NOTE: This is a new release and the review is based off a theatre viewing. This means the review won’t feature common elements like visual analysis, extended theme analysis, or long-form discussions of the cinematic techniques being used. Once I am able to get a copy of the movie to watch, pause, analyze, and get stills from the review will be updated to match the current site’s standard.
A Little League baseball game is underway. The pitcher, Finney (Mason Thames), winds up and throws the ball. The batter, Bruce (Tristan Pravong), swings and misses. Strike one. The crowd cheers for Finney and he can feel their approval hanging in the balance.
He winds up and throws again. Strike two. The crowd’s encouragement increases. A girl within the crowd stares at Finney with affection. He takes notice; the pressure is on.
The ball leaves his hand on the third throw but this time Bruce is ready for it; the bat connects with the ball and it soars over the gates – a homerun. Suddenly, the momentum flips and Bruce becomes the recipient of the adulation while Finney is relegated to the periphery.
We follow Bruce as he leaves the field, glowing in victory. Edgar Winters’ “Free Ride” plays evoking a feeling of jubilation. But then a black van enters the frame and the color and sound begin to fade leaving an all-consuming void in its wake – the happy façade breaks to reveal the grotesque underbelly.
Mark Korven’s unsettling score complete with a rhythmic pulse and discordant fluctuations starts to play as the title credits start to play – it’s time to enter the dark. This montage is presented in an aesthetic fashion similar to director Scott Derickson’s previous horror film, Sinister, utilizing the grainy texture of film stock proper to accentuate the uncanny series of images. In strong contrast to the opening’s evocation of a cheery 70’s milieu, the decisive switch in aesthetic and tone is a grim reminder of the horrors of the time lurking in wait – kidnappings and missing children on milk cartons, and the like.
It’s from this fractured backdrop that we join Finney once again. He’s revealed to be a prime target of hostile forces all around. From a drunk, violent father at home to bullies at school, Finney is constantly forced into compromising positions where he finds himself wholly at the whims of other parties; even when he’s bailed out of the awful situations he finds himself in, it’s due to the efforts of his friend Robin (Cazarez Mora) and his sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) intervening on his behalf. His own sense of agency is sorely lacking.
But when he’s kidnapped by a serial child abductor referred to as the “Grabber” (Ethan Hawke), Finney is forced to abandon his passivity and discover his strengths or die trying. He finds himself trapped in a seemingly isolated and sound-proofed basement structure with no tools in sight sans a broken telephone attached on the wall. Yet, while the phone isn’t plugged into any power source and seems completely busted up, it still rings, serving as an conduit to unseen forces from the beyond who seek to intervene in the seemingly impossible situation.
The supernatural propels the narrative forward, operating on a mostly demonstrative, seldom explained layer that works to supplement the true-crime horror narrative. While the presentation of this material feels like an extension of Sinister in tone and feel, its use is more in line with Derrickson’s earlier supernatural procedural, The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Like that film, otherworldly phenomena – grainy dream-sequences and spectral sightings – are couched within ambiguities which gestures towards multiple different angles of interpretation. This explicative restraint works in the films favor as it lets the characters’ struggles take focus; the supernatural set-pieces are just pieces of connective tissue that characters find themselves working with and through and are not the cause of interest in end of themselves.
The primary source of scares comes from Hawke’s “Grabber”, an masked man teetering on the edge of an emotional meltdown. At one moment he’s coy and wants to play nice. At another he’s downright malicious and one step away from a violent explosion. For every persona, he dons a new mask on, accentuating his instability and giving Hawke ample opportunity to flex his facial muscles in new, menacing configurations. The uncertainty behind what he wants adds to the suffocating feeling as his erratic behavior presents a minefield for Finney to traverse through.
However, while Finney finds himself powerless at the start of the film, he quickly finds himself changing for what the situation calls. His experiences dealing with abuse in more grounded scenarios helps him play the Grabber’s inexplicable games as the latter’s acts just feels like an amplification of the atrocities he’s used to dealing with. Thus, his progression is clearly demarcated; the film uses its opening to demonstrate where Finney struggles and then utilizes the supernatural trappings of his struggle with the Grabber to highlight his growth.
The film does misstep slightly when it comes to wrapping up all the relevant story threads as the manner by which certain narrative parallels made between the domestic and horrific conclude seem incongruous with one another, but the overwhelming momentum of how Finney’s arc culminates more than buoys the issue.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Black Phone is Scott Derrickson’s best film as of yet and seems him combining the aesthetic sensibilities and sense of unease from Sinister with the narrative ambiguity and supernatural restraint of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. The result is a tense, supernatural, character-driven story that earns its shocks.
Rating
8.9/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
NOTE: This is a new release and the review is based off a theatre viewing. This means the review won’t feature common elements like visual analysis, extended theme analysis, or long-form discussions of the cinematic techniques being used. Once I am able to get a copy of the movie to watch, pause, analyze, and get stills from the review will be updated to match the current site’s standard.
A young woman, Julia (Maika Monroe) and her husband, Francis (Karl Glusman) are in a taxi cab on the way to their new apartment in Bucharest. The driver starts to speak to the couple in Romanian. While Francis is able to respond, Julia stares dumbfounded; she’s not fluent in the slightest. There are no subtitles to help us understand what’s happening so we’re just as alienated as Julia is: this is a completely foreign situation.
Amused by her position, the driver looks at Julia in his rear-view mirror; her reflection takes center focus in the frame. She can see herself being watched, becoming an voyeuristic object, but she herself is unable to get a good look back at the driver. The gaze between the two parties is asymmetrical.
When the couple arrives at the apartment building, this relationship to gazing and being gazed is extended; the buildings in the complex are fitted with large windows which let the tenants look out while persons outside can look back in. Julia notices a person in the window and tries to get a better look but is quickly called inside by Francis.
The apartment manager brings the two to their unit and brings them up to speed with the lay of the land before explaining that their lighting unit doesn’t work at the moment and will be replace. Of course, all of this is communicated in Romanian; Julia is left none the wiser and desperately requires Francis to translate to get in on the conversation. She’s as in the dark as her apartment unit is.
While Francis goes off to work, Julia is left isolated within the complex. Unable to speak to anyone, she finds herself horribly alienated. In her struggle to find a vantage point to orient and hold onto, she starts to gaze out of her window, looking at both the pedestrian traffic and her neighbors standing by their own windows. The act of looking out and observing gives her a sense of control: she can create a narrative about what’s happening around her. These peeping sessions immediately call to heart Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and like its protagonist Mia becomes obsessed with voyeurism. During her sessions, she notices a man in silhouette seemingly gazing back at her. Her private domain starts to unravel due to the presence of the possible return gazer, an issue which only gets exacerbated once she learns of a serial killer loose in the city, a man known as the “Spider” who seems to have a penchant for decapitating young woman.
Thus, the apartment becomes an identarian pressure cooker with the voyeuristic entanglement serving as the boiling force pushing things to their brink. Julia is forced to wait within its domains while waiting for her tenuous link in the form of her husband to show up. All the while, she doesn’t know if she’s safe in her own apartment as she feels the gaze of her “watcher” staring down upon her. Her attempts to venture out of the apartment navigate the city alone only push her further into the heart of darkness as she finds herself assaulted by a culture and language she struggles to comprehend all while dealing with the paranoid suspicion that her watcher is following her on the streets as well.
Director Chloe Okuno takes great pains to keep the viewer firmly on the side of Julia; we follow her perspective almost fully from start to finish, gaining access to knowledge at the same time as her and dealing with the inability to reconcile the series of unexplainable events. This identification makes even simple traversal sequences in public areas tense as every passerby threatens to become her neighbor or, even worse, the “Spider” himself.
As Mia tries to get to the bottom of the situation, her body, in particular her face, becomes obfuscated by the mise-en-scène: fences, stairs, and shadowy lighting cues provide her cover, hiding her in plain sight. At its best, this architectural paranoia recalls Polanski’s Apartment Trilogy, namely The Tenant, in the way it reveals the uncertainty looming behind every corner: if Mia can hide herself so effectively in the crevices of the city she barely knows, then the “watcher” can just as easily be in all the same dark, unseen spaces, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.
This unease only continues to grow as the film progresses, forcing both the viewer and Mia to confront the truth hiding behind the terrors. This journey is what makes the film engaging; the narrative is nothing more than a vehicle to let it take place. Consequently, even when the narrative seems to veer towards more conventional story beats, the underlying tension stemming from Mia’s arc and our investment in it is more than capable of keeping the film consistently engaging.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Watcher takes a seemingly simply story involving a woman and the serial killer she thinks is stalking her and elevates it into a pure piece of paranoia wherein every dark crevice contains within it the possibility of unruly violence. By stripping the story down to its basest elements and relying on filmmaking instead of narrative to reinforce the alienation and trepidation of the protagonist, newcomer director Chloe Okuno is able to tell tale that’s gripping from start to finish even when it feels like you know where it’s going.
Rating
9.8/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
India (Mia Wasikowska) walks across the street as the frame freezes. Her actor’s name appears across from her. India (Mia Wasikowska) walks over her name. She sees tall grass. The wind billows India’s (Mia Wasikowska) skirt as another cast member’s name appears in its folds. India’s hair freezes. India (Mia Wasikowska wears her mothers blouse and her father’s belt. The flower has a healthy splattering of red covering its initial white color. India (Mia Wasikowska) smiles at her freedom. India (Mia Wasikowska) dissolves as her younger self “breaks” through the screen, showing us the start of India’s journey towards growth. The film starts on a young woman, India, delivering a whispered monologue about her extraordinary senses and the nature of how identity is always formed by that which it is not. As she walks across a street, her actor’s name shows up on the street. The frame pauses. Then time starts again and India walks over the name, subsuming it. It’s a demonstration of both how meaning is everywhere, waiting to be absorbed into identity, and proof of the way the present is composed of moments which each break into discrete blocks known as the past. As the scene continues, the same visual patterns repeat until finally India’s smiling face dissolves to a view of a past her, running through a green field.
“My ears hear what other cannot. Small, faraway things people cannot normally see are visible to me. These senses are the fruits of a lifetime of longing. Longing to be rescued. To be completed. Just as the skirt needs the wind to billow…I’m not formed by things that are of myself alone. I wear my father’s belt tied around my mother’s blouse. And shoes which are from my uncle. This is me. Just as a flower does not choose its color…we are not responsible for what we have come to be. Only once you realize this do you become free. And to become adult, is to become free.”
These words are whispered by our protagonist, India (Mia Wasikowska) in a part opening montage and part intro credit sequence that opens on her walking away from a sports car and police car across the street to a green pasture. Her actress’s name, Mia Wasikowski appears on the screen right next to her as the frame freezes momentarily – the present fading into the past. Time flows again and she walks over the name, subsuming it. She stands over the pasture and looks over it, as the wind blows her skirt and the long grass around her. Another cast member’s name appears in the enclosing of her skirt as the frame freezes again. Once again, the present “intervenes” and the freeze stops while the name recedes into the invisible abyss it came from. This pattern continues to repeat before settling on a white flower spattered in red.
This image is unsettling because at this point in the monologue, India directly refers to how a flower doesn’t choose its colors, in the same way as people do not choose the contingent events that shape up their lives up to that moment. The camera cuts to an image of her face smiling as her whispered speech ends on her explaining that realizing this truth is to become adult, thereby becoming free. The frame freezes one last time as her smiling face dissolves to another shot of a younger her running through another field of green; the sounds of wind and rustling fabrics and grass give way to composer Clint Manwell’s fairy-tale like score which evokes feelings of wonder and propulsive change.
India (Mia Wasikowska) feels an injury on her foot. India (Mia Wasikowska) examines her foot next to a stone statue in the garden. India (Mia Wasikowska) prods her wound and produces a puss. India (Mia Wasikowska) climbs up a treeIndia finds her birthday present in the tree. People run around the birthday cake as the camera pushes in. The camera dives down on the cake as a glass case is put on top. The smoke of the candles dissipates, filling the covering with a smoke. The dissolve to the title card makes the cake look like an eye. The title card for ‘Stoker’ appears. India recognizes a pain in her foot and sits down next to a stone statue which takes the same position as her. She pops a blister on her foot and the clear pus seeps out. With that out of the way, she begins to search all around her expansive land, from the hillocks to the trees looking for a birthday gift which eludes her. Eventually she comes upon a package which seems to be it wrapped in a yellow box, but before she opens it, the film cuts to her birthday cake and a ruckus around it. As the camera moves towards the cake, which gets covered by a class container, the candles give out and the smoke spreads in wispy manner, covering the frame. The image dissolves as the ‘o’ in stoker appears, leaving an impression of an eye momentarily, before the rest of the title gets written out by an invisible pen scratching away.
