Jaime Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers Judy Greer as Karen Andi Matichak as Allyson Anthony Michael Hall as Tommy Doyle
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.
As a fan of director David Gordon Green’s 2018 namesake, revival and sequel to John Carpenter’s original 1978 masterpiece, Halloween, I was hopeful that Halloween Kills would continue its predecessor’s measured approach at delving into the psychology of the characters, namely Laurie(Jaime Lee Curtis), in relation to Michael(James Jude Courtney). While not in the same league as the original, Green’s previous film at least seems to understand that the terror of Michael stems not just from his brutality but from his inability to be understood or cognized. As an emissary and force of evil, he remains an enigma.
Unfortunately, Kills forgets this key fact and throws nuance to the wind in favor of brash and abrasive points, many of which become especially confusing when given a few moments thoughts. The film’s title sequence serves as warning for what’s to come. In contrast to Carpenter’s original film’s eerie and evocative opening sequence which sets its pace with a slow push in on a jack-o-lantern that flickers menacingly, Halloween Kill’s introduction opts for something more grandiose, pushing in on a sea of flaming jack-o-lanterns which dissipate upon contact with the camera. The former approach favors the slow build-up before the spectacle, choosing to savor the moment of impact, while the latter favors extravaganza for its own sake, trading slow and methodical for bombastic. These orientations towards terror set the stage for their respective films; Halloween is a tense, atmospheric, palpable nightmare waiting to imprint its horror onto its audiences’ mind, while Halloween Kills is a to-the-point gore-fest that seeks to assault its audience with a barrage of scenarios that fail to leave a lasting mark after their initial presentation.
While the story picks up right at the end of the previous film, it almost immediately undermines everything that happened before. As Laurie, Karen(Judy Greer), and Allyson(Andi Matichak) make it to the hospital, Michael is promptly freed from his burning prison and soon starts to slaughter everything in sight. His massacre calls the attention of the residents of Haddonfield, who, under the rallying cry of a much older and still very much traumatized Tommy Doyle(Anthony Michael Hall), the young boy Laurie babysat in Carpenter’s film, go to ensure “evil dies tonight.” Consequently, the narrative jumps between groups of civilians who try and hunt Michael through the city, unaware soon-to-be victims caught in the middle of his rampage, and Laurie along with her family recovering at the hospital.
Alas, none of these narrative threads is interesting or unique. Laurie’s story might as well have not been in the film given how little she ends up doing, and all the non-Laurie related plot-lines follow the same formula as one another: introduce character, introduce said character’s quirk in lieu of meaningful personality, kill character in brutal fashion. If the character is a mob character as opposed to just a victim caught unaware, they will mention, without fail, how dangerous Michael is to confront alone, let alone with group, before then confronting him alone. Forget predictable, try exhausting. Never at any point, does anything amount to more than casually interesting, and most of the film comes up much shorter than even that.
Rather than setting firm foundation and direction for the story and its ideas to traverse along, Green and his fellow screen-writers seem content with establishing threadbare connections to Carpenter’s ’78 film, as though mere association is enough to transfer heft from one story to another. Halloween Kills confuses reverence to the most minute details for enthralling cinematic texture, assuming that because the characters are related to the first film, that somehow the audience will care about them and invest into their respective stories. Every single character or detail, big or small, is highlighted by the film as if screaming, “See, it’s all connected!” But, by and large, the effort comes off as farce. No one outside of Laurie and her family, has any embellished reason for doing what they do, and the narrative never gives the audience a reason to root for the mob and their efforts.
Furthermore, even though the last film makes it clear that Michael’s murder spree in 1978 isn’t as serious a sequence of violence as status quo events (ex: modern shootings), Kills expects the audience to now believe that there are throngs of people around who are as upset and devastated about the spree as Laurie. This insinuation not only undermines the contextual work of the last film but also moots Laurie’s unique connection to the situation. If everyone is as obsessed about the event as her, then the last film would not have happened as it did, but Kills requires this to be true in order to ramp up to the ham-fisted themes and set-pieces that it so desperately wants to present as evidence of its artistic depth.
It’s evidence that the film wants to serve as a moral warning against succumbing to mob violence; don’t pursue uncontrolled violence lest you become a monster yourself. However, the story presents no alternative to the problems mob violence seeks to resolve, especially within its own context. When a police officer talks about how they didn’t want to shoot Michael once apprehended due to respect for shared human empathy and respect for the law, it seems obvious that, without context, the audience should be in favor of such a view. Officers killing unarmed and captured enemies should not be encouraged. But because we know Michael is a brutal murderer, a point the film gleefully reminds us of as he mutilates teenagers, couples, and the elderly galore, the message of restraint and respect for rule of law becomes much more confusing, especially when the narrative constantly demonstrates just how inept the law is at dealing with such events. If monsters are bad and the law is unable to stop them, chastising mob violence and condemning it in such a moralistic fashion muddies the discourse surrounding the issue.
The point also fails to make any resounding impact given that the film is a CELEBRATION of violence. It’s hard for the consequences of mob violence to linger in one’s mind in thought-provoking fashion when the camera treats this violence no differently than it does Michael’s carnage tour. If we’re supposed to marvel and cheer at the effective, technical execution of the latter, it becomes difficult to explain why the audience shouldn’t cheer for the former, especially when both are treated in the same manner: on-display gore for the audience to gawk at.
As a result, even though Halloween Kills share many of the same qualities as the early movies in the Friday the 13th franchise, namely disposable characters and focus on brutal set-pieces at the cost of narrative or thematic depth, it never reaches near the same levels of entertainment because it takes it forces its subject matter to be treated with a undeserved gravity that makes the overall experience uneven and tepid. Despite boasting Carpenter’s excellent score, slicker moment of gore, and a more robust production than many of the Friday films, Kills inhibits enjoyment by trying to tie the gratuitous and over-the-top violence to more severe and intricate themes.
With no one to cheer for and no hefty ideas to mull about on, it’s hard to recommend Halloween Kills to anyone but ardent fans of the franchise, good and bad, and gore hounds looking for mean-spirited slayings. The story is confused and doesn’t know if it wants to be a serious contemplation on evil or a carnage candy exhibition; consequently this identity-crisis permeates and undermines the film at critical junctures, leading little to offer. I can only hope that the follow-up, Halloween Ends, wraps things up nicely, but with how disappointing Kills ended up being, I’m not holding my breath.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Halloween Kills is a sorely lacking sequel that not only squanders all good will engendered by director David Gordon Green’s previous film Halloween but also fully drops the ball for the upcoming finale, Halloween Ends. The film wants to be both a blood-bath and a piece with heart, but it fails to do either effectively because it spends no time setting up its characters or its story beats for meaningful success. Only ardent franchise fans and lovers of gore should check this one out.
Rating
4.8/10
Grade
F
Go to Page 2for the 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 woman, Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer), is helped into a black dress by a procession of women for a ceremony. As she’s dressed, two men, Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) and Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver) take up their own ceremonial outfits in the form of knightly armaments. Marguerite is made to stand and watch as the two men get on horseback and engage in a duel to the death with one another. Why? To right a wrong. This is a trial and justice must be rendered.
