly

7/10

_To Stay Alive: A Method_ is short documentary featuring Iggy Pop reading excerpts of French writer Michel Houellebecq's 1991 essay _Rester Vivant - Méthode_, interspersed with interviews of four fringe artists. The essay gives rules on how to be a poet (1. Suffer, 2. Go insane, 3. Survive), but it doesn't tell you the most important rule: ignore anyone who tells you the rules on how to be a poet. If you decide to see this, be careful, because to get the most out of it there's a right way and a wrong way to see it. For example, it must be seen in an independent cinema. Look for someplace across the street from a diner, but if the seats have drink holders and the cushions all match, you're in the wrong place, run out immediately and look for a cinema with broken neon and a woman too thin, too pale and wearing too much makeup under her too long hair wearing glasses she doesn't need and too big for her long face selling tickets and judging you by what film you choose. Be suspicious if there are people filling the front row and and no one in the back who looks like they might be there on accident or having one. Check to make sure everyone is there alone, and if there is a couple seated, find the furthest place from them because if you hear a giggle during the film you lose and, even worse, Iggy loses. If and only if you find a dirty cinema with sticky floors that doesn't sell concessions where no one has a tie and everyone speaks a different language then take your seat and enjoy the film, the night and the experience. And, if you don't do these things? Look at what everyone else has to say about this film...