Just like her “modern” counterpart, this younger India is also followed by the opening credits which appear in the environment around her. She pays them no mind; instead, she takes her shoes off upon noticing a callous and sits next to a gray statue who serves as a mirror image to her. Her wound bursts with clear pus after she pops it, bursting through the soundscape momentarily, before disappearing again. Without a moment wasted, India continues a search, canvassing multiple locations surrounding her expansive residence for “something.” Finally, she climbs up a tree and finds a Birthday present in a box wrapped with yellow ribbons.
Upon finding her mystery item, the film cuts to India’s birthday cake; the propulsive score fades away as the sounds of sirens and flames take charge – a sharp contrast to the scene in question. The camera pushes in on the cake and then rises above it before descending. Now covered in a glass container, the cake is unable to sustain its flames which dissipate into wisps of smoke as a phone starts to ring. A woman screams, “Richard. No!” as the glass container dissolves into the film’s title card proper, which is etched out by an invisible pen and ink.
The camera lingers on both Evelyn’s and India’s shooes. One wears heels while the other wears saddle shoes, a mark of adulthood and childhood respectively. Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) and India (Mia Wasikowska) sit as the latter notices someone gazing upon them. She looks and sees a stranger (Matthew Goode) looking down on the pair from a hill above. The birthday is interrupted by the death of Richard, India’s father. Both her mother, Evelyn, and her sit at the funeral, grieving the loss of the Stoker patriarch. However, India notices a gaze upon her from somewhere else. She looks up at a hillock above her and notices a man staring down.
A preacher’s voice can be heard and it’s revealed that Richard, India’s father, has died. Thus, her 18th birthday, the threshold marking her “birth” as an adult, is marked by the loss of a parent, a figure meant to guide her on that path. Her mother, Evelyn, and her sit at the funeral, both distraught in their own ways. India is stoic and steely while her mother is visibly puffy and devastated. The camera goes to the pair’s feet momentarily; Evelyn is wearing heels while India is wearing saddle shoes. However, India notices a disturbance – a gaze taking notice of her. She turns her head to the side and notices a figure in the distance, a man staring down at her from above the hillocks she previously ran through.
India plays the piano as a spider crawls towards her. Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) asks India (Mia Wasikowska) to help in the kitchen. The spider crawls up India’s leg. Unable to deal with the absence of her father, India tries to play the piano to distract herself. As she does so a spider, seemingly supernatural, crawls towards her feet slowly. Evelyn comes in to ask India to help in the kitchen. As she derides and pleads with India, the spider makes its way its way closer and closer. India notices it crawl up her leg but says nothing about it.
The funeral service proper ends, but the preacher’s sermon continues playing in the soundscape of India’s mind. She tries to play piano while a spider crawls towards her feet. However, her attempts at distracting herself are interrupted by her mother, whose figure makes its presence known on the mirror above her. As Evelyn implores India to help with the event’s cooking, the latter stares her down with a kind of disdain. Even after turning to face Evelyn, as opposed to facing her mirror image, India refuses to say anything. Evelyn exasperatedly pushes her point while the aforementioned spider skirts up the grieving daughter’s leg.
India (Mia Wasikowska) sits in the kitchen to help make deviled eggs. India starts to crack an egg and focus intently on just the sounds of the cracking in an attempt to drown out the gossip regarding her family. India (Mia Wasikowska) is consoled by Mrs.McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville) who reveals that the former’s birthday present is hidden somewhere. India notices the ribbon on the flowers is the same as on her present and comes to realization that her father was not responsible for her yearly birthday present of shoes. India discovered a key in the birthday box instead of her expected pair of shoes. India (Mia Wasikowska) notices her mother (Nicole Kidman) talking to the stranger (Matthew Goode) from earlier. Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) introduces Charlie (Matthew Goode), Richard’s brother, to India. India (Mia Wasikowska) walks into the kitchen pale after seeing Charlie. Mrs.McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville) inquires into her state of mind. The confrontation between India and Charlie comes to a head right after the former learns that her father was not the one responsible for the yearly birthday gifts of shoes that she held so dear to her. She walks into the living area of the house after the realization and then is hit with another announcement from her mother: the mysterious man gazing down on them from earlier is actually her uncle Charlie, her dead father’s brother who he never once mentioned. The experience proves to be too much for India who rushes back inside and confides in the head caretaker, Mrs. McGarrick, that everything is wrong because her father is dead.
However, India does acquiesce to her mother’s demands and goes to the kitchen to help make deviled eggs. She overhears a pair of maids gossiping about the state of her family’s affairs. These unwanted thoughts her, so she starts to roll an egg, cracking it slowly. Outside noise fades out as the sound of the eggs breaking overwhelms the ears, until finally, Mrs. McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville), the Stoker’s head caretaker, silences the pair and goes to inquire into India’s state of mind. The two remnisce on their shared past with deviled eggs and it becomes clear that unlike, Evelyn, India sees the elderly caretaker as a surrogate-mother of sorts. Mrs. McGarrick takes out flowers which are tied with a yellow ribbon and asks India if she found her birthday present yet. India ties the color of the ribbon on the flower to the color of the ribbon on the box from her initial adventure and reveals she found a key in the box before also expressing surprise at the revelation that Mrs.McGarrick is tied to her yearly birthday presents, shoes, as opposed to her deceased father like she initially thought.
She leaves the kitchen momentarily and sees her mother talking to the stranger who gazed upon the mother-daughter duo earlier at the funeral. Her mother sees India and calls out to her, introducing the stranger as Roger’s brother, Charlie – a stranger turned into long lost uncle. The revelation deeply upsets India who immediately walks back into the kitchen. Her pale expression invites concern from Mrs.McGarrick who inquiries into what’s wrong. India responds honestly: “Yes. My father is dead”.
India (Mia Wasikowska) sleeps in her bed dejected. The camera tracks right, showing one pair of her shoes……which dissolves into another pair…which finally dissolves into the first pair of shoes she ever received on her birthday.The camera tracks right from India’s oldest shoes back to her. India (Mia Wasikowska) is revealed to be surrounded by all her pairs of shoes, the circle they make around her is de-centered. India sleeps in her bed in lethargic fashion. The camera tracks from her head to a box of shoes which dissolves into a series of shoes, each a present which she received on her birthday. Shoes help one walk a path, a path that India thought was being presented to her by father but learns is actually the result of someone else’s efforts. This is why the circle of 16 shoes and 1 pair on the floor is decentered – her notion of unity in relation to this key tenet of her identity has been shaken. A disunity has been revealed in the way her image of things has been formed and the discrete elements must be analyzed again.
As if in response to her dejection, the film cuts to a fully lethargic India. The camera tracks to the right from India’s face to a pair of shoes, like the ones she’s worn previously. This pair of shoes dissolves into another which dissolves into another and so on, each pair smaller than the one that came before it. Eventually, the dissolving shoes come to a small pair, fit for a toddler, before the camera tracks right back to India’s face. The camera steps back and reveals that India is laying in a circle of 16 pairs of shoes; each pair from the montage lies around her, in a displaced oval like shape, ranging from oldest to newest pair. Her “current” 17th pair, lies on the floor next to the bed; one pair for every birthday except for the most current birthday – the threshold to becoming an adult.
It’s not just that the 18th pair, the guide to walking the path to adulthood, is missing. India’s turmoil stems from the double mystery of who was fully responsible for her previous 17 pairs of shoes. Up to the moment of Mrs.McGarricks’ reveal, India has walked in her “father’s” footsteps. With the identity of the gift-giver stripped away, the path which has defined her so long as a subject is now that has to be re-treat, rediscovered. The words from the opening monologue ring more resounding here: “I’m not formed by things that are of myself alone “.
The montage which initially presented itself as a series of discrete images, moments bleeding into one another, turns out to be multiple sections of the same image. Far from being from different times, the shoes exist in the same “present” moment with India. However, the montage of them dissolving demonstrates the logic of how moments are just accumulations of everything that came before. Each “shoe” is an epoch that can now be re-cast; a past that can open the doors to new futures.
Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) comments that India and Richard’s hunting trophies are wastes of life but Charlie seems to appreciate the work the father-daughter duo did. Charlie removes a bird qua trophy and reveals an egg underneath it.The egg fades into India’s (Mia Wasikowska) eye – the place of the gaze. India (Mia Wasikowska) walks around her house as guests whisper about her family from all corners. India (Mia Wasikowska) notices Charlie talking to Mrs. McGarrick. Charlie (Matthew Goode) and Mrs. McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville) speak in hurried tones. Charlie (Matthew Goode) notices India gazing at him and returns the favor. India (Mia Wasikowska) quickly averts her eyes. Charlie (Matthew Goode) tries to relocate India as the camera arcs around the room with him. Charlie(Matthew Goode) locates India (Mia Wasikowska) but can’t stop her before she exits out of one of the side doors in the house. The camera tracks India (Mia Wasikowska) as she escapes the confrontation. She traverses the background of the frame while Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) seemingly has Charlie (Matthew Goode) occupied. India (Mia Wasikowska) gets to the front of the house.India (Mia Wasikowska) discovers that Charlie has somehow got to the top of the stairs. India (Mia Wasikowska) walks up the stairs to confront her uncle and the camera pushes in to show the two entering into one another’s frame. India (Mia Wasikowska) makes her way up to Charlie (Matthew Goode) India (Mia Wasikowska) and Charlie (Matthew Goode) finally stand face-to-face, at the same eye level. Now their battle can begin. If the egg is potential, the dissolution of an egg under a bird qua trophy hunted by Richard and India to India’s eye is indicative of both her role as a bird of prey but also a sign that her uncle, who appreciates her hunting, understands what she’s capable of. India, still finding her own way, walks around her house and comes upon Charlie talking to Mrs. McGarrick, which triggers her curiosity. What could the mysterious stranger want with her and what is his connection here?
Unbeknownst, her gaze is felt and just like she did to him earlier, Charlie manages to locate his gazer and stare back. India averts his eyes and seemingly gets away from him as he chases after her, escaping in the background of the frame as he gets trapped in the foreground by Evelyn. However, Charlie announces his presence at the top of the stairs once she gets back into the house and demonstrates that he’s in charge. With India aware of both the stairs as the battleground and the power dynamic at play, Stoker’s cat-and-mouse game of gazes can begin with bloody aplomb.
Meanwhile, Evelyn and Charlie talk about India and Richard’s close-knit relationship, one formed primarily around hunting birds. Evelyn bemoans the act as senseless violence, but Charlie shows great respect for the duo’s craft. He picks up one of their winged trophies and reveals an an egg underneath. The deviled eggs which start as one of India’s favorite treats become an egg which serves as a remainder of her relationship with her father which then dissolves into her eye itself. Eggs are treats are trophies are eyes. A series of poetic connections between the images are formed.
Eggs are white on the outside and yellow on the inside. Eggs, at least the ones shown in the film, are related to birds. In other circumstances, the eggs would break apart to allow new life to come out – the birth of something new. This is a story of a girl becoming a woman, on the threshold of adulthood, looking for a path to walk on as influences all around her permeate her crumbling shell.
India walks around the house and the whispers about her family’s affairs continue. In hushed tones, adults abound talk about her family; their words enter her mental landscape constantly. She notices Charlie talking to a seemingly distraught Mrs. McGarrick, but just as she sensed her Uncle Charlie earlier during the funeral, her uncle senses her gaze and turns to meet it. However, India immediately averts the battle of gazes and escapes. Before Charlie can catch up to her, she runs out of a side entrance of her expansive manor. The camera track India while she roams the outside of the house in the background of the frame; in the foreground, Charlie is being occupied by Evelyn.
However, this turns out to be far from the case as India, initially confident upon entering her abode from the front, is shocked when Charlie calls to her from at the top of the master staircase. Just like the first time she saw him, he reigns above her. He coyly asks her if she wants to know why she feels she’s at a disadvantage, both announcing his take on the duo’s power relation and also preferring an analysis of her own psyche; this is all done despite the fact, as India rightly retorts, that she was unaware of his existence till the day. He ignores her comment and asserts the real reason is because she’s standing below him. The subtext of the stairs is thus brought to the level of text and the viewer is made aware of both the importance of height and presence of stairs as a motif representing control.