Marguerite claims that Jacques raped her while her husband, Jean, was out; thus, the duel is meant to settle testimonies. God will let the righteous side prevail. It is under this belief that the two mean ready their horses and charge at one another. Weapons clash against armor and damage is done, but before any outcome is revealed the film cuts to a black screen. Text indicates that Sir Jean de Carrouges’ “truth” will be shown.
This is but the first of three such “truths” that the film will explore, one of three perspectives chronicling the events leading to the duel at hand. The set-up immediately conjures to mind Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Rashomon, a multi-perspectival recounting of a rape that demonstrates, out of many things, the way egoic identifications and layers of subjective distance render new accountings of truth that revel in aporia. While director Ridley Scott’s film shares many traits with Rashomon, namely the use and contrast of parallel retellings of a critical event, it’s far more focused on hammering home a particular set of feminist themes. Its parallel storylines don’t vastly differ from one another such as to offer multiple views of “reality”; rather, they offer vantage points by which to assess the method by which patriarchy renders women as nothing more than pieces of property.
The first two stories follow the truth as told by Jean and Jacques in that order. While the two men are different from one another, the former more battle-ready and the latter erudite, their tales and the manner in which they present their interpretations of the narrative are strikingly similar. Both see themselves as the heroes of their stories and cast the other one as the inferior imbecile needing their assistance. Both are focused on their honor and social victory in the eyes of their king and society at large. Even though their methods to gain the favor of commonwealth differ, their orientation towards the end of being symbolically enshrined – to be enshrined as “hero”.
Most importantly, this manifests in their treatment of Marguerite and by extension women in general. Jean views his wife as nothing more than dowry and the possibility of an heir – an extension of his family name and his symbolic stature. Jacques acts as though he sees her as kindred spirit, but, in reality, he effaces Marguerite’s difference in much the same way as Jean, conferring value to her only because of her proximity to what he considers valuable about himself; in other words, she’s nothing more than an vessel meant to give way for him. Scott emphasizes how the two men’s dispositions render Marguerite’s agency in the same way in spite of their perceived justness via long, often painful sex scenes where Marguerite is rendered nothing more than pleasure object. Rape and consummation are both depicted as nothing more than moments of gratification for their male storytellers.
However, the third “truth”, Marguerite’s perspective, flips the dynamic of both the previous narratives and reveals the dirty underpinnings behind what agency looks like in society where women are no more valuable than livestock kept in the barn, where law is determined by those same men who actively break it, where justice is a consequence not of procedure but of chance. Scott indicates to the viewer that this “truth” should be used as the lens by which to evaluate the other two recounts in the text screen that precedes the perspective. While the textual interludes before Jean and Jacque’s “truths” faded evenly, the one prefacing Marguerite’s lingers on the word “truth”. Her interpretation is the final and most important word for a reason.
Like the two men, Marguerite seeks to be the hero of her own tale. However, her pleasure is not oriented towards seeking some social recognition. As the wife of a boneheaded warrior in Jean, a man who admits to being jealous, she is forced to remain within the confines of his manor. In such a space, her agency is forced to express itself in the upkeep she takes on. Her focus is not on status or doing tasks the “proper way” but on a pragmatic liveliness, and the manner she engages with the world reflects that.
This is best demonstrated in a moment repeated in all three “truths”. Jean introduces Jacques to Marguerite and has her kiss his former enemy in front of the large crowd around the group, visibly demonstrating the restoration of the friendship and socially sanctifying it. Jean’s interpretation of the scene starts with him offering the olive branch in the form of loud declaration followed by letting his wife give a peck on the cheek which he approves of. Jacque’s interpretation starts with him, instead of Jean, offering the olive branch in the form of the same loud declaration followed by receiving a peck on the cheek. He notices a smile on Marguerite’s face during and after the encounter. During both of these retellings, Marguerite is framed in the background of the frame, in between the two men, reinforcing her status as a prop in both of their worldviews.
However, the same scene from Marguerite’s view focuses squarely on her face, eschewing the faces of the men as they offer one another the olive branch. Unlike both of the men’s scenes which emphasize and focus on who actually offered the symbolic gesture, Marguerite’s scene could care less for disambiguating who really did it because to her, no matter who started the processions, she’s still a pretty bow meant to represent that gesture. She kisses because she is expected to do so by the social order and accepts the function, but she doesn’t grant it importance or legitimacy because it obfuscates her desires.
Unfortunately, what she thinks is important isn’t relevant, and the story showcases through the variations in its recounts that symbolic authority overdetermines the feminine subject so severely that even their pleasure is nothing more than a death knell of what women can be. As the wise men of the film explain, women’s sexual pleasure, in the most direct sense, is nothing more than confirmation that pregnancy has been achieved. The stipulation goes so far to imply that a woman who cannot get pregnant is responsible for that predicament because she isn’t achieving pleasure in the same way as her husband. In this way, women’s pleasure is subordinated and their desires are co-opted towards the child; she provides confirmation of her husband’s name in the world.
This is the central conflict at the heart of The Last Duel and what makes even subtle differences between the narratives damning for what they reveal about both truth and the extents people can go to transform it to fit their parameters. The primary actors juggle the nuances between multiple roles and shift between their projected heroic projections to villainous identifications made by someone else with ease. A character like Jacques goes from charming and suave to horrific without either representation tearing the other one down. Both images persist and reveal something deeper about the character and the society that surrounds him.
Speaking of the society, this is a Ridley Scott film and as such doesn’t skimp on the sets or the sense of grandeur. There are extras littering the frame in key moments and their faces reinforce the subtext constantly. Women look upset and distraught and are usually pushed further to the periphery of the frame, in the background. Men are usually jubilant or imposing and are often in the centers of the frame. While most of the film isn’t subtle about its gender analysis, viewing scenes where men and women react so viscerally distinct to the same phenomena underscores the way subjectivity is sutured. At a more basic level, the presence of hordes of people roaming around the lavish sets brings a vitality to the film as moments feel lived in.
However, there are moments where the film lags because of the scripts reluctance to embrace larger differences in the construction of its three respective narratives. There are large sequences that are repeated with subtle nuances that could be delved into but end up feeling, at least on first viewing, to be overly gratuitous. Especially given how explicit some of the themes are made by the characters, it’s an odd choice for how tame some of the narrative divergences are. As opposed to Rashomon, which relishes in provoking differences between its recounts to the point where characters morph entirely into clearly distinct points of view, The Last Duel feels like it scratches the surface of what its story allows. While the same level of variation as Rashomon isn’t necessary and would be a detriment to the stringency of The Last Duel’s themes, more experimentation with the way subjects color their actions would make repeated sequences easier to watch.
Lack of variation isn’t the only factor dulling the film’s momentum from time time. Most of the action set-pieces have a similar effect in causing narrative propulsion to stutter. These long, monotonous battle sequences fail to have the distinctive flair found in Scott’s previous action outings à la Gladiator, lacking the finesse or theatricality to leave meaningful impact. These moments also do little to demonstrate or reinforce character development, so they fall flat and feel semi-disconnected in the otherwise character rich story.
