KELLY'S 'TALES' FINALLY READY TO TELL.

Byline: EVAN HENERSON

>LA.COM

The world is on the brink of apocalypse. Los Angeles is the first city to blow, and Richard Kelly is relieved -- delighted even -- to see those flames finally burning.

The 32-year-old writer/director dreamed up this scenario for his star-laden, end-of-the-world comedy "Southland Tales," which opens Wednesday. After the movie was critically lambasted following its screening at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, "Southland Tales" nonetheless left France with a distributor and the promise of additional time in the cutting room.

A lot of additional time. Kelly -- whose debut film was the offbeat comedy "Donnie Darko" (2001) -- cut 19 minutes and added a whole lot of visual effects.

More than a year later, with "Southland Tales" about to open in theaters, Kelly sits in a Beverly Hills hotel room, says he has delivered the film he wanted to make and declares his "long strange trip" -- to quote Jerry Garcia -- finally at an end.

"It wasn't ready last fall," says Kelly. "It was the longest post-production process possibly in the history of post-production. Now I have a very Zen outlook on it. Just to have finished it is the victory for me."

Kelly has traveled this road before. "Donnie Darko" wasn't exactly embraced at its debut at Sundance or even at the box office. But the film about a teenager (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) who commits crimes at the urging of an imaginary giant rabbit has become something of a cult classic since its DVD release.

The film grossed $500,000 in its initial release but developed a following in New York via midnight screenings at the Pioneer Theatre that ran for 28 months. A director's cut of the film was released in 2005, and U.S. sales of "Donnie Darko" have topped $10 million.

This for a film that generated far less buzz than "Southland Tales."

"It took us five months to get a distribution deal for 'Donnie Darko,' " says Kelly. "With 'Southland Tales,' we walked out of Cannes with several offers and then Sony buying the movie. We got nominated for the Palme D'Or, and Sony's going to let us keep editing it and maybe give us more money."

"We looked at it as a great victory, but unfortunately the perception among a lot of other people when we got back to L.A. was different," he continues. "People would come up to us and be like, 'Are you OK?"'

That concern was justified, given the lag time and some of the notices out of Cannes. "About the biggest, ugliest mess I've ever seen," wrote Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "What's a shame is that there was no one involved on the project who could give Kelly brutally honest advice about the mess in the kitchen before the dish was served," added Variety's Todd McCarthy.

The notices weren't entirely punishing. The New York Times' Manohla Dargis called the film "a sprawling, periodically dazzling, often funny pop-and-politics mash-up."

Epic in scope and with a prequel graphic novel released concurrently, "Southland Tales" weaves together a saga of dirty politics, neo-Marxist conspirators, alternate fuel sources, porn stars making reality shows, a drug called Fluid Karma and an amnesiac action hero (played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) trying to unravel the mystery of his identity.

The cast includes Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Miranda Richardson, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, Jon Lovitz and about four or five other former "Saturday Night Live" regulars.

Johnson, who witnessed the bludgeoning during the post-screening press conference with Kelly, says he gets why viewers were confused. With the changes, the film is much improved and clearer, he insists.

"The No. 1 thing, in talking to the press, was that they didn't understand it, so the challenge we faced was to explain it more clearly," says Johnson. "That press conference seemed like an eternity, as you're answering those questions and you could tell people were responding in such a way. I looked at it like, 'I understand. I understand what you're saying. Sure.' "

And has Johnson been able to explain the convolutions of the "Southland Tales" plot? The wrestler-turned-actor, who was once quoted as saying he had "stopped trying to completely understand everything that's happening in the movie," demurs.

"The great thing about 'Southland Tales' is whatever you take from it, whatever dots you connect, however you answer the metaphorical questions, you're not wrong," he says. "Richard is a very incisive guy, a guy who enjoys challenging audiences to a lot of different degrees."

Wallace Shawn, who plays the Fluid Karma-peddling guru Baron Von Westphalen, didn't entirely get "Southland Tales" either. But the actor/playwright also notes that history is littered with performers who regretted taking a pass on a free-thinker's vision.

"When 'Waiting for Godot' was first going to be done in England, Ralph Richardson read it and said, 'I don't understand it, so I can't be in it. How can I say yes to something when I don't know what it means?' " says Shawn. "Then he terribly regretted it and said it was the greatest regret in his professional life.

"I thought it would be best to trust that the meaning of the film would be somewhere in line with my own beliefs," Shawn says. "I felt I was taking the risk of trusting that I would be glad in the end that I had done it."

Evan Henerson [phone]

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Sarah Michelle Gellar and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson star in director Richard Kelly's long-in-the-works "Southland Tales," opening Wednesday.