In response to his claim, India slowly climbs up the staircase. The camera pushes in through a doorway, signifying the start of the confrontation between uncle and niece, showing India alone, rising to meet Charlie, who slowly enters the frame. She gets to the top of the stairs and stares her newly found family member down, asserting her right to stand as equal to him. She quite literally rises to the challenge.
Upon giving him a long look, she remarks that he looks remarkably like her father. Suddenly, her confused emotional state at his presence gains additional texture. Her father, the one who guided her and took her hunting, not only turns out to not be the one setting her path via the shoes she walks in but has returned, so to speak, in the form of a part hidden relation, part quasi-doppelgänger. Her confrontation with Charlie, is then, the first step she has to take to find herself.
Charlie responds to her comparison with an expression of sympathy towards her loss. A strange response which she notices and calls out, reminding her uncle that the loss is shared among them. Once again, he ignores her observation and tells her that he’s planning on staying with her and her mother for the foreseeable future. He makes it clear that he’s gotten her mother on board but tells India that he wants her approval as well because it’s “important” to him. Thus, the stage for Stoker is set and the battle for power can truly commence.
Given the title, Stoker, a viewer with context would think of Bram Stoker and his work in gothic horror. On that level, Stoker works. All the ingredients for gothic feeling are present: there’s a death encased in mystery, a hidden relative that shows up, and troubled familial relations that bubble up and sublimate in obscene fashion. However, as the first 13 minutes above demonstrate, the film operates closer to the psychoanalytic thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock: the bodies of birds appear like in Psycho, the game of gazes is played like in Vertigo, and at the most obvious level, the basic story beats of Hitchock’s film noir, Shadow of a Doubt, serve as Stoker’s jumping off point. Both stories feature an uncle named Charlie, who shares a special bond with his niece and who is covered in a veil of mystery. Likewise, both stories follow a niece as she struggles against penetrating the veil her uncle puts up. Stoker even goes so far as to replicate Shadow of a Doubt’s use of the staircase as the scene of battle between uncle and niece along with its presence as a motif.
But, unlike Hitchcock’s film which uses the relationship between the uncle and niece to reveal the duplicitous nature of the social order and the underpinnings of the idyllic American fantasy, Stoker uses the relationship to examine the way personal identity is generated and navigated. In other words, one film is aimed at a macro-level and the other at the micro-level. In this way, Stoker is able to traverse a whole different set of ideas from the vantage point of a coming-of-age horror.
Furthermore, though the story and narrative progression may be Hitchcock inspired, the editing, sensuality, and painterly mise-en-scène are all in line with director Park Chan-Wook’s style as an auteur. His stylistic flourishes here give the film it’s poetic sensibilities because he elects to show most of the story rather than tell it. On top of layering motifs in a more traditional sense, he constantly uses the nature of his edits – both sequencing and the edit itself – to suggest connections between seemingly disparate ideas. Like the egg becoming the eye, “apparent” match-cuts between objects of similar sizes and shapes along with dissolves between images are used to demonstrate the state of India’s psychic journey and how she’s processing the story as it goes along. As she makes connections, the viewer can piece together both the narrative and what it means to her own journey.
That being said, the nature of this journey is constantly up for re-interpretation. Pivotal scenes aren’t cut chronologically but are cut in the order India is making sense of them and rendering them coherent from her own vantage point. This gives seemingly obvious moments, a palpable level of uncertainty, because the nature of what the moment is supposed to demonstrate is indeterminate until the very end of that movement, but because movements fade into one another and are constantly recalled, every sequence gains a newfound freedom in how it’s used in the present to open up future possibilities. Consequently, the film feels dynamic even as moments repeat, because those moments come to mean something new.
Even if all the moving parts don’t make sense, Chan-wook’s construction of the film ensures the journey can be felt even if not fully understood. He achieves this feeling of consistency via in how he utilizes the architecture of the house to reflect the ebb and flow of power and also his attention towards maintaining a consistent color palette. While the latter has been mentioned above, the former hasn’t been given it’s due. At a basic level, the exterior of the house is white like the color of an egg’s shell. The green surrounding the house in the form of vegetation makes its way in the walls of the “public” spaces of the house, like the dining room. India is constantly in the color yellow’s proximity. Likewise, her mother is always in red’s presence. By establishing the colors early on and constantly repeating them in and out of the house, Chan-wook is able to get the audience to think about the meaning of them in the background of their minds. As a result, the colors become affectively charged which is why they can be felt even if their presence isn’t consciously noted. Chan-wook is weaving poetic patterns that operate on a level that appears like it’s just style, but is in style employed in lieu of accentuating the substance.
In light of this, it’s surprising to see that critical consensus is so harsh on the film, with many critics chastising the film for being style over substance. It’d be one thing if the film gallivanted from scene to scene for shock value; with violent masterpieces like Oldboy in Chan-wook’s filmography, it would be easy for him to just sink to spectacle. But Stoker is less focused on the spectacle than the journey itself. It’s filmed in a delicate and sensual way because unlike many of his previous excursions, Stoker is a women-led character study; that too, it’s a women led horror movie where the protagonist, far from being victimized, is allowed to find herself in the most emphatic fashion, something which would certainly not be possible if there was no substance beneath the film’s stylistic maneuverings.
This oddity is even more inexplicable given that, in many ways, Stoker feels like a dress rehearsal for The Handmaiden, Park Chan-wook’s 2016 erotic thriller, considered by many, including myself, to be the director’s best work. Both film’s share a woman lead, explore relationships between women, and focus more on the unseen gazes of characters than any overt physical action. They both also showcase incredibly sensual moments of eroticism in unsuspecting fashion, demonstrating the way desire codes even the otherwise seemingly ordinary. Furthermore, while Stoker is an homage and twist on Shadow of a Doubt, The Handmaiden, feels like something similar in relation to Vertigo, at least from my view.
Perhaps the reason for Stoker’s undeserved treatment lies in its opacity. Though, the feeling of the film is something a viewer can take away from a viewing, the lack of direct explanation regarding some of the more overt symbols, like the spider, might put off those looking for a story that provides all the answers. However, it is precisely because the explanations are withheld, that the film opens up interpretative possibility and can evoke the feeling of poetry as opposed to pretentious philosophizing. It’s for that reason that Stoker is best reserved for those viewers who relish engaging with a film, whether that be mulling over it afterwards or playing it back it back to confirm a hint about a theory. It’s a film that rewards multiple viewings and interpretations of the events depicted. At the brisk rate of 99 minutes, Stoker would already be worth seeing for its visual splendor alone. Few films have this much fun presenting images in such confident fashion. However, given the depth Chan-wook manages to pack behind each and every movement, big or small, the film is something that any cinephile should give a watch.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Stoker is a film about whispers, glances, stolen gazes, and strategies for getting one’s way. The story uses Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt as a jumping off point to explore the psychological journey of a young woman, India, who is forced to find herself after the death of her father and the mysterious emergence of her uncle. Her journey is one that fluctuates from romance to horror to thriller back again all while remaining couched in psychoanalytic motifs and relationships that give each and every moment a host of meanings.
While fans of director Park Chan-wook’s other works should definitely seek out this underrated part of his filmography, I’d recommend Stoker to any viewer who enjoys the experience of being washed over by a film and trying to piece it together afterwards. For the viewer who enjoys the journey even if the destination is unclear, Stoker offers a key to a box waiting to be unlocked.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S
Go to Page 2 for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) sits in his car as his mother’s voice drones over.
Helen (Sarah Gadon) sits in the shadows, clearly pregnant.
The words “Chaos is order yet undeciphered,” shows up on the screen.
Anthony (Jake Gyllenhall) opens up the fantasy room/ room of fantasy.
Hordes of men watch women perform sex acts.
Anthony (Jake Gyllenhaal) puts 8 fingers around his face like a spider.
A woman disrobes and becomes nude in the background as Jake gets ready to watch her foreground.
A tarantula crawls out from a platter.
The mirror image of a nude woman walks around the spider.
A woman’s’ silhouette stands against the light.
The woman positions her heel over the spider in menacing fashion.
The opening of the movie sees a yellow, musty looking city haunted by foreboding strings. A young man, Adam, sits in his car dejectedly as a voicemail from his mother drones on and on. A pregnant woman shows up during this monologue – two seemingly different mothers but one is seen and one is shown. The words “Chaos is order yet undeciphered” show up on screen confirming that this pattern isn’t a coincidence. Another man who looks like Adam walks down a hallway and opens up a door to a fantasy room with women engaging in sexual acts. There’s a huge crowd of men eagerly watching. The showstopper event the women build towards is having one woman strip down and then threaten to crush a tarantula from underneath her heel.
The camera tracks left over a muddied yellow cityscape while composers Bensi and Jurrinan’s eerie and foreboding score plays; discordant strings turn into synth-like drones that get under the skin. A beep emerges; the voicemail message accompanying it feels less intrusion and more accompaniment to the score – the soundscape is unified in its discordant elements. A woman’s voice (Isabella Rossellini) can be heard. She talks to her son and thanks him for showing him her new apartment. She mentions concern over his living conditions and asks for him to call back while the camera cuts to Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal), her son, sitting in a musty car. His eyes reflected in the car’s rear-view mirror show an inertia – he looks unenthused and out of it. The mother’s words gain some power as her son’s disposition indicates a lack of vitality.
She tells him she loves him and the film cuts to a pregnant woman, Helen, who sits basked in a yellow haze of light and shadow. Another mother in response to the son. A pattern established, but what does it mean? The screen turns black as if in response and the following words appear on the screen in yellow font: “”Chaos is order yet undeciphered.” This is Enemy’s calling card; the story is a puzzle that entices the viewer to engage in dialogue. Patterns are present and meanings are given but their connections aren’t immediately apparent. Thus, order is only present for those willing to decipher – a great way to prime the viewer to not only pay attention but to stay invested to even the most minor of details.
The words fade into a black background out which a pair of hands appear in close view. We cut to a wider shot and see a man who looks like Adam but exudes a more confident presence along with another man walking down a dimly lit hallway where the yellow lights emit a sickly feeling in the area. This “potential” Adam[1]I use potential in quotes here because the nature of which character this is isn’t made definite and is certainly meant to be presented as up for interpretation at the start. For my full … Continue reading opens the door and enters the room as the unnerving score gets more intrusive and for good reason. It turns out that the characters have entered a dimly lit room filled with smoke and mirrors where hordes of men gather around women performing sexual acts. This mise-en-scène gives the setting a surreal feeling – the perverse room feels apart from a “normal” world. The women’s moans and squeals of enjoyment accentuate the unease generated by the score – the sounds of ecstasy take on the sign of omen as they become infected by the score.
Suddenly, two women adorned in a silky robes and long heels comes out and the crowd’s attention becomes focused. Their initial “holy” appearance, at least comparatively, and the way they command the energy of the room evokes the feeling of sacred ritual – the climax approaches. One of the women carries a covered tray which she places in the center of the room. Meanwhile the other one disrobes in the background as the “potential” Adam places his fingers over his face, almost as if trying to cover it, and leaves room only for his eyes to peer through – four fingers on each side of his face wrapping around from the bottom-up. The tray is picked up and a spider walks out from the center of it. However, as it tries to get away, it’s followed by the now fully disrobed women who follows it around the table. Her pursuit is shown via the reflection of the table – a mirror image.
Eventually she corners and stands menacingly over the creature, revealed only by her silhouette. She places her robe over the spider as if about to crush the creature while the room watches with baited breath. Is this what the men came to see? A nude woman threatening to kill a spider? A leg positioned over a creature possessing 8 legs? We cut back to the “potential” Adam in the same position as before. Now the 8 fingers reaching around his face form part of an inverted image: a spider made of hands reaching around the face in contrast to the feet reaching to the spider proper.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) teaches about patterns.
“Webs” are present in the city’s architecture.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) puts his hands on his face while grading.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is asked if he watches movies. He is turned away.
Mary (Mélanie Laurent) tries to get Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) to come to bed with her.
Mary(Mélanie Laurent) walks away from Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal).
Mary (Mélanie Laurent) and Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) are separated in the darkness of the apartment.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) watches the movie.
Mary (Mélanie Laurent) is fast asleep as Adam watches the movie.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) finishes the movie.
Adam tries to have sex with Mary but she rejects him.
Mary (Mélanie Laurent) tells Adam she’ll talk to him later.