Thankfully, these bumps don’t hinder the otherwise captivating and poignant tale. By the time the final duel becomes the focal point of the film again, the stakes, both narrative and thematic, have been duly set, so there’s a vested interest in determine who wins the battle. The cost of establishing the truth and living by it is made abundantly clear.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Last Duel‘s triple-perspective retelling regarding the situations leading up to a rape accusation and its subsequent legal determination provide a great springboard to analyze themes about gender and its relation to authority structures subjectivity is effective even if some of those themes are presented a bit too on the nose. While the film effectively utilizes its multiple vantage points to explore the way gender and subjectivity intersect, it feels like it doesn’t go as far as it’s Rashomon style premise would allow it to venture, rendering it an a great, but lacking work.
Rating
9.2/10
Grade
A
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 .
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.
The camera crawls over the internal workings of a car engine, jumping from one section to another, canvassing each in sensuous manner. Country music strings can be heard intermingled with the mechanical noises of the engine proper. Eventually, the film cuts inside of the car; now the engine’s rumbles are replicated by a young girl, Alexia, who delights in her loud and boisterous emulation much to the chagrin of her father who turns up the country music louder and louder as a response.
Upset with her father’s refusal to be her plaything, Alexia starts to repeatedly kick his chair before then taking off her seatbelt to presumably cause more havoc. Her father immediately turns back to yell at her and ends up losing control. Crash. She flies and suffers a head wound. Disfiguration. At the hospital, her head is outfitted with a titanium plate. Transformation. Titane is here. Metal has become flesh. Alexia has been reborn as cyborg proper, a child of metal. Far from just emulating its hums, she now is partly composed of it.
After the procedure, Alexia ignores her father and goes out to the car. Due to her crash, one would expect some kind of traumatic response, but Alexia goes to kiss the vehicle, showering it with a kind of love that seems all the more absurd given her seeming lack of feeling to her parents. Her kinship is with the world of metal and not with the world of humanity; metal becomes more skin than skin itself – a reorientation towards flesh. Just like Raw, director Julia Ducournau is most interested in breaking down the boundaries of where flesh stops being banal and starts being something worth protecting. Instead of utilizing cannibalism as the means of navigating the contours of what renders flesh valuable, she uses Alexia’s fetishistic relationship to metal.
Jump to the future. Country strings are replaced by The Kills’ “Doing It To Death” – a sign of things to come. An older adult Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) struts confidently through an underground car facility. Cinematographer Ruben Impens captures her movements in a smooth tracking shot that never breaks, gliding through a erotic gallery of bodies moving, women dancing evocatively over the hoods of cars as customers wait and watch, before finally revealing Alexia as one of these women. Unlike Raw’s gorgeous one-shot tracking shot of a rave scene meant to demonstrate it’s main characters disorientation, Titane’s introductory one-shot highlights its protagonists wholehearted embrace of an sensual and no-bars lifestyle. Far from learning discipline from her car crash, Alexia has only become more emblazoned; it’s no coincidence that car she dances on top is painted with flames. She’s an unrestrained fire that seems hellbent on “doing it to death”.
She leaves the show but is accosted on the way to her car by a fan who gives chase to her. The situation is clearly uncomfortable; the nature of his approach is downright predatory and his actions afterwards, including a non-consensual kiss, make it clear that Alexia can’t easily get away from him. Curiously, she leans in to him and begins kissing him more passionately, seemingly rewarding his unwarranted advances with tacit approval. However, this clearly is demonstrated to be far from the case as she quickly removes a long, pointed, hairpin and quickly stabs the unsuspecting fan through his ear, killing him in brutal fashion. The point of injury is near the same point of her own titanium implant – the site of which is still fleshy and observable. In her own way, she has rendered unto her attacker a similar injury – a ritual reenacting her own trauma.
Once home, she takes a shower and attempts to wash away the events of the night. But as soon as she steps out of the shower, the walls and floors start to rumble and shake. A mirror against the wall reflecting Alexia shakes and threatens to come off. Alexia opens the door to discover the source of the noise and realizes that the rumbles are coming from her flaming car. It’s calling to her, beckoning her forward. She answers its calls and gets into the vehicle. Ducournau pushes it to 11 at this point and gives the audience a small taste of what’s to come, as it is at this point Alexia begins to have passionate sexual relations with the car, moaning and rejoicing in the vehicle as she would any other lover. The scene cuts from Alexia writhing in ecstasy within the metal cocoon to shots of the car buckling up and down, shaking all around, confirming its status as fully alive.
Consequently, the experience pushes Alexia to embrace her relationship with metal qua flesh in more radical fashion. It’s revealed that far from considering metal superior, she considers it the only flesh worth protecting. Far from being a chance murder, it turns out that the ear-impaled fan is only one of Alexia’s many victims; she’s a mass murderer of sorts and kills people as easily as people eat their meals. Human flesh isn’t sacred or relevant to her; she has no reason to love it and treats it as nothing more than a nuisance. Eventually, things catch up and she’s forced to abandon her home, her parents, and occupation. Made to carve out a new station in life, Alexia proceeds through an entanglement of metal and skin in an attempt to carve out a orientation towards the flesh, one predicated on love.
Like Raw, Titane features gory set-pieces tied to the themes of the story, impeccable and uncomfortable sound design that emphasizes squelching, and a host of perverse orientations towards the flesh. However, unlike Raw, which features a mainly straight-forward, albeit textured, story, Titane is far more ambitious in the scope of its themes and the surreal, almost dream-like way its narrative proceeds, choosing to show character interactions and reactions instead of explaining them or having anyone mention them explicitly. Ducournau is clearly in her element here and deftly weaves ideas about gender expectations against Alexia’s ongoing relationships with flesh, demonstrating that what conditions and furnishes meaning is not blood or similarity, but an ability to feel love. Form matters less than content, a notion that’s stretched to its limits as Alexia navigates the borders of both gender and humanity in an attempt to find meaning in her life.
Her journey and it’s development are made all the more obvious by the no-holds barred fashion in which Ducournau captures the macabre, often times showing the bloody in a nonchalant and apathetic fashion thereby giving brutal murder sequence s a sick comedic undertone that less squeamish viewers will enjoy. Murder stops being the focus and its purpose becomes the point of focus, as Alexia’s murderous drives change form as she considers what makes flesh normatively valuable. Agathe Rousselle makes these moments of transformation palpable, rendering a variety of expressions from tired, but otherwise unfazed to broken in and devastated. It’s no small feat that she gets the viewer to invest in and root for a serial murderer whether they think she’s going to change her lifestyle or not.
Thus, far from just being a set of gore-pieces held together by indecipherable plot threads, Titane is meticulous and precise, with even small details blowing up quietly in the background of the film as it goes on. At every point, Ducournau focuses on showing the way flesh, metal or human, engenders its own preservation via inculcating love in others, demonstrating that the connecting force between subjects/objects is not so much perceived sameness as the possibility for affection between them. Because of this, even the more outlandish plot elements make sense within the confines of the story even if the actual reasons behind them or the way they culminate aren’t completely known to the viewer. For those willing to spend the analyzing the parallels, Titane offers a gory story that not only manages to captivate from start to end but also manages to showcase the true powers of love.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Though largely silent and visual, Titane, far from having too little to say, has a wide breadth of fleshy ideas it dives into and explores. The juxtaposition of human skin and metal along with idea of gender as a socially coded role gives Ducournau room to explore what renders flesh something worth caring about and protecting. Though more squeamish viewers might be put off, those looking for a film that invites the them to think and engage with them without giving all the answers will find more than their fair share’s worth in Titane.
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 .
Note: This review contains spoilers for: Insidious.
Director James Wan’s sequel to Insidious opens in the past. A young Elise (Lindsay Seim) makes her initial visit to Lorraine (Jocelin Donahue) and Josh (Garrett Ryan) after being called as an additional line of help by her friend and fellow-psychic, Carl (Hank Harris ), who finds himself unable to deal with old woman spirit (Tom Fitzpatrick) haunting Josh. Elise hypnotizes Dalton to make him more suggestible and asks him to reveal information on the old woman. She searches the house in order to confront the malevolent entity. As the events of the night continue, Josh gets up and starts speaking to an entity who no one else can see, psychic gifts or otherwise. Josh leads the entity to a location in the house and points to the location at which point, due to his inexplicable behavior and the nature of the spirit, Elise recommends “sealing” his astral projection gifts away.
The title card drops.
A blue light passes over the title card.
The camera moves towards a red door and pushes forward…
…through a chasm of darkness…
..before landing on Renai (Rose Byrne) being interrogated by a police officer.
Renai (Rose Byrne) answers the police officer.
Insidious: Chapter 2’s title sequence isn’t as effective as the original, but it manages to set expectations for what’s to come. The blue lamp lets us know this tale will full venture into the world of the “Further”. As the camera moves through a red door and an abyss to a cornered off Renai, it becomes clear that her family’s struggles are far from over. She knows that Elise is dead. She knows that the spirit who haunted her spirit is responsible. However, she does not know if her husband is and the spirit are one in the same.
The bright red title card drops in as a sea of violent noises come to a crescendo. However, the malevolent color is displaced by a spectral blue that comes from the reveal of the “Chapter 2” in the title. A lantern similar to the ones used in the “further” goes across the title card, letting the viewer know that unlike the first film which had to tease the metaphysical, this film is more than ready to dive into supernatural hijinks.
Drawing to a close, the title sequence ends on a red door, and the camera glides through it and the dark void it opens to towards a faraway light in the distance. Eventually, the camera gets to the light, which turns out to be a lamp lighting a room where Renai (Rose Byrne) is being interrogated by a police officer over the death of Elise (Lin Shaye), an action which is revealed to the viewer at the end of Insidious as having been committed by a recently possessed Josh. Renai recalls finding Elise’s limp body and then finding the photograph of the old woman before running into an emotionally off Josh at the scene of the crime; her doubts were set then and have only continued to fester, but without definitive proof of her husband being possessed or just off, she has to learn to work with him . She confirms to the detective that she doesn’t think her husband is responsible for Elise’s death before going back home to continue dealing with the supernatural mess still wreaking havoc in the Lambert’s lives.
Chapter 2, as such, is split between telling two tales: the first follows the way the ‘Further’ intermingles and intervenes in the Lamberts life and the second explores the background of the spirit possessing Josh. While both stories inform and effect one another, the former is markedly more original and ambitious and gives the mechanics of the Insidious franchise a put-togetherness that other supernatural outings wish they could achieve. Comparatively, the latter story is contrived, not as tight, and plays like a series of lost opportunities, often settling for horror in the moment as opposed to building to larger moments of intense panic. While the nature of what’s revealed in this second narrative thread is “shocking” at a surface level, it does nothing to develop either the film’s themes or the themes of its prequel in nearly as effective a manner as the first narrative thread.
This first story takes the building blocks established in the first movie and expands on the metaphysical makeup of its supernatural domain: the ‘Further’, a place where circuits of desire are repeated while specters engage in the same acts over and over again in loop. This time the narrative focus is less on the domain itself and more on the the effects it has on the living world. It’s not the mechanics of the ‘Further’ which are explored as much as the way the domain intervenes in the world of the living, tying seemingly disparate moments together. Consequently, the film revels in building up scenes from one vantage point and then exploring them again from the other domain; the interplay between these jumps from the “real” world to the ‘Further’ and back again gives Wan an and scriptwriter Leigh Whannell more than enough space to explore creative spectral interplays.
Unfortunately, these mechanics are barely utilized to their fullest and are leveraged in service of the second story, which, while not being incompetently constructed, lacks the nuance or creativity of the first film. While the first story feels like an extension of the Lambert’s conflicts from the first film, the second story feels largely separated. The struggles depicted in the former have a texture and feeling because there’s a sense of empathy in the helplessness and nature of what’s going on, but the tribulations in the latter feel overly theatric and break the sense of immersion generated by the former. Realism takes a seat back to spectacle, and the themes get lost in translation, as the viewer focuses on terror for terrors sake as opposed to terror in serve of a larger thematic movement. As a result, visceral moments in the film shock when presented but don’t have the same staying power as the scenes from the initial Insidious which linger in the viewer’s memory long after.
This is a shame because the first story could have served as the basis for the investigation the second story ventured on if better attention was given to the nature of Josh’s possession. As a location, the ‘Further’ gives fertile ground to explore the way trauma unfurls. Like the first film demonstrates, spirits are trapped into cycles of repetition and are made to re-enact their trauma ad-infinitum. Seemingly unable to find peace, it seems that being a trapped within the ‘Further’ is a horrific fate that any entity would seek to escape, but the furthest the film goes towards exploring that idea, a great source of motivation which could have served as the basis of the second story’s mystery, is having a character mention the idea off-hand a few times. Instead of just saying it, the film could have built on this idea visually and tied it to the Lambert’s struggle to find a locus of healing and stability. Wan and his production team do a great job at evoking ethereal and inexplicable horror, but it feels like they barely scratched the surface of demonstrating the brutality of the material they’re working with, choosing instead to go for familiar and easy-to-explain over ambitious and potentially more confusing. For example, there’s a great set piece involving a host of covered bodies but by the end of the film the scene says very little besides “evil exists”. It’s just unsettling imagery that disturbs momentarily before being cast aside.