Adam teaches his class about patterns of control and how dictatorships control societies. His life is a series of patterns and his city is filled with webs and lines – cable lines, telephone lines, and the like. His day to day life consists of going to work, coming back home, grading papers, and then going to bed with his girlfriend Mary. However, the pattern breaks when a coworker accosts Adam and recommends a movie for him to watch. The conversation with the co-worker and the the movie proper are both deviations from the pattern and mark the start of Enemy’s wild ride. Adam becomes so engrossed in the movie that he neglects Mary, causes her to leave, and pushes his journey in unknown trajectory.
We see a view of the city again before the film cuts to Adam teaching a college classroom. He starts his lecture on control by stating that: “Every dictatorship has one obsession. And that’s it. So, in Ancient Rome, they gave the people bread and circuses. They kept the populace busy with entertainment, but other dictatorships use other strategies to control ideas. How do they do that? Lower education. They limit culture. Censor information. They censor any means of individual expression. And it’s important to remember this, that this is a pattern that repeats itself throughout history. ” He finishes his lecture and the students leave.
He gets on a bus that traverses the city via cable transport that travels along lines that extend from building to building like a web of control. The spider’s influence is everywhere it seems. Adam gets into his disheveled looking apartment where he exists in lethargic state. His dissatisfaction is apparent as he expresses frustration in the movement of his hands while grading his students’ papers. He brings his hands up to his face as if to pray right as his girlfriend, Mary (Mélanie Laurent), shows up. She attempts to converse with him, but he refuses to answer. Instead, he focuses on just engaging in sex with her.
Then, the pattern repeats. He’s back in his classroom, giving the same lecture as above, gets on the web-linked train, grades papers at home, has sex with Mary and back to it again. He’s stuck in a loop that leaves him out of joint. Finally, the pattern breaks. As Adam sits in the teacher’s lounge, one of his co-workers asks him whether or not he goes to the movies and if he’s a “movie guy”. Adam indicates he doesn’t go out a lot and doesn’t like movies. This would also make sense given his lecture content – entertainment is a strategy used to control people so he stays away from it.
His coworker persists and mentions that one can watch a movie at home and that renting can work just as good as going out theatres. In response to this persistence, Adam requests a recommendation for something cheerful to which his coworker recommends Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way” The odd title initially strikes both us and Adam as a philosophical statement until he clarifies the flick is a local film which Adam should check out. Thus, the initial pattern is disrupted. A desire has presented itself within the inert world of Adam’s.
He comes back home after having rented the movie. As he dejectedly rests his head against his right palm, Mary appears and tries to coax him into coming to bed with her even mentioning how “drunk” she is. She plays with his face and tries to awaken something sensual in him but he’s unmoved. In one fluid movement, the camera tracks horizontally Mary as she leaves Adam alone, receding into the darkness and leaving the light on him. He finishes the last paper and opens up his laptop to start and finish the movie. Once again, the camera moves horizontally, demonstrating the passing of time and location. The movie is done and Mary is fast asleep. Adam gets up and looks perturbed, but tries to distract himself by having sex with sleeping Mary. He gets on top of her, but the time is passed and she’s no longer interested. She asks him to stop, gets out of bed, and changes. He asks what’s wrong and she lets him know she’ll call tomorrow. The pattern has now fully broken down and with it comes the first signs of horror.
A bellboy makes his way to help a guest.
The bellboy picks up the guests bag.
Another woman in the lobby who’s courting a man wearing a spider-web decorated tie gets agitated when she sees the guest walking.
The guest turns around to court a man and the bellboy is revealed to be Adam’s double (Jake Gyllenhaal)
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up after his disturbing dream.
Adam sees his laptop flickering as though possessed by something else.
Adam (Jake Gyllenhaal) re-winds the movie.
Adam finds the scene of his doppelgänger (Jake Gyllenhaal).
The nightmare sequence interrupts the movie just as jarringly for Adam as it does the viewer, coming into the fray with thunderous aplomb as the score booms. A woman with a black hat checks into a hotel and gets help from a young lobby boy wearing a hat. The boy picks up her bags and walks her through the hotel. Another woman wearing a yellow hat is courting a man with a web-patterned tie. She stares at the woman in the black hat as though scared of losing her suitor. However, the woman in the black hat continues on and eventually attracts another man. It’s at this point the lobby boy is revealed to be none other than Adam’s double. Adam wakes up in shock to go and confirm his fears. His laptop waits on his chair menacingly in the on position, as if telling him that the cat is now out of the bag. Adam re-watches the movie and confirms his worries.
The score becomes intimidating as it starts to pound as pattern of the film fully breaks down – now the screen has transported the viewer to within the Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way. This is Adam’s’ dream and his unconscious, now stirred out of the monotony of his “everyday”, presents the dream to move Adam.
A woman in a red dress and black hat stands at a hotel’s reception and is received by two staff without hats. One of the men calls a bell boy with a red hat to help the woman with her two bags. He retrieves two bags from the floor and follows the woman along. As the two walk, a group of men and women sitting close-by stare at the black-hatted woman. A woman wearing a yellow hat courting a man wearing a red-tie with a spider-web pattern on it is terrified at the presence of this woman in the black hat who continues to walk along. The bell boy and woman then run into another man with a hat, who takes his hat off, and then proceeds to talk with the woman. It’s at this point that bell boy’s face is finally revealed and the visage looks exactly like Adam sans a beard. The dream breaks – the realization has been made.
Adam wakes up in dread and slowly walks out of his bedroom to see his laptop, still on, waiting in his chair as if taunting him to peer closer. He picks up the computer and starts to fast forward, pause, and scan Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way for the disturbance he saw in his dream – the presence of his doppelgänger.
Fittingly, upon finding his “repetition”, he begins his next lecture on something new – Hegel. Adam explains that Hegel claimed that “the greatest world events happen twice” and then Karl Marx added that “the first time it was tragedy, and the second time it was a farce.” Taken together, the statements mean that the repetition of an original event, confirms it not merely as contingency but as necessary. In other words, it’s the instantiation of a pattern – chaos which becomes ordered through a repetition which confirms a “truth” established previously. If this is the case, then what patterns does Adam’s movie actor doppelgänger reveal about his patterns – his “truth”? Adam becomes obsessed with finding out precisely that and thus, Enemy can proceed with gusto.
With its doppelgänger set-up, surrealistic set-pieces, and expressed interest in acting as a puzzle to the viewer, it’s no surprise that Enemy falls in a line of films that includes the likes of: Persona, Fight Club, Lost Highway. Like these films, Enemy employs a dream-like logic in its construction to guide the viewer through a matrix of desire and fantasy in such fashion as to engender a desire in the viewer to delve deeper. For all the answers director Denis Villeneuve withholds, he never leaves the viewer feeling frustrated that only “nonsense” is occurring.
He does this by both employing segments of the film absent of Adam and his duplicate to help establish baselines that the audience can use to decipher what can or cannot be the case and also by priming the audience to pay attention to patterns, some easily discernible and others more hidden. Thus, Enemy becomes whatever the audience makes of it – it’s a game that constantly plays back giving the film and enigmatic pulse that gnaws at the viewers curiosity. There’s always another movement, another scene, another pattern waiting to be found to make sense of what came before. Consequently, the mysteries of the film feel solid enough to grasp, so the viewer can traverse strands of Enemy’s web even if they can’t see the web in its entirety.
Because Villeneuve meticulously stages the film in parallel movements, both within scenes and between them, there’s always a constant series of moving answers and questions. As new patterns are formed, new questions can be raised which opens previous and future scenes up to more nuanced interpretations. This is all purposeful, as evidenced by a scene that occurs midway in the film that quite literally represents a particular breakpoint in the film – it’s proof of the intention driving every one of the film’s decisions. Even if one can’t immediately notice each point and it’s counterpoint, it’s doppelgänger so to speak, they can certainly feel it in the structure of the film which reinforces and builds upon symbols and feelings at a subconscious level, priming the audience one way or another.
In particular, this parallel movement sets the viewer up for moments of genuine psychological fear. Patterns induce a level of comfort and the disruption of those patterns creates a level of anxiety. As evidenced by the intrusion of the film within the film, the seemingly random interruption of a “normal occurrence” jolts ones senses. Because the film clues the viewer to notice the patterns, the moments of deviations, the farces to come, are horrific.
Furthermore, the constant presence of the spider and its web in the mise-en-scène evokes the unease of the opening scene of sexual violence while creating webs of meaning between groupings of ideas. The music that accompanies it stays a constant force throughout the film, punctuating every moment with its anxiety inducing drone. There’s never a moment of respite as the senses are assaulted with an impending sense that something obscene is happening. In particular, Villenevue’s dedication to the sickly yellow lighting and color choice accentuates the feeling of misery the characters seem to be experiencing. The color lets the shadows of the dark “shine” through against the yellow, letting the feeling of the unknown pervade in moments of unease. The result is a psychological horror that uses its surrealistic base not just as a method of presenting unnerving images but as a method of probing the viewer’s unconsciousness to pick up on the undercurrents of terror lying just beneath the veneer of the apparent narrative. It’s precisely because of this that the ending of the film hits as hard and shocks as much as it does. It’s a finale that fully crystallizes the tensions and sense of unease that the film spends most of its run-time building, simultaneously tying the strands of the film together while disorienting the viewer.
At the heart of this disorienting feeling is Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays both Adam and his double within the film. Both characters occupy almost every scene, and their intermingling journey serves as the source of the narrative’s momentum. Having one actor play two characters is hard enough, but Villenevue’s story requires that the duo be similar enough to provoke the feeling of unease at the idea of a duplicate, but at the same time be different enough so that the viewer is easily able to identify which character is present in which scene. Jarring cuts which feature jumps between the characters would be wholly incomprehensible if not for Gyllenhaal’s ability to push the smallest subtleties in the characters’ dispositions to help the audience keep track of what storyline is headed in which direction. The genius of the performance lies not in just the distinctions, but the manner in which those performances give birth to even more performances – acts within acts as the two selves vie for control of the situation. Gyllenhaal has to walk a tight rope to let the nuances of Enemy settle and disturb and because he does so, in what I think is his career best performance, he lets the movie rise to its potential.
Currently, Enemy sports the lowest audience and critic scores on both Rotten Tomatoes [2]Denis Villeneuve. Rotten Tomatoes. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2021, from https://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/denis-villeneuve. and Metacritic [3]Denis Villeneuve. Metacritic. (n.d.). Retrieved September 25, 2021, from https://www.metacritic.com/person/denis-villeneuve.. This makes sense when comparing the film to his most popular outputs, Arrival and Sicario, which both feature energetic narratives where there’s a constant sense of propulsion driving everything towards a certain point. Enemy is very much the opposite, choosing instead to assault the audience with patterns whose boundaries bleed into and out of one another. Instead of presenting a straight-forward journey, Enemy presents a closed loop circling around a mystery it beckons the audience towards solving. Forthose viewers that prefer fully comprehensive narratives that need less discernment on their part, Villenevue’s surreal adventure might prove to be too frustrating an experience to find satisfaction in. However, those viewers looking for a cerebral experience should accept Enemy’s invitation to find order in chaos and take the plunge into the spider’s web of meaning.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Enemy is one part tense psychological horror and another part a puzzle challenging the viewer to put the pieces together. Fans of Villeneuve’s more straightforward ventures à la Sicario might be put off by the matrix of patterns that is Enemy, but those who enjoy his technical style and dedication to creating immersive worlds will definitely appreciate, if not love, this more opaque demonstration of his craft.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S+
Go to Page 2for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3to view this review’s progress report .
Sofia Boutella as Selva Romain Guillermic as David Souheila Yacoub as Lou Kiddy Smile as Daddy Claude Gajan Maull as Emmanuelle Thea Carla Schøtt as Psyché
Release Date
2018
Language(s)
French, English
Running Time
96 minutes
A woman crawls in the snow leaving bloody markings wherever her body moves. The camera follows her ragged, desperate movement and swirls around her as her body imprints a set of bloody snow angels into the previously white and pure backdrop. The camera slowly pans down passing over a tree, a torrent of branches unfolding in a rhizomatic pattern – an mazelike structure with infinite openings and endings.
The camera moves from the first image to the next in a nice and steady pan down, highlighting that the bloody snow-angel making figure can be interpreted in a plethora of ways, as diverse as the rhizomatic branches of the tree.
Words pop up on the screen informing us the movie is dedicated to “makers who are no longer with us” before indicating that the movie is based on a real event that happened in France, during the winter of 1996. The text “existence is a fleeting illusion” pops up on the screen for a split second, its appearance as fleeting as the message it provides. Then the credits start to play. These first 3 minutes of Gaspar Noé’s climax tell the story of the entire movie while revealing absolutely nothing about what’s to come. A brief impression – violence, beauty, movement, text, beginning, ending, climax – that informs that audience that they are in fact watching a movie, not an illusion of reality.