Thankfully, lack of memorable scares does not entail lack of memorable moments and Wan and Whannell still manage to leverage the better parts of the story to great effect, satisfyingly bringing the prequel’s story to a resolute close. There are a few hiccups getting to this ending, but eventually, when Chapter 2’s two story threads come together, the narrative proper is allowed to go full throttle towards an emotionally satisfying finish line that concludes (almost) all the relevant story threads on a nice ending point. While this sequel entry isn’t as strong a stand-alone as Wan’s initial foray in to the supernatural genre, it’s certainly a good enough follow-up that fans of the original should check it out. It does what all good sequels should attempt to do: extend the interesting ideas of the first movie without re-hashing them in boring fashion. Just because the film doesn’t elevate all the interesting ideas to their potential, it does more than enough to distinguish itself from and progress its prequel.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Insidious: Chapter 2 is a film that serves up many of the same thrills of its prequel in terms of ambiance and technical construction, while bringing many plot threads to a neat and resolute end-point. While it settles for cheaper scares than its worldbuilding allows, thus squandering some of its potential, it delivers more than enough intrigue to keep fans of the original and those interested more broadly in supernatural horror and its related mechanics intrigued from start to finish. It may not nail all it’s beats, but it’s certainly a good deal more fun than many of its peers.
Rating
7.9/10
Grade
B
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
An explanation that the film is comprised of “real” found footage.
Though the opening seems tame today, back when it was released, this introduction marked The Blair Witch Project as a very real kind of horror. The explanation of the source of the footage informs the viewer that no one in the film is going to make it and the amateur quality of the footage and technique throughout the film seemingly confirms that this film is in fact genuine. The tame introduction gives the footage that follows a credibility that something more stylized or pronounced would ruin.
The film opens on the title card, white letters against a black backdrop, before informing the viewer that the footage presented comes from three student filmmakers who disappeared while shooting it. In other words, this is a “true” story based on true, un-edited, footage.
As if in demonstration and confirmation of this status, a completely unfocused mess of colors permeate the screen. It becomes apparent that the camera technician is trying to get the camera to focus on its subject, Heather (Heather Donahue), who explains that she is going to film a documentary on the eponymous “Blair Witch”. Unlike other horrors that start with the “true story” introduction, like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre by Tobe Hooper, The Blair Witch‘s look confirms its announcement, thereby imbuing it with a grounded feeling. Consequently, Heather’s announcement transforms from quirky and cheerful to swan song; the viewer knows that her documentary will lead her to her disappearance. The cheery footage is confirmation that she, and her two cameramen, Joshua (Joshua Leonard) and Michael (Michael Williams) are no more.
This impending doom permeates the film and tinges each of the introduction to the documentary’s crew with melancholy. Heather’s unending enthusiasm feels like a cruel joke. Likewise, Michael telling his mother goodbye hits harder because it’s the last time he’s ever going to see her. As the crew sets off to Burkittsville, Maryland to get footage for their “film”, the viewer knows they’re marching off to their doom.
Town sign for Burkittsville, Maryland
A statue of an angel.
A shot of tombstones at a cemetery.
The amateur attempt at setting a creepy mood via striking and unnerving establishing shots captured by 16 MM film immediately makes it clear that this is a student film. The voiceover narration by Heather adds to this feeling and consequently makes the entire production feel amateurish. The earnestness by which Heather tries to make her documentary creepy makes what happens to her and her crew cruelly ironic.
Upon getting to the location of where the “Blair Witch” myth started, Heather, the director of the documentary, switches cameras from the camcorder, which records in color, to the 16-MM film camera, which records in black and white. The former camera is her attempt to capture a “behind-the-scenes” and the latter camera is for the for the documentary proper. The juxtaposition of the black and white scenes to the colored scenes which came before, accentuate the realism the film goes for precisely because of the amateur nature of Heather’s filmmaking.
As she uses the 16 MM to film a set of insert shots in foreboding manner – a town sign, an angel figure, headstones in a cemetery, etc – it’s apparent she’s trying to evoke a sense of fear and immensity for the audience she thinks is going to watch her piece. Her narration is overdramatic and makes the attempt at horror on her part feel cheesy. However, it is precisely because her attempts at selling fear in such a forward fashion fail, that the terrors she experiences in the latter half of the film gain their legitimacy. Because the polish associated with a studio project is missing from these “proper” shots, they give the “improper” shots an extra genuine feeling.
An old man talks about the Blair witch on the camcorder.
The old man repeats his story in more professional manner when captured on the 16 MM camera.
A child covers their mother’s mouth when the latter mentions the Blair Witch.
Because the film switches between a camcorder and a 16MM film camera, using the latter for the expressed sake of the “professional” documentary Heather is shooting, it gets to establish multiple layers of “reality”. By revealing a layer of artifice, the film disguises the acting of its actors as a documentary proper – an even more real description of reality. This unseen privileging of the “camcorder” reality over the “16 MM” reality lets the film use exposition and action that seem random as ways to amp up the tension.
Case in point, Heather and her crew interact a decent amount of townspeople for clues about the witch before deciding to go off into the forest to get footage on landmarks associated with the malevolent entity. They approach most of these people with the camcorder first, before then asking their subject questions about the witch. If the answer satisfies them, they switch to the 16MM camera and start to shoot “serious” footage. The viewer gets to see the crew canvas targets, ask them questions, hear vague series of answers which paint a dark mythos that reveals very little, and then switch cameras to film those townspeople who had something “interesting” to say.
In fact, it is precisely the film’s switching between the two cameras that gives it the terrifying texture that’s made it such an integral part of horror canon. The film invites the viewer into the film-making process and shows them a view of “reality” and then “reality via artifice” in comparison. These moments provide a point of minimal difference that cements that the found-footage comes from the real world, the world the viewer actually resides in. When on camcorder, the townsfolk talk naturally and seem like average residents. There’s nothing obviously phony about them or their presentation. However, when the film camera is used, the townsfolk adopt a persona for the camera, as though conscious that they are now “officially” going to be on film, so they have to act their best. By providing a point of contrast and a measured difference, the film convinces the audience of the “truth” of the two realities its presenting.
Obviously, this technique implies that the theatrics are only happening behind the black-and-white screen. As a result, the camcorder scenes achieve a level of “legitimacy” that gives them a staying power. For example, a baby screaming out and rushing to cover their mother’s mouth when the latter mentions the Blair Witch stories on the camcorder immediately feels like an omen, because it’s not “staged”/repeated in 16 MM. Thus, the camera gains the power of being a filter for reality. It’s a measure of control that demarcates what is reality and what is artifice.
This idea of the camera as controlling force is the driving theme behind The Blair Witch Project and explains why it’s one of the most frightening found-footage films ever. Heather is obsessed with getting more footage of the events, constantly shoving a camera in someone’s face or trying to get more coverage of terrifying events as they happen. Her compulsion to record is criticized by both Josh and Michael at various points, as they see the behavior as at odds with the group’s ability to navigate the spectral occurrences they run into. However, as she explains herself, the act of documentation is all “she has left.” The camera is the only tool she has left to frame the horrors around her into a cohesive narrative that she overcome.
This is also why the camera is constantly associated with civilization, with Heather and company constantly mentioning that their detour in the woods as having to end eventually because America is destroying its environment. Far from being a cause of concern, the characters repeat the statement in the hopes that the unconquerable vastness of the wilderness will eventually give way to the calm control provided by civilization. In this way, the camera becomes the normalizing force of the social order – a tool meant to help carve out the wild and mystical unknowns into something more agreeable. It is an extension of an American dream which envisions technology being used to cut through and remove the inexplicable from the day-to-day.
This posture towards technology stands in stark contrast to Japanese horror (J-horror) films coming out at the same time, like Ring by Hideo Nakata and Pulse by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, which focused on the anxiety inherent in technology. In Nakata and Kurosawa’s films, technology provides a conduit through which the supernatural past can make its presence felt once again in the “modern” world. In The Blair Witch Project, far from being a tool of the supernatural, the camera is never allowed to witness supernatural events happening as they happen and instead is only ever allowed to assess their consequences, suggesting that the supernatural can’t be tamed by the powers of modernity. This effect is made all the more suspenseful because of the ambiguous worldbuilding provided by the townspeople. Not a single story any member gives is wholly consistent with another, so the nature of who or what what the Blair Witch and their respective capacities is a mystery. One phenomenon hearkens back to one legend of the myth while another leans another way. With no rhyme or reason to the terror at play, the viewer is stuck, like the crew themselves, to experience the scares without knowing the stakes.
In this way, The Blair Witch Project, is a found-footage horror truly representing the sub-genre’s name. It’s a demonstration of the inability of film to mediate horror and provide enough of a gap to render it palatable and tame. Found footage, far from providing answers, only hints at the uncanny power of the abyss which gives no refuge or answers to anyone willing to seek them. By the time the film gets to the latter sections, the characters no longer find solace in their cameras because their ability to frame the situation is removed. The 16 MM and camcorder become interchangeable as the distinctions between what is reality and what is artifice becomes blurry before vanishing into a void with no answers. The behind-the-scenes footage becomes artifice and vice versa as the places to hide from the terror of the unknown disappear.
When the film approaches its end, the edits between scenes become more jarring and provide less information as to what’s happened in the “down-time”. It’s apparent that the characters are clearly filming less as they find themselves trapped and terrified in a situation they can’t comprehend, let alone control. Like the characters, the viewer gets no reprieves from the terrors, as the camera cutting off doesn’t mean respite as much as it means one awful moment is going to cut to a moment even worse in the future. The audience is strapped into a roller-coaster of nightmares that shows no signs of slowing down as the film races towards its finish.
While the directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, deserve credit for pushing such a low-budget idea to such great lengths, the reason the film is able to work at all, let alone so effectively, is because of the seeming veracity of every actor. Every member of the cast, whether it be the primary trio or the townspeople, has to put on multiple layers of performance, both presenting a “genuine” representation and an obvious façade on that representation that seemingly also stems from it. In other words, the actors have to present a fantasy off as reality and then pass another related fantasy off as artifice. Despite interviewing a plethora of characters, there’s never a point where this dichotomy fails or feels questionable. Actually, the spontaneous nature of the storytelling and dialogue feels so put together and cohesive that it reaches that magical place where it is both too unkempt to feel constructed but is also pointed enough to not come off as feeling totally left-field.
Even though the film might not be as terrifying as it was when it first came out in 1999, at the height of mainstream acceptance of the internet, its construction and “honesty” make it a compelling watch for anyone willing to invest seriously into its premise. The natural character interactions, commitment to authenticity, lack of polish, and unpredictable roller-coaster of scares of The Blair Witch Project are still rarities in the found-footage genre which it helped to popularize and make commonplace, and all serve as proof of just how special the film is.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Blair Witch Project is proof that a solid idea and tight execution can be scarier than any polished Hollywood production. Despite being one of the first “found-footage” horrors, The Blair Witch Project is still one of the best. It effectively combines ambiguous worldbuilding, realistic performances, and quick and efficient pacing to deliver a horror that reveals our natural proximity to the terrors hiding beneath the veneer of civilization. Those viewers willing to suspend their disbelief and give in to the film can still find some of the terror that audiences back in 1999 first got a taste of.
Rating
A+
Grade
9.6/10
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 .
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 .
Text card explaining the genealogy of the word ‘sicario’ The modern day usage of ‘Sicario’ means hitman. Establishing shot of a neighborhood in Arizona.Soldiers invade the domestic space. Kate (Emily Blunt) gets ready for the operation. A tank breaks in through the wall. and dust blows everywhere Kate (Emily Blunt) avoids getting shot and kills her assailant. Kate (Emily Blunt) is assisted by Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) after her encounter. Reggie finds two bodies behind the wall. The film starts with the genealogy of the term “sicario”, a word that initially referred to zealots who killed for their values that now means assassin in Mexico. In other words, the word has transformed from a protector fighting for something to nothing more than a killer. Where does on term end and the other begin? How do they reconcile? These are the questions at the heart of Sicario.
An establishing shot reveals soldiers infiltrating a domestic neighborhood – the homeland has been infiltrated by an enemy hiding in plain sight and the protectors are on their way. Kate, the head of the operation, has her tank bulldoze through the house and then bests an assailant in a gun-fight leading to the individual’s death. However, his bullet ricochet reveals the house in question is nothing more than a mausoleum, filled to the brim with bodies. In other words, the domestic foundation has become the birthplace of the macabre.
The film starts by defining the term ‘sicario’: it was initially used to refer to zealots defending their homeland but means ‘hitman’ in the status quo. Though both interpretations of the word signify a killer, one is oriented around protecting ideals while the other seems to confirm a nihilistic kill-or-be-killed world where no values could persist. This dichotomy between the two meanings of the word represents the battleground Sicario takes place on as it explores what the transition between the terms signifies about the world in a paradigmatic sense.
The establishing shot starts from the vantage point of the idealistic interpretation of the word: a domestic view of a neighborhood in Arizona is interrupted as a group of soldiers, defenders of the homeland, creep into frame while the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s palpable score reverberates like a droning heartbeat in the background, adding to the feeling of tension. The leader of the group, Kate (Emily Blunt), sits in a tank ready for breach before the vehicle breaks into a house, scattering dust all over the area. She gets down to investigate the residence with her squad but is suddenly caught off guard by a armed resident in the house. She evades his bullet and manages to kill him. The sound calms down. It seems like the dust has settled.
However, his bullet, despite missing her, opens another wound that proves to be even more devastating . The wall, broken in by the impact of the shot, reveals a series of bagged up corpses hiding within – a simple hostage retrieval becomes a mortifying entry into the macabre.
Kate (Emily Blunt) goes outside to vomit. Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya) goes outside to vomit. Officers find a padded cell. A close-up of one of the hidden corpses. The hut blows up. Kate (Emily Blunt) is caught in the debris. A severed arm appears. Kate (Emily Blunt) tries to wash the blood of the day off of her. Kate (Emily Blunt) looks into her clouded image, unable to fully see herself. Just when Kate thinks the situation has settled, an explosion is triggered and the dust which had finally settled is thrown up in bloody aplomb. Kate walks through the hellscape and sees a severed hand for her troubles. At home, she desperately tries to wash the filth of the obscene events out of her body and mind, but as she stares into her self image, it’s clear that her image of the world has already started to change.
Kate immediately goes outside to vomit. Being a soldier doesn’t entail being unaffected by such senseless violence, and the brutality of the situation shakes Kate and her crew. She’s asked by personnel on how to document the situation given its severity. Kate insists that the records reveal everything; transparency is more necessary than ever.