The postmodern bent continues as the movie cuts to an old fashioned television set , one that you’d see back in ’96, surrounded by a collection of Noé’s favorite books and movies. Titles like Zulawski’s Possession and Argento’s Suspiriaare present, letting you know the auteur’s influences and future direction. The screen shows the audition tapes of dancers who are trying out for a troupe. They’re questioned by two off screen presences, one of whom is Noé himself – a director who quite literally places himself in the movie, reminding us that the director’s voice is as part of the movie as anyone else.
Psyché (Thea Carla Schøtt) gives her interview on the TV screen surrounded by Noé’s favorite books and movies on both sides. Media within media – this is postmodern filmmaking that informs the audience that they’re watching a movie and the director is very much involved in it.
The dancers are asked a series of questions involving their relationship to dance, the meaning of what they do, what experiences they’ve had, what they look forward to, and so on. Each dancer only talks for a few moments, giving the audience a brief impression of them and their interests, as their answers reveal the importance of dance as a method of experiencing life and joy – a survival mechanism that lets the body transform into something else. They talk about drugs, sex, sexuality, and the way those elements permeate the dance scene turning the discussion and interview into one about dance as an assemblage – a mechanization of multiple moving parts interacting with the desire of the dancers. Like the tree shown in the introduction, dancing is a rhizome that’s infinitely malleable.
As if to demonstrate this thought the movie cuts from the interviews to a beautifully choregraphed dance sequence that showcases the talent of the dancers. Energetic music pulses through the background setting the stage for the wonderous number that’s about to commence. The camera glides and dips around from multiple different angles without ever cutting, reflecting the way bodies move in an constant ebb and flow among and within each other. Multiple bodies coalesce into a singular entity showcasing the transformative power of dance as a way to break down ones barriers. Finally the group breaks and the pseudo-protagonist of our movie, Selva, proclaims “God is with us”, indicating that the creativity and beauty of the dance piece is a form of spiritual praxis.
These two stills from the fantastic dance sequence show the body as an assemblage as each individual gives way and comes together to create a moving, writhing entity that feels entirely whole. The camera deftly navigates the dance troupe showcasing them from multiple angles to highlight this idea of difference in and out of sameness.
Now that the main piece is done, the dancers mingle about one another celebrating their achievement with a festive and joyous party. They drink sangria from the punch bowl and engage in celebration at their accomplishments. The camera follows members of the party (primarily Selva) as everyone interacts with one another. The movie takes the time to cut between different characters conversing with one another, giving the audience a chance to let their impressions of the characters from earlier fill out and grow. There’s an impromptu nature to the dialogue which gives it an earnest realness and helps serve as a contrast to the more extreme intrusions the movie has forced/will force upon us. After a while, the movie cuts to a long individual dance montage, where the dancers show themselves off as their peers crowd around them in a circle cheering whoever is dancing on. This will be the last reprieve before the terror of the movie sets in. At the end of the dance, the credits play again- another beginning, another ending, another climax.
The movie births a new scene that comprises the brunt of the run time and zooms in on a cup of sangria being taken from a pitcher. The focus on the drink is important, because unknown to the characters, the sangria is spiked with LSD and turns the peaceful and energetic party into a chaotic hellscape.
The sangria is a player in the process , helping each dancer lose their mask to reveal another self within. The camera showcases it’s a key agent in the depravity that unfolds.
Characters start to lose any and all inhibitions as they become increasingly prone to acting on emotion as opposed to any semblance of reason. They realize something is wrong and a group of them desperately try and figure out who spiked the sangria. The ensuing witch hunt is horrifying to watch, as characters are brutalized by mob style accusations and judgements. Meanwhile, other characters drift off in the background, some of them dancing as though the events occurring in other portions of the dance hall are of no importance to them while others wander aimlessly, struggling to keep an internal coherence.
All the while the neon colors bursting through every shot become threatening as opposed to comforting, highlighting the chaos of the setting. The dance music which previously felt so upbeat and energizing transforms into a pulsating terror, not because the songs or their tempo themselves change, but because the situation they’re playing in is so radically different. At one point, Sofia Boutella channels her inner Isabelle Adjani and performs her own rendition of the infamous Possession subway scene – one of the instances of Noé’s earlier winks to the audience coming to life in his own movie.
Selva (Sofia Boutella) channels Isabelle Adjani in this homage to Possession by Andrzej Żuławski. The chaotic way she throws her body around fits with the energy and mood of the movie once the sangria hits and also serves as a nice callback to the opening audition scene.
As her character struggles to find footing in the topsy-turvy environment, the camera suddenly turns upside down. The dancers who looked so majestic earlier turn into hellish figures, evoking images of gargoyles and other creatures of the night. A heaven turned into hell.
Bodies seem like demonic entities when filmed upside down and dancing, fully lost in a rhythm and energy that assaults the senses. The world is as upside down as everyone feels and the embrace of chaos transforms the dancers.
The story of Climax is the story of the Earth – a place of beauty and wonder that goes through bouts of chaos. The dancers represent the different facets of humanity – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the sublime. Their introductions at the beginning of the movies are their representations of themselves – a persona they inhabit and may genuinely believe is indicative of who they are. Dancing is their method of engagement, a way of living among and with each other. It can be beautiful and a sight to see or horrifying and something the eyes want to avert away from. The dancers’ deterioration is not so much a comment on drugs as it is on the hidden desires that lay buried beneath the masks we place. For some of us those desires are ugly, violent, and brutal. For others they’re beautiful, quiet, and loving. Noé ensures this message is clear by ensuring that some of the characters do not partake in the sangria. Their behavior matching those of their peers reflects that these transformations in personality are not substance based, but rather another side, a birth of a new self marked by the death of some other self. The movie even tells us this directly. Near the start of the movie the words “birth is a unique opportunity” pop on the screen. Near the end of the movie the words” death is an extraordinary experience” show up. Life and death- two sides of the same coin – an interplay everything and everybody constantly goes through because stability is fleeting.
The image on the right says “Birth is a unique opportunity” , while the image on the left says “Death is an extraordinary experience” albeit upside down. Slides with expressions constantly interrupt the movie like this to offer some poetic aphorism before disappearing and letting the narrative run its course. Each is individually stylized to bring home the point of the message being presented.
The constant interruptions of sections of the movie by either the words or by the presence of new credits tells the audience that every act should be seen as the birth of a new story. Every story has a beginning, middle, and end with its own respective climax. As the movie demonstrates near the end of its runtime, the scene we see at the start of the movie is really the end- a story that starts with a climax and ends with a climax. For what is a climax? A culmination and development of a thread into something spectacular. But if everything lives and dies, if every moment is the birth of something new and the death of what came before, then every second is a climax of its own sort. This is the beauty of the movie – it demonstrates this idea in every way possible, from the structure of the story to the way scenes play out. It’s all a climax and as such it’s all open to the possibility of creativity and/or chaos.
Dance is the vehicle by which the movie explores this idea and Noé uses his impeccable technical skill to translate this idea into an experience. One does not walk away from Climax without going through some intense feelings, whether those feelings are of excitement at the beauty and creative explosion present or disgust and misery at the pain that’s on display. The focus on the movement of the dancers and the constant and energetic soundtrack makes the movie a feast for the eyes and ears. There’s always something visually interesting happening on screen, even if it terrifying. The neon color palette is breathtaking and drips through every single frame.
The color palette shifts from neon blues to greens to reds without ever feeling boring or played out. This is Noé paying homage to Suspiria and using its evocative color scheme to his advantage. Along with the way bodies move, the color keeps every shot visually arresting.
The incredibly long takes keeps the experience continuous, never giving the audience a moment to breathe or think. This is experiential filmmaking at its finest. I can totally understand people who dislike this movie and see it as a series of random events and dialogue that seemingly proceeds in a haphazard manner. Likewise, I can understand people who hate the movie because of how miserable it ends up feeling. It goes to some dark and disturbing places. But to me, that’s life. It’s a random scattered set of experiences with some semblance of order that is then constantly interpreted by us as we move along its path. There’s good and bad and everything in between. This is a movie that captures that essence and makes everything from the structure of the movie to the narrative proper reflect that feeling.
None of the movie would be possible without the cult of personalities presented by the actors, most of whom have never acted before this. Obviously Boutella is excellent and serves as a kind of character anchor the audience follows to help keep them from getting too lost in the chaotic world Noé creates. Anyone who can do Adjani’s chaotic acting from Possession justice deserves kudos and Boutella nails it. But she’s an actor. It’s no surprise that she can act well. What is surprising is a large majority of the primarily dancer cast is able to keep up with her energy and ability to flip a switch the moment shit hits the fan. The cast is huge, but every single member of it exudes their own unique set of traits that makes them all interesting to follow in their own right. Maull nails a constant anxiety and fear that makes her character seem jumpy and unconfident. Schøtt brings an apathy and an off-kilter vibe that makes Psyché feel like a force of nature more than an actual person. Smile brings a sense of comfort and authority to his aptly named character, Daddy. I could go on and on, but the point is every actor brings something new to the mix giving Climax a surprising amount of depth. In fact, every time I watch the movie I focus on another one of the characters and follow whatever they’re doing when the movie pans to them. Are they embracing creativity or chaos ? How are they acting compared to their previous interview and/or conversations from the earlier acts of the movie? Because of how much time is spent letting the actors breathe life into their characters, you can come away from movie having gotten a plethora of different “narratives”, showcasing the themes mentioned above.
The genius of Climax is despite being unabashedly artistic, experimental, in your face, and provocative it still manages to have time to answer the mystery of who spiked the sangria – saving the reveal for the very last moment of the movie. Based on all previous information, the reveal is poetic and gives the movie a neo-giallo kind of feeling behind all the music and dance. There’s a “masked” killer (the mask being the persona the killer use) whose plans end up causing tremendous amounts of violence, characters desperately try to figure out who the character is with no real success, and the movie ends on the killer’s reveal without ever giving away their motivations, leaving that interpretation up the audience. Having a narrative that ends with an actual answer on top of doing everything else in between is testament to Noé’s strength as an auteur. He doesn’t forget to deal with the main plot despite seemingly not being all at that interested in it.
Now while I think of Climax as an audio-visual poem that uses its dancers as different stanzas in a tale about life, I don’t think the movie is for everyone. I do think those who dislike Noé’s earlier works might find something interesting in this. However, I don’t think those who like a conventional narrative will enjoy this. There is a story. There is a buildup. There is a conclusion. But the movie is more focused on feeling like an experience than giving you a coherent tale. It’s very much inspired by the French New Wave (the movie even tells the audience in one of its text/phrase cutaways that it’s a French film and it’s proud of it) and doesn’t hesitate to let the audience know that this is a movie. It intentionally wants to get a rise out of you. Noé is a provocateur and wants you to feel uneasy and miserable. A lot of people call this movie an exercise in style as opposed to substance and while I disagree as evidenced by my adoration above, I can understand that point of view if you’re coming into it expecting a well-structured story with a clear plot. If you’re someone who enjoys art house proclivities and want an experience that ferociously comes at your sense this is the movie for you. If not, go watch something else. The world is open to infinite possibilities. Go and embrace whatever suits your fancy.
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TLDR
Climax is an audio-visual experience that demonstrates that style can absolutely be substance. It’s a cinematic poem that explores the multiplicity of life in both its creative splendor and its ability to fall into depravity. The narrative eschews tradition in favor of embracing its themes in every way possible from slides of words that interrupt the action to constantly playing a different version of the credits at interesting points in the movie. All of this is done in service of demonstrating that life is a constant process of birth and death- an infinite series of climaxes where anything can happen. The dance sequences are mesmerizing and the music is hypnotic. The depravity is heartbreaking and revolting without ever losing its sense of beauty. Shots are draped in neon colors and constant movement which makes every moment visually arresting. The story of a dance troupe falling into disarray after drinking spiked sangria is only a small portion of the movie despite “being” the main narrative. To get the full experience, you have to be willing to take a leap of faith into Noé’s rhizomatic world.
Werner Krauss as Dr. Caligari Conrad Veidt as Cesare Friedrich Fehér as Francis Lil Dagover as Jane Hans Heinz v. Twardowski as Alan
Release Date
1920
Language(s)
Silent
Running Time
67 minutes
Jagged structures. Paths that go down when they appear to go up. Unnatural shadows painted along surfaces to confuse perception. The constant use of close-ups and iris shots to reinforce that every scene is a certain point of view. Wiene’s seminal work of German Expressionism, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a tale that makes use of every method possible to reinforce the nature of subjectivity – the underlying deception hidden beneath the truth of everyday beliefs. From the masterful mise-en-scene to the way scenes transition to one anther, the story constantly reminds us that no character should be trusted as an arbiter of the truth, but rather as merely a malleable perspective on it.
The story starts off with a young man, Francis, talking to an elderly gentlemen about the madness he and his fiancé, Jane, faced at the hands of the nefarious Dr. Caligari. From the start of the movie, it’s made apparent this is a story, a certain point of view about a collection of events. This is a framing device done right, as the camera moves from the “normal” world to the crooked and sharp shadow world of Francis’s past, a reflection that this is a story told from a certain perspective.
Brilliant compositional work. There are moving pieces in the foreground and background which give the jagged and highly stylized cityscape a real sense of vitality.
This tale opens on a fair happening in the jagged city, a fair that a certain Dr. Caligari has come to in hopes of exhibiting a somnambulist (sleepwalker) to the public. As an excited crowd draws near to his tent, he opens up his titular cabinet and presents Cesare, a man who he claims has been sleeping since for the past 23 years, the moment of his birth. Dr. Caligari invites the crowd to ask Cesare questions, assuring them that the eternal sleeper can answer their inquiries without fail. Without missing a beat, Francis’s friend, Alan, asks, “When will I die?” Cesare, responds with an intense ferocity in his eyes, “At dawn”. Obviously perturbed at the ominous pronouncement, Alan and Francis leave Caligari’s tent with the former trying to comfort the latter. As they walk through the distorted cityscape, they run into Jane whose bright smile livens the both of them up. Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end as dawn slowly approaches and Alan is woken by a unseen figure ready to impale him with a knife. The gruesome power struggle is not shown directly, but is rather displayed on the wall through the shadows of the two fighting one another. The depiction of the murder in this way conceals the identity of the true assailant, but also calls into question real purpose behind the murder. Shadows can be deceptive and in a city that has painted shadows everywhere to reinforce the idea that truth can be hidden and obfuscated, a battle between shadows can also be read as a battle between selves , between a hidden truth that refuses to let itself be seen.
Masterful use of shadows to highlight the dual nature of the killer and his victim along with concealing the mystery. The precise way the shadows move and are blocked by the jagged edges surrounding them makes the moment of unseen violence disturbing.
Upset at his friends untimely demise and concerned with the accuracy of Cesare’s prediction, Francis attempts to investigate Caligari and his so called sleepwalker. Unfortunately for him a stream of new revelations, deceptive appearances, and rampant uncertainties plague his journey to find the truth. People attempt to take advantage of the violence to plan their own nefarious schemes. Others maintain appearances to convince Francis that what he thinks he sees is not really what he’s seeing at all. All the while, the killer continues on their path, acting like a murder machine hellbent on fulfilling some agenda. As their identity is eventually revealed and a true chase starts to get to the bottom of the mystery, the threads of the story become even more refracted, breaking under constant reinterpretation by the principle characters. The city’s architecture shines through in these moments, as at one point the killer kidnaps Jane instead of killing her and leads the town on a wild goose chase. As it looks like the killer is going up stairs, it’s revealed that the stairs actually go down instead. A perceptual snafu that reinforces the idea that nothing is what it appears to be, even the killer themselves when their identity is finally discovered.
During this entire narration, the movie constantly uses closeups of characters along with iris lens shots to highlight that certain actions and interpretations stem from a subjectivity. Multiple scenes open up with only a minute portion of the scene being show, revealing a certain picture, that then becomes more clear as the entire scene comes into view. The repetition of this along with the clear close-ups constantly leads us to reconsider who’s story we’re following along and why exactly they’re telling it the way they are.
On the left is an image of a town women bearing witness to a certain event, unseen from anyone else’s eye. On the right is Jane (Lil Dagover) trying to get to the bottom of Alan’s mysterious death. Both demonstrate the use of the iris lens that Weine makes prominent use of to reinforce how every decision and idea is predicated on a point of view which can change as new information or ideas reveal themselves, filling the frame of reference so to speak.
The acting on display lets this dialectic play out to its full potential, as each actor conveys a plethora of discernible emotions through their faces and body language. Krauss’s Caligari is absolutely revolting in certain scenes, giving a sneer and sense of malice that absolutely leaps off the screen and gives reason to question him constantly. Meanwhile Veidt somehow gives a convincing portrayal of a man who’s constantly asleep, whose personality is completely kept under a kind of ideological mask that overpowers the subjectivity within. Dagover makes Jane seem serene and playful at first but quickly transforms into someone experiencing a genuine emotional devastation when she learns of Alan’s untimely demise. Finally, Fehér, the leading man, goes through the whole gamut of human emotion – cheerful with his friends, devastated upon the loss of one, desperate to figure out the reason behind the suffering, eager to bring those responsible down, and so on.
This may be a silent movie, but it feels so radical in so many ways that you can’t help but fall in love with what the piece manages to accomplish, both from a narrative and technical perspective. This is a story from the 1920’s that somehow manages to tell a tale of subjectivity in every way possible from the use of a framing device to the depth of the actors emotional conflicts. The city’s construction is iconic (and ever present in the aesthetic design of so many movies even now) and makes you appreciate just how much work and artistic vision went into creating the pointed and imprecise architecture. The buildings and streets genuinely feel like they’re alive, as the camera utilizes constant movement in the background and foreground along with the scenery to create an illusion of depth and (un)reality. At one point, Caligari is literally bombarded with words that appear on the screen all around him as though they’re real entities threatening to destroy his world. It’s a truly spectacular sight to see that’ll make you question how Wiene managed to achieve all of this almost a century ago.
Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) surrounded by words that seemingly assault him from all around, as these textual signals become part of the world’s fabric. A fantastic representation of the way ideology manifests and becomes something real that influences the way we act and move about in the world.
If you’re someone who’s not sold on watching silent movies give this one a shot. At under 90 minutes, it’s not a huge time investment compared to the possible upside. The sumptuous visual feast will give you more than enough to admire, while the multilayered plot and brilliant use of point of view will give you more than enough to think about. Who knows? You might find your perspective shifting.
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TLDR
One doesn’t have to look far to see the influence of Weine’s seminal masterwork, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. From the pronounced use of shadows to the highly stylized cityscape this is a movie that defined the aesthetics for genres to come. It’s an absolute masterclass in mise-en-scene and the way the narrative constantly upends itself and reinforces that everything is just an interpretation from a certain point of view is truly poetic. This is a movie that takes subjectivity and ideology seriously and reinforces those ideas in every way from the formal construction of the movie to the story itself. I know silent films aren’t the most popular, but if you have 67 minutes to spare this one might change your perspective.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report
Mark Duplass as Aaron Desiree Akhavan as Sara Karan Soni as Dave Patrick Brice as Old Aaron
Release Date
2017
Language(s)
English
Running Time
80 minutes
Creep 2 starts after the events of Creep, with Mark Duplass’s character, now going by Aaron comforting his soon to be killed newly-made friend, Dave after the latter receives a baby Peachfuzz doll with a camera inside of it. After playing with his food for a short bit, Aaron kills Dave , but his face reflects a genuine state of sadness instead of elation at the completion of the bloody task. After the title card shows up , the movie cuts to Sara, an aspiring YouTuber, who meets with strangers on Craigslist and similar sites in an attempt to capture some interesting footage of potential weirdos. Clips from her episodes are shown and demonstrate that she’s interacted with a slew of lonely, alienated, and strange persons who all seem to convince her that strangers are harmless by and large. One of her early “clients” even shows her his baby Jaws shark figure with such elation that you’d think it was Aaron talking about Peachfuzz, setting up her future calm discussion with Aaron quite well.
One of the Sara’s (Desiree Akhavan) initial subjects on her web series Encounters talks about his Jaws 2 shark figure with the same fondness that Aaron gives to Peachfuzz.
With her online show, Encounters, not doing so well with the viewers (a point I think any content creator can relate to, myself included), she decides to respond to an strange and spooky request by Aaron against her better judgement in an attempt to give her channel the boost it needs. Once she gets to his place to inquire into the nature of the new job, she’s met with pure honesty from Aaron who describes himself as a serial killer. He slowly goes through his craft and the way it brought him joy before revealing that he’s recently run into a creative strut and wants to create a new and moving work. He takes inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola who he claims said, “I have not made an original film since The Conversation in 1974. I’m not sure I am capable of it, but I really wanna keep trying.” This statement by his cinematic hero breathes a new life into his creativity and like Coppola, he seeks to create something distinctly him in spite of his imaginative decline- a documentary.
In a lot of ways the movie reminds me of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, another movie that involves a serial killer getting a documentary made about his activities. But unlike that movie where every member of the documentary crew is aware of what the titular serial killer, Leslie, is capable of, Sara doesn’t take Aaron’s statements seriously. Sara and Aaron’s initial conversation is played 100% straight on the part of Aaron whose candid discussion of the macabre is 1 part funny and 2 parts terrifying. He discusses finding victims and ripping open their bodies as though its a task analogous to praying- it’s a normalized experience for him that used to give him a spiritual catharsis. Meanwhile, Sara responds calmly and normally, unperturbed by the absurdity of what her new client tells her. Her previous encounters have jaded her to the possibility that any of these conversations could be real, so she takes them as part of a delusion of sorts and just rolls with whatever Aaron says, eventually accepting Aaron’s request to film a documentary on his life to capture the essence of a true serial killer.
It’s a clever set up that solves a lot of the issues from the first movie – namely that Old Aaron had very little character depth by himself and only shined when interacting with Aaron (formerly Josef). Sara is a character that serves as a great foil to Aaron- both are creators, both are struggling to find meaning in their work, and both are hiding the real intentions behind what they’re asking of the other. The movie recognizes this and spends a decent amount of time on just Sara, giving the audience a reason to care about her and her deliberation process to understand her increasingly dangerous decisions. Meanwhile, the movie constantly plays with Aaron’s personality and history, giving him ample opportunity to provide a series of facts that may or may not be true. The name of the movie becomes trying to figure out who Aaron really is. What is his backstory actually about? Why does he do what he does? What is his actual end goal?
This characterization is where the movie shines because the presence of an equally strong agent in the form of Sara means Aaron has to change up his behavior and reveal more about himself. He doesn’t get to dictate every step of the plan because she pushes back and refuses to play his game the way he wants. Akhavan matches Duplass’s energy, move for move, never letting any of his eccentric movements or facial expressions unnerve her. She is a an absolute unit – stoic and unwilling to budge, exhibiting her desire to get the footage with facial expressions that exhibit a calmness to her body language which exudes control. Likewise Duplass turns up his manic energy from the original movie and acts like an absolute madlad , doubling down on his attempts at random jump scares and going so far as to scream maniacally at birds that threaten his frame composition.
Aaron (Mark Duplass) trying to get the perfect composition for his backstory reveal with the water meant to symbolize a Christ like connection. His arms are up to where he wishes the water would be and his frustration only increases as malicious bird screeches interrupt his every word.
Watching the two of them adapt to one another to gain an upper hand is enthralling, but the specter of disaster constantly looms in the background , because we as an audience do know what Aaron is capable of. We know he’s a murderer who’s can slit a throat at the ready. The movie reminds us of as much at the very start of it and then reminds us again with his eerie description of the joys he found in murdering. As a result watching Sara delve deeper into the game provides genuine tension – one, because we don’t know what Aaron is actually after and when he’s going to go for a kill and two, because Sara’s attempts to prod Aaron’s character further for her web show do irritate him and bring out genuine bursts of anger that make you think he’s going to off her on the spot.
In light of what we know about Aaron from the first movie, this second movie does a good job at fleshing out possible motivations and his profile overall. It’s a continuation of his character study and the amount of clues the movie gives about his motivations is present in every single detail. From the way he renames himself to his past victim, to the way he his initial victim in the movie reminds us of his victim in the first movie, to his obsession with framing shots in the documentary to reflect certain themes, the movie constantly gives the audience a treasure trove of clues to flesh out Aaron’s profile. One of my favorite moments happens in his initial job pitch to Sara, where he implies that the two of them need to see each other in the nude to do away with any strange power imbalances between them. As he strips down and she films him, you can see everything (genitals included). However, when she calls his bluff, strips down, and gives him the camera to film, he focuses on moving the camera and zooming in on just her face. It’s a small subtle moment that highlights what he may actually be after, but the movie is packed with moments like these so it’s definitely a fun one to think about.