While she tries to get an accurate count on the number of bodies in the house, a group of officers outside find a padlocked door in a shed and try and open it. The cuts and expectations established previously lead the viewer to think it’s more bodies hidden away, but the intense heartbeat track comes back signaling shifting times. Suddenly, the shed explodes.
Debris and dust scatter everywhere, obfuscating the frame, and Kate is once again lost in the fog of the situation, unable to see anything besides the carnage. The domestic area turned mausoleum has now become the site of an explosion – suburbia rendered into a site of gratuitous violence. In her efforts to preserve the rule of law, Kate finds herself soaked with so much blood that she can’t seem to scrub it all off in the shower. As she looks into a clouded reflection of herself in her bathroom mirror, it’s clear her more idealistic worldview has been delivered a tremendous blow.
Kate’s superiors speak to Matt (Josh Brolin) about her qualifications. Kate (Emily Blunt) addresses Matt (Josh Brolin) and her superiors. Kate notices that Matt is wearing flip-flops.Kate is offered an opportunity to deal with the people “really responsible” for the violence she saw by an man, initially framed as imposing and mysterious, named Matt. After questioning Kate and informing of her of his mission, she volunteers for his task force and leaves the area, emboldened to achieve her mission. However, as she leaves she notices Matt’s attire is completely distinct from everyone else. He’s in shorts and flip-flops as opposed to a suit and boots. The disjunct between personality, mission, and appearance all serve to highlight the way image is modulated and not defined. The question becomes why Matt is presenting himself in this way and the answer has to do with the themes the film tries to develop.
The next day comes. Kate and her partner on the force, Reggie (Daniel Kaluuya), wait outside of a glass-paned room as their superiors discuss the previous day’s mission. A man speaks to the group with the camera positioned to his back. His framing suggests importance and a sense of mystery. He asks about Kate and Reggie’s respective backgrounds, approving of Kate’s but rejecting Reggie upon hearing about his legal education. The group calls Kate in and introduces her to the man of the hour, Matt (Josh Brolin).
First, he asks her about her relationship and child status. He’s abrupt and straight to the point. She responds she’s both divorced and childless. He tells her he’s hunting the cartels behind the bodies and bombings. She expresses interest. Her superior, Forsing (Jeffrey Donovan) tells her that joining such a task-force requires volunteering for the position. She asks Matt if they’ll be able to hold the people who committed the acts responsible. He guarantees that they’ll be able to deal with the masterminds behind the operation itself.
She agrees with no hesitation and her journey begins. However, as she leaves the room, she notices that the charming, yet serious Matt, shrouded in mystery, is wearing flip-flops in sharp contrast to everyone else in the room wearing business professional clothing – another indication that appearances are not to be trusted. Images are always imbued with an purpose and can’t be taken at face value.
Establishing shot of Nogales, Mexico. Silvio (Maximiliano Hernández) is woken by his son. Silvio (Maximiliano Hernández) puts on his police uniform and walks his son to the soccer field. The film cuts to Mexico and establishes another domestic hub; this time the subjects are Silvio, a cop, and his wife and son. Though seemingly a respite, the turn to a house in the wake of the destruction of another house along with the invocation of Mexico and cartel violence is anxiety inducing because it serves as the nexus point of multiple points of concern. It may be peaceful for now, but the story has confirmed that this will be a site of turmoil later. The family’s journey here is a counterpoint to Kate’s own journey.
The film cuts to a neighborhood in Nogales, Mexico. A young boy wakes up his father, Silvio(Maximiliano Hernández), to ask him to play soccer. Silvio gets up, eats breakfast while getting a nice helping of side-eye from his wife, puts on his police uniform, and then proceeds to take his son out on a walk. This adjunct narrative is a sense of normalcy that gives the viewer a reprieve from the violence; however, its presence immediately generates a sense of unease. The opening’s mention of Mexico in relation to sicario qua assassin, the eruption of violence in the American residence, the focus on cartel violence, and Silvio’s status as police officer transform a seemingly benign scene and moment into one that threatens to become catastrophic.
Reggie is sent home while Kate (Emily Blunt) is allowed to proceed. Kate (Emily Blunt) sees an unknown man(Benicio del Toro) near the plane along with Matt(Josh Brolin).The plane flies over a mountain whose size engulfs it. The route to Kate’s first mission sets up the twists and turns to come. Despite being legally permitted, Reggie, the lawyer, is turned away at the gates. When Kate gets to the airplane, she meets another mysterious figure who she was unaware of. Then when she’s on the plane, this figure, Alejandro, reveals that the location of the mission is not in the United States but is in Mexico instead. As the plane makes it’s way to its destination, its shadow is swallowed by the wild canvas of the mountains – a premonition of things to come and a confirmation that Kate is going to be engulfed by the task at hand.
Back in the United Sates, Reggie drives Kate to her first day on Matt’s team. She’s told she’s going to El Paso with them on some preliminary task-work. However, upon getting to the gate, Reggie is denied access and the uncertainty about the situation increases. The emissary of the law is not allowed to pry his eyes upon this supposedly legal execution of justice. He’s forced to leave as Kate continues forward.
As she gets closer to the plane, another man, with his head turned around as to disguise his visage, appears at the plane’s tail. Matt comes out to greet Kate letting her know that the wayward man is Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) – another unexpected surprise. The trio get on the plane and Alejandro asks Kate if she’s ever been to Juárez; the shoe fully drops and the pretenses dissipate as Kate realizes that the mission she’s signed up for is far more expansive than she could have imagined.
While the nature of where Sicario mysteries lead is fairly by the books, the way its cinematically rendered gives it a poignancy that elevates the film into something special. Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s script is propulsive and juggles multiple storylines, giving director Denis Villenevue the ability to flex his muscles and leave his mark of the genre. Instead of focusing on the mystery, Villenevue repeatedly turns the viewer’s attention to the dichotomy introduced at the film’s start by utilizing parallels in characters and groups to demonstrate the way the terms and the manner by which they’re used to categorize can rapidly shift .
There’s an implied distinction between between killing while oriented towards an ideal that stands for something greater than oneself and killing for the sake of something material, like wealth. The former position is one that’s idealistic and moves towards a vision of a “just” world. The latter is one that’s nihilistic and treats the world of winner-take-all. Or is that really the case? Are the two ideas separate or do they bleed into one another? Could one assassinate as an ideal or choose to assassinate in order to move towards an ideal? Villeneuve allows these questions to fester by taking the parallel’s Sheridan’s script sets up between the cartel and the US government, the Mexican police force and the American police force, and so on, and forces the viewer to play a horrifying game of compare and contrast.
One act of violence by one side is met by a seemingly equal atrocious act on the other. A “good” character postures and makes a comment on a “bad” character but then takes action that seems just as egregious. Villeneuve chooses to showcase the “immoral” bouts of violence in more explicit detail and withhold the brutality within the “ethical” instances of violence. He gives just enough information for the viewer to imagine how a scene would progress given both the context clues and the explicit parallels, forcing the audience to come to their own conclusions regarding the mechanics and ethics underpinning certain bouts of brutality. The subjective process of imagining the violence generates an uncomfortable proximity to the situation and forces us to deal with the contradictions in values.