On the left Sara’s (Desiree Akhavan) framing keeps Aaron’s (Mark Duplass) full body in view. When he drops the towel his entire frame is shown, genitals included. On the right is Aaron’s framing of Sara’s nude body. He zooms in and focuses on her face center frame, highlighting the difference in his motivations and desires. What those are is up to the audience to figure out.
Unfortunately, the upgrades to the character dynamics and exploration of their relationship comes at the cost of an ending that feels rushed and unsatisfying. One of the biggest strengths of the first movie is how the ending wrapped everything up succinctly and got under the skin by implying that the whole film had been filmed by Aaron, while confirming that he’s done the same many times. This ending does not feel nearly as neat and leaves the audience with a lot more questions than answers. The last few minutes make it certain that there is going to be a sequel, so I can only hope that a future Creep 3 makes well on the character study done here, but as someone who thinks movies should be as self contained as possible (sequel baiting annoys me on balance) the ending definitely feels like a let down. Does it mar my enjoyment of the amazing character interaction work done for the majority of the movie’s running time? No. But it does feel like a let down given how great everything before it was.
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TLDR
Creep 2 solves most of the issues from the previous installment by giving the titular serial killer a powerful partner to play off against, who simultaneously serves as a foil to him while being a potential victim. The story of a serial killer actively exposing himself to create a documentary to relocate a creative drive sounds funny (and it is), but the movie constantly interrupts these comedic moments with a genuine sense of dread. Though the ending doesn’t quite land as well as I want it too, everything that came before it is exemplary. There’s a lot to chew on here as the movie invites the audience to really try and figure out what makes Aaron tick, without ever revealing its full hand. Taken in consideration with the original movie, this is a great character study into an enigma turned serial killer. I can only hope the next installment in the franchise gives us more to think about and hopefully some actual answers.
Rating
8.9/10
Grade
B+
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report
From it’s handheld feel and picture quality to its mumblecore dialogue, I wouldn’t blame someone for confusing this Netflix found-footage horror flick for one of the streaming services more eccentric documentaries in the vein of Tiger King. The film opens on Aaron, a videographer struggling financially, who’s accepted a project to film a client project whose details are only to be revealed upon meeting. He drives up to the address the client had sent to him previously and knocks on the door, eager to get to the assignment. He gets no response. Red Flag #1.
He waits outside the house, hoping that the entire situation is just one big misunderstanding. As he looks around he sees an axe in the tree stump. Red Flag #2. As he’s just about to call it quits Aaron, the enigmatic client, pops out of nowhere giving both Josef and the audience a jump scare – a sign of things to come. His gregariousness and enthusiasm for the project alleviates both Josef and our own worries. As he brings Josef into his house, he explains that he’s suffering from a terminal illness and wants to record a day in his life for his unborn child- a memento to give his child a way to see him as the “man he was”. A strange request, but one that tugs at our heartstrings and distracts us from the warnings that came before. Aaron agrees to the project and the duo sets off to record the everyday life of Josef.
Given the morbid nature of the assignment- chronicling an dying man’s natural activities for his unborn child- early recordings of Josef feel darkly comedic. Him roleplaying activities he wants to do with his child with nothing but his imagination might seem endearing , but it comes off as nothing more than comical and a bit unsettling. As the day continues, Josef continues to act increasingly unhinged. He goes from asking strange invasive questions under the guise of establishing a kind of rapport with Aaron to revealing an host of unsettling behaviors and truths about himself. However, each of these aberrant actions is justified with some emotional plea for Aaron to stay and continue filming the project and maintain a friendship with Josef. Despite every instinct both he and the audience share about getting out of the situation, Aaron consistently acquiesces to the erratic happenings. For example, Josef reveals early on that he had taken pictures of Aaron as he had driven up to the house. When asked why, he reveals that he was scared and he thought if he got to know Aaron before Aaron had gotten to know Josef then he would be less scared. This twisted attempt by each character to understand the other first is the heart of the movie.
Josef (Mark Duplass) showing Aaron( Patrick Brice) photos he took when the latter arrived at his house.
The audience is constantly left to question what exactly Josef’s game is and why Aaron refuses to ever leave the situation despite the constant red flags. The former is obviously scheming towards something, but the spontaneity of his actions make that something impossible to gauge. You know he’s going to do the unexpected, but precisely because it’s the unexpected each of these moments manages to shock and surprise. On the other hand, Aaron constantly gives his client the benefit of the doubt, extending a kindness that seems almost foolhardy given how little background information he has on him. As a result, the movie is best viewed as a character study, of two separate kinds of alienated individuals coming into a comedically nefarious entanglement. The question becomes why are each of them doing what they’re doing? Why is Josef inconsistent with his stories? Why does Aaron keep forgiving him? Getting to the bottom of these questions is what keeps you intrigued in the ever evolving game of cat-and-mouse.
For the most part, the experiment works. The movie does a good job establishing the practical reasons Aaron is involved with the project- his desperate need for money. Every strange action Josef engages in is immediately explained away in a harmless, albeit strange sort of justification. The extemporaneous and impromptu dialogue between the two makes every interaction feel natural. Both Duplass and Brice play incredibly well off one another, with the former channeling all the weirdest energy he can find and the latter mustering as much patience as possible for the antics he experiences. You know that the actors are delivering, when one of the best scenes takes place in complete darkness with Duplass narrating some genuinely disturbing events with such candor that it’s hard not to tremble in fear, even if for just a moment. Needless to say , all these over-the-top eccentricities become grounded in the story as opposed to feeling hackneyed which keeps a certain suspension of disbelief.
Unfortunately, the movie becomes a lot weaker once the story tapers off and focuses on just Aaron thinking about the situation by himself. The movie’s magic comes from the character’s interactions with one another, so the isolation of one of the two characters in the story removes the dynamic that makes everything up till that point cohesive and tense. This problem might have been resolved if the story delved deeper into Aaron’s psyche during these points, but even these moments do more at characterizing the enigma that Josef is than doing anything for Aaron. Josef doesn’t even need to be in the room to steal the screen. Given the ending of the movie, maybe that’s the point. Maybe we were never supposed to get either of the characters and were meant to just go along with certain statements of facts regarding them. The idea that it’s impossible to really understand them has a certain kind of charm in end of itself, even if it’s the one I wanted.
Speaking of charm, the structure of the movie invites a lot of interesting questions. How are certain events/moments recorded? Why are certain scenes put together in the way they are? Are the eccentricities of the movie staged or are they just detours on the path to the final conclusion? Each of these questions is answered and put together in a succinct and neat explanation at the end of the movie. I was someone who was going to write the film off as just a neat and effective flick, but the culmination of all the absurdities pays off in a way that ties together all the loose ends, even if its not the way I wanted or expected. If anything this is proof that a smart idea and tight execution is all that’s necessary to induce some chills.
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TLDR
Creep is found-footage done right. It focuses on its characters and their respective interactions to develop an engrossing tale that’ll have you asking just what each character is playing at in what seems to be an increasingly demented game of cat-and-mouse. If nothing else, it’ll leave you with even more of a reluctance to answer any shoddy looking Craigslist advertisements for ad-hoc work.
Rating
8.7/10
Grade
B+
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report
Beautiful black and white compositions envelop the screen. An operatic musical theme, Lascia ch’io pianga, plays in the background. A couple played by Dafoe and Gainsburg make passionate love, genitals on full display. A moment of vitality. A moment of life. Unknown to them, their child leaves his crib. He wanders off towards to a work desk upon which three figures sit. These are the three beggars that will make up and divide the progression of the movie into its chapters: grief, pain, and suffering. The movie cross cuts between the images of the parents in the throes of sexual passion – their faces matched to similar expressions by their son as he climbs up onto the windowsill above the desk and makes the plunge below.
Child with his head back as he falls from window.She with her head back during sex.Child falling forward out of the window .Him thrusting forward during sex.In the first row the child’s head falling back matches his mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who pushes her head back. In the second row the child the child falls forward in a vein similar to his father (Willem Dafoe) who thrusts forward during sex. The cross cutting between these scenes along with the matches in the position of the child with respect to his immanent death and the parents position with respect to their sexual encounter sets the stage for the juxtaposition of Good vs. Evil and the subsequent discussion of the problem of evil.
A moment of death during a moment of happiness. Good and bad juxtaposed against one another. Are they independent of one another or does the presence of one necessitate the other? This attempt to find meaning in the face of such pain serves as the thematic thrust that moves the story along as the couple attempts to deal with their newfound loss.
The nameless couple grieves for the loss of their son as the movie turns from black and white to a muted color palette that reflects the loss of light in their life. The formalistic compositions give way to a handheld camera that reflects this newfound chaotic injection. The male, an agent of rationality, sees the events as separate and attempts to systematize the chaotic turbulence he and his wife are experiencing. The death of their son is a tragedy , but is not the end of the world. The female, an agent of emotion, sees the events as inextricably tied to each other and struggles to understand how such evil can happen in a world. How can a child be lost so easily? While He gets over the death fairly quickly his wife slips into a state of depressive anxiety. She experiences twitching eyes, dryness in her throats, a reining in the ears, sweating on her neck, and shaking in her fingers. As the physical manifestations of her suffering wreak havoc on her body her husband reminds her that she’s not going through anything metaphysical. It’s all just a physical response to an event. It’s rooted in the naturalistic world of science and as such should be codified through the symbolic registers of psychology. His attempts at help can be read as heartfelt attempts at helping his partner. They can also be read as an misogynistic attempt at controlling her behavior as he dictates what she “really thinks” and really feels, ignoring her feelings in favor of his own interpretations.
She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) experiences an anxiety attack and is put off by the strong physicals response to her suffering. Her husband quickly codes the images of her suffering as just symptoms of anxiety, casting aside the pain as a natural medical phenomenon in an attempt to explain it.
The movie even reflects this feeling early on when he convinces her to stop receiving care from a hospital in lieu of engaging in therapy with him. He is after all a psychologist who’s better than any doctors. How could he not know his own wife better than trained professionals? The film breaks the 180 rule (maintain the spatial placement of actors and the direction they’re facing) by having him occupy the space his wife is in, demonstrating that he’s taking charge of the situation. It reflects the way her agency is placed to the wayside as she’s made to reflect the desire and whims of her partner. This battle for agency, for determining who’s view of the world is correct, becomes the backdrop the movie plays on.
This breaking of the 180 degree rule demonstrates the power struggle at play. He (Willem Dafoe) literally takes her (Charlotte Gainsbourg) subject position as he explains to her why the doctors she’s currently seeing in the hospital aren’t good at enough at taking care of her. He subsumes her agency and makes the decision for Her in relation to what her future care will look like.
In an attempt to get her back to normal, he decides to take the two of them to their cabin located in woods, aptly titled Eden. In the Bible, Adam and Eve, a he and she, are cast aside from the forest for eating the fruit of knowledge and to prevent them from eating the fruit of life. In this tale, he and she, go to the forest to confront an irrationality concerning an cruel death. A paradise for the progenitors who are supposed to be ignorant becomes the destination for healing a similar couple through the power of knowledge. With a title like Antichrist, it’s hard not to come into the movie thinking it will be about faith and religion, but that thought quickly gives way as it becomes clear that the movie is Von Trier’s response to the problem of Evil.
How can evil exist in a world where God is the creator? How could a good and righteous entity focused on the preservation of peaceful bliss allow chaos to reign. This is alternative theology, enacted by two nameless characters who serve as a stand in for men and women in general, that plays like an inversion and deconstruction of the tale of Genesis. The three beggars parallel the three wise men. He is a stand- in for Adam. She is a stand-in for Eve. Eden is a place of fear as opposed to a paradise. The religious background and connections are never made explicit but merely serve as the thematic heft that makes the story progress from beat to beat. The psychological violence He hurls at Her at the beginning in his attempts to psychoanalyze her are met with her similar physical attempts at violence in the latter half of this movie. Speaking of which, if the dying baby at the start didn’t give it away, the movie goes to some fairly dark and depressing places and that’s reflected in some intense and brutal scenes of violence. However, given the progression and beats the story delves into this violence is necessary and though its depiction is graphic, it never comes off feeling gratuitous or without a purpose.