This move also generates an empathetic connection with Kate who is thrust into the same world of twists, turns, and moments of depravity and forced to find stable footing in spite of it all. The first act sets up Kate as resourceful, honest, and passionate. She dodges a bullet, kills an assailant, takes control of her group, and wants to achieve justice – an ideal protagonist to root for. However, the moment she volunteers to achieve her ethical vision, she’s forced into a world where friend and foe mean very little, and the boundaries between what the “good” and “evil” are doing is suspect. Thus, an action of violence which may be immediately justified as necessary can be questioned because the viewer experiences it with Kate; she’s a moral barometer that lets us traverse the hazy backdrop the film plays against.
Sicario’s genre peers would usually feature a character like Alejandro or Matt as the lead – a burly man of mystery ready to whatever it takes to get the job done. However, the choice to have the lead be a highly capable woman with her morals intact in a sea of men and violence provides a vantage point that gives the otherwise gratuitous moments of sheer visceral terror a counterpoint that has heft. She’s not a damsel in distress, and she’s not some battle-hardened veteran looking for a fight; she’s just a competent soldier looking to do the right thing in circumstances that go against everything she’s been taught to accept. Blunt exemplifies this by constantly modulating between a soldier capable of holding her own and someone way out of their depth being racked by panic. She’s the perfect vehicle for both her character and the moral fiber of the film. By building up her competency and then slowly revealing its limits within a brutal, new environment, the film is able to push forward new ground on a story and make what would otherwise be cliché’s into uncomfortable moments to unpackage.
In fact, it’s because Kate is presented as competent in the context of what she’s signed up to do that otherwise passive scenes on her part are absolutely dread inducing. For example, as opposed to a conventional car chase scene with professionals chasing after one another, a traffic jam scene where assailants can be in any car and the protagonist is a fish out of water is much more dreadful. Because Kate is established as capable, the film is able to emphasize just how unforgiving the reality of the cartel violence and dealing with them can be; the rules of war don’t do anything in guerilla situations. Thus, her position gives impetus not only to the primary questions of the film but allow the visceral moments to have genuine stakes associated with them.
Put together with the parallel storylines and the near-perfect pacing of the narrative, Sicario certainly merits a comparison to the Coen brothers’ masterpiece, No Country For Old Men, a neo-Western following multiple characters who hunt and are being hunted by one another. Like No Country, Sicario presents a dark vision of an age without values, where the values of older days have seemingly faded away to the gusts of apathy and violence. While Sicario may not be as ambitious in terms of its narrative construction and direction, it certainly evokes a similar feeling of wandering through a foreign land where sense and reason have vacated the premises.
However, Sicario does match No Country when it comes to its visuals. Serving as director of photography on both films, Roger Deakins gives Villeneuve’s vision the room it needs to breath and fully take hold. Dust in the air, shadowy environments, and ever-present sources of reflection reveal the complexity inherent in seemingly straight-forward situations by introducing a visual opacity which accentuates the themes. Nothing is what it seems and it’s within the shadows cast by projections that the “truth” can be ascertained; there’s a space between words and the paradigms they operate within.
Consequently, this makes Sicario a must-see experience for any fan of cinema ranging from the casual fan looking for an exciting time to the cinephile looking for something heftier to sink their teeth into. While veterans of cartel thrillers might be less surprised by plot twists, the sheer culmination of skill including, but not limited to, Deakins camera work, the late Jóhann Jóhannsson’s adrenaline-pumping propulsive score, Blunt’s humanistic yet confident performance, and of course, Villeneuve’s brilliant ability to put all these elements together makes this an experience no one should miss. If nothing else, the final few moments of the film exemplify how dedication to craft can elevate even a small movement into a grand gesture.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Sicario is the rare movie that offers a totally engrossing time from start to finish across different types of moviegoers. With its propulsive narrative, fantastic acting, bloody and well-executed set-pieces, and its dark and foreboding score, the experience stays entertaining the whole time. However, it’s use of Emily Blunt in the role of the main character gives the movie a humanity and a vantage point that transforms it into a meditation on violence and the reality of the rule of law. It’s heady without being alienating and even more engaging as a result.
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 .
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 .
Chris Hemsworth as Thor Tom Hiddleston as Loki Anthony Hopkins as Odin Idris Elba as Heimdall Colm Feore as Laufey Natalie Portman as Jane Foster Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig
Thor (Chris Hemsworth), God of Thunder and son of Odin (Anthony Perkins), is banished by his father and stripped of his mighty hammer Mjöllnir for having attempted an invasion of the Frost Giant’s home of Jotunheim in retaliation to the giant’s interruption of his own crowning ceremony. Now instead of being the next king, he is cast aside from his home of Asgard; his purpose is now lost and none of his friends are are able to stop Odin’s judgement. Heimdall (Idris Elba), both Thor’s friend and the guardian of the bifröst , a bridge capable of transporting anyone to any location, is forced to send the power God of thunder away. Thus, Thor is transported to the planet of Earth, where he immediately makes contact with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a young astrophysicist who had been following weather fluctuations, which unbeknownst to her had been tied to the use of bifröst.
The narrative is ambitious; on one hand it’s an attempt to tell the tale of Thor’s succession with epic familial stakes and on another hand it’s an attempt to meld the fantastical worlds present in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with the scientific excursions demonstrated so far in Iron Manand The Incredible Hulkin order to create a bridge to more complex directions. Unfortunately, that ambition can’t make up for the film’s inability to meld the worlds of Asgard and the Earth off one another in a fluid and mutually beneficial manner. Instead of helping one another, the halves of the movie feel disjointed with another and often times feel like they’re intruding – like they belong in different films.
Establishing shot of Jane and company in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico.
Jane (Natalie Portman) hits Thor (Chris Hemsworth) with her car.
Odin gives a voiceover as the film cuts to Tonsberg,Norway.
The order of the opening sequence is an odd choice that demonstrates the key problem with Thor – it’s inability to meld the human and fantasy storylines in a cohesive and engaging manner.
For example, the start of the movie opens on Jane looking for signs of her phenomena. She gets evidence, gets excited, and then drives towards the event where she ends up hitting Thor with her car. She asks where he came from at which point the film cuts to a voice-over by Odin in 965 A.D. where he goes over and explains the history of mankind. The viewer stays with Odin and Asgard for close to 30 minutes before cutting back to Jane and her crash with Thor, which is treated as a comedic moment. The epic intensity and impact of Thor’s exile immediately becomes the butt of a joke and the rest of the story follows; moments of intensity in the Asgardian moments trade off with comedic, fish out of water human moments which makes it impossible for emotional resonance to take hold at any important moments. This dichotomy is most pronounced in Patrick Doyle’s score which flips from seemingly epic to screw-ball comedy whenever the Asgardian plot threads meet up with the human ones.
Alas, the pitiful characterization of anyone not named Thor and