The main conflict between the He and She reminds me of the main couples’ dilemma from Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now(rationalism vs affective connection in the face of a child’s death) combined with the couple from Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession (metaphysical tug of war for control in the relationship). Like both of those movies, the performances from the main actors are astounding with both of them clearly giving 110%. Dafoe is unrelenting in his attempts at maintain control of the situation but plays it off in a way that feels understandable . There are misogynic tones if you read into the way he acts, but at a surface level glance his actions feel relatable to an extent. The balancing act to simultaneously be an asshole but not deplorable is a tough one one to find, but he somehow manages to deliver it. Gainsbourg absolutely channels a shrieking devastation going from riddled with anxiety and being panicked to becoming strangely unnerving and unhinged as the movie progresses to its natural conclusion. Her emotional intensity provides a sharp contrast with Dafoe’s and helps clearly delineate the couple’s thoughts and subsequent actions. Some of the actions she takes in the latter portion of the movie might feel overblown but feel authentic due to her precision and execution. Together they infuse the movie with the emotional energy it needs to hit the devastating punches it delivers to the audience.
Likewise the cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle and musical choices by Kristian Eidnes Andersen give the movie a texture that lets it ooze out a palpable discomfort. Mantle deftly switches from handheld during the realistic and grounded scenes to a steady and formalistic style during the surreal and dreamlike sequences. Going from the character’s talking to one another to their respective headspaces creates a poignant whiplash that keeps audiences on their toes while providing a visual splendor that feels revolting giving what’s going on. This movie makes the death of a child look beautiful and if that’s not saying something I don’t know what is. Andersen provides less of a score and more of an impressionistic musical accompaniment to the visuals. Outside of the operatic theme that plays during the beginning and ending of the movie, there’s less of a discernible score and more of a rhythmic feeling that amplifies the disturbing visuals on display. Never does this use of music overwhelm the scene. Instead, it operates in the background like wallpaper for the ears, giving the movie an auditory texture that keeps it flowing.
Antichrist isn’t a movie for everybody. It’s dark and goes to emotional places that won’t leave you in the most pleasant place after the viewing experience. The psychological beatings from the first half will make those who have been victims of gaslighting feel a certain kind of way. The physical violence from the second half will certainly induce a squeamish anxiety that will refuse to settle. However, those who are willing to endure the provocations will find a moving and thought provoking look into humanity, it’s place in the world, and the species attempts at finding meaning in a chaotic and unforgiving world.
Report Card
TLDR
Antichrist is my favorite horror movie of the 2000’s decade (2000- 2009) for good reason. The dark and unsettling tale plays like a response to the classical philosophical problem o f evil – how can God be reconciled in a world where evil and chaos seem to strike at every opportunity? How can evil can strike at the most peaceful of times ? The death of a child cut against the lovemaking session of the child’s parents set the question in motion and watching the grieving couple navigate the labyrinth of meaning to find an answer is something that has to be experienced. The performances by the unnamed leads are emotionally resonant and each actor brings their A game to thisalternative theology. If you can stomach some graphic violence and enjoy movies with arthouse proclivities, strap in for this one of a kind ride.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report .
Julie Christie as Laura Donald Sutherland as John Sharon Williams as Christine Nicholas Salter as Johnny Hilary Mason as Heather Clelia Matania as Wendy Massimo Serato as Bishop Barbarrigo Renato Scarpa as Inspector Longhi
Release Date
1973
Language(s)
English
Running Time
110 minutes
A little girl, Christine, runs along in her shiny red raincoat, playing with a ball near an ominous looking lake. Her brother, Johnny, who’s biking near her, runs over a glass surface and breaks it. An unlucky omen. Their father, John, turns in his seat, almost as if aware of the disturbance despite being firmly positioned in his house. Johnny looks at his bike, attempting to figure out the damage done to it. He looks back and sees his little sister in the background, clearly visible next to the lake.
Johnny looking back on his sister, ensuring that we , the audience, are aware that she’s present but far away and precariously close to the body of water.
Christine tosses her ball up and the movie cuts to John tossing his wife, Laura, a pack of cigarettes. Christine’s ball drops into the pond creating a splash and the movie cuts back to John as he spills a glass of water over a slide he’s looking at.
The slide John is looking at before he spills water over it. it depicts a short figure clad in a shiny red raincoat sitting in a Church.
Psychic connections and shared actions. An insert of the ball floating without Christine. Her missing presence tells us all we need to know before the movie cuts back to John looking at the damaged slide.
The slide once hit with water starts to bleed color, as a running red trail develops and starts to flow from the little red figure.
The slide which up to this point depicted a small figure adorned in a shiny red raincoat transforms into a bloody mess, as the water spreads the red color around like a pool of blood. John moves towards the outside, as though he knows something awful has transpired. Laura picks up the slide, takes a quick look, and tosses it on the couch seat next to her. A quick cut of Christine’s unmoving body in the water is followed by Johnny running to get his father.
Christine’s body floating limp in the body of water.
It’s clear what’s coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier to watch. As John jumps into water the movie constantly cuts between him howling in pain, holding his daughter’s corpse and the slide, whose red color continues to expand. The music is daunting and ominous until suddenly an uplifting melody plays. At this moment, the slide transforms once more as the red flow of water becomes a rainbow of colors, almost like a beam of light through a prism.
The slide almost fully covered in the water and its effects. The figure is blurred out of sight. Only the colors it provides remain, but the red has transformed into a spectrum of colors . The base image has been fully transformed through the water “bending” the initial image.
John gets out of the water and tries to resuscitate Christine, but it’s far too late to do anything for her as she is. Mustering the last bit of strength in his body, he moves towards the house, barely coherent as his face contorts in pain. Laura sees him coming the window holding their dead daughter and screams. This scream transforms into the sound of a drill as the movie cuts to the couple in Italy, the main location for the rest of the movie, and the place where the couple’s respective journey to deal with the pain of their loss starts.
This almost 8-minute opening perfectly encapsulates everything that makes up Roeg’s masterpiece, Don’t Look Now. It’s a story about grief, hardship, and suffering. That much is obvious from the drawn out and emotionally devastating depiction of Christine’s death and her parents’ subsequent responses. The use of both visual and auditory match-cuts reinforces the psychic relationships between seemingly unrelated events and the way that aspects of life can bleed into and affect one another. The visual representation of the transforming slide highlights the way perspective and time can alter the way images are perceived. At first, it’s a plain image that John looks at curiously – the object of interest not immediately understood by the audience. Then the small red figure transforms into a blood spiral. A premonition of the violence to come. But interestingly enough, Roeg doesn’t stop here. He lingers on the slide until the blood red flow transforms into a shining rainbow. This combined with the uplifting melody that plays immediately before it suggests that the image can be read in another way. In another light. A refraction of sorts. Almost like truth is perspectival and something that can’t be ascertained in the moment. This is confirmed by the final match cut, this time auditory as opposed to visual, which transforms Laura’s scream into the sound of a drill being used at John’s new place of employment. Now it’s impressive enough that this level of seamless editing and visual and auditory storytelling could be sustained in such a cohesive manner for 8 minutes.
However, what makes this movie a true cinematic tour-de-force is that it continues to expand and build upon all these of these ideas for the rest of the near 2-hour run-time in a similar fashion. The movie never lets up in its use of immaculate cross-cutting to constantly reinforce the idea that life is an accumulation of elements that circle around one another in a series of interpretations and re-interpretations. The early motifs involving water, reflections, refractions, duplicate images, and psychic connections are all pushed to their poetic limits to create a finely tuned tale that constantly subverts your expectations in the best way possible. Through its use of consistent visual motifs, the movie manages to use flashbacks and flashforwards in ways that feel integrated into the very essence of the narrative. A body of water transforms into rain which transforms into grey colored eyes, connecting fragments of the story happening at different times and in different places. Nothing feels out of place because the “place” you’re watching is constantly transforming before your eyes. Just like the slide, the end goal/image can only be understood by watching the story’s full progression up to that point and even that understanding is open to interpretation.
At the heart of the story is the tale of a couple desperately trying to communicate with another and recover from the grief and emotional devastation caused by the loss of their child. John’s new job involves moving to Italy for a while as he helps to renovate an old dilapidated Church. While having lunch with Laura, he runs into Heather and Wendy, two sisters who seem to show a heavy interest in the grieving couple. The former, who happens to be blind, claims that she’s a psychic who can see the spirit of Christine. She tells Laura that her daughter is happy and “with” the couple. This affirmation in some kind of spiritual afterlife along with the image of her happy daughter brings Laura out of her depressive state. She wholeheartedly puts her faith in the two strangers and their proclamations and finds a newfound energy that gives her back a sense of meaning. When she mentions this to John, the latter scoffs at it as foolish and quite literally walks his own path away from Laura. He refuses to entertain the idea that his daughter could still be “there” and closes himself off more.
Laura attempts to persuade John to give the sisters a shot so that he can begin to heal like her.
John literally pushes Laura away and tells her to go on her own path as he walks down a perpendicular street away from her.
John and Laura in front of entry/exit attempting to communicate and find a way past their grief. It ends with John going one way as Laura goes the other, reflecting the way perspective (rationality vs affective sensibility) drastically affect the actions we take.
This sharp contrast between the two exemplifies the subjective nature of responding to grief and how being open versus being closed can lead to radically different conclusions and actions. Throughout the movie, John continues to be closed, suspicious, and unable to openly say what he wants to say. This is a characteristic that’s demonstrated by all the men in the movie from his employer, Bishop Barbarrigo to a police inspector, Longhi. On the other hand, all the women in the movie are open and cordial with one another, operating with good faith with respect to one another. As the plot progresses and interactions between different sets of characters occur, the effects of one’s predisposition towards possibility and openness become far more pronounced. Male to male communication scenes are awkward and cold. Women to women communication scenes are open and receptive. Added to this jumble is Roeg’s genius decision to not include subtitles for any of the Italian spoken in the movie. That’s right. A movie set in Italy, with only a few English-speaking characters, has no subtitles for what the majority of the background characters have to say. There are multiple scenes of John communicating with town folk in Italian and it’s impossible to determine if he’s actually saying something meaningful or just getting confused. The lack of subtitles also amplifies the uneasiness we feel, because like John, every interaction is an “unknown.” This means that we, the audience, have to make a determination on what characters intentions and actions really entail. Like John, we can be suspicious and read the situations with a cold rationality. Or like Laura, we can read the situations with an intuitive and affective sensibility.
Of course this level of emotional resonance would only be possible if the actors involved were capable of bringing a wide range of affective reactions to the situations that unfold. The way Donald Sutherland expresses his grief in early scenes and rage in later scenes is not only wholeheartedly believe but emotionally devastating. It hurts to watch him suffer and anguish in the guilt he feels over Christine’s death. Serving as a counterbalance of sorts, Julie Christy brings a genuine sense of life and and joy into the scenes she’s in. From the way her smile lights up in her eyes as she plays with children in a hospital to the jovial enthusiasm she exhibits while talking to the sisters, she becomes a beacon of hope in an otherwise dour and depressing movie. Hilary Mason’s performance as the movie’s “psychic” is what brings Sutherland and Chrisy’s range together as her depiction of psychic happenings simultaneously feel staged and genuine. The way she contorts , moves, and emotes during these moments feel overtly theatrical and I remember thinking her character was full of it during some scenes and incredibly trustworthy in others. It’s her duality that allows the interpretative schema that underpins the stories logic, narrative, and position respective to the audience to work out. Without all 3 actors nailing their scenes, the attempt at placing the audience in the position of following John versus following Laura , of following cold rationality versus open affectivity, would fail. It’s all about opening up the scene to interpretations.
Things are never what they really seem and becoming steadfast in one perspective destroys the possibility of seeing things through other perspectives. The best part? The movie ends in the same way it began- an immaculate set of cross and match cuts that tie all the strands of the story and themes together in a way that still leaves things up to interpretation. Even after multiple re-watches of this movie, I can honestly say I don’t have it all worked out, but that’s the point. If I did, I wouldn’t have as much watching the movie over and over again.
Report Card
TLDR
Don’t Look Now is one of the best edited movies of all time and manages to make every cut and transition matter. The way the narrative plays with time and perception through its innovative motifs – reflections, refractions, and duplications -is something in a league of its own and transforms this tale of grief, despair, and recovery an impressionistic masterpiece that one needs to experience to believe. If you love movies, you owe it to yourself to watch this one. If you’re a horror fan, that goes doubly for you. There’s rarely a movie that so masterfully combines all of its elements to create a narrative that simultaneously ties up every loose end while leaving them open.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 to view this review’s progress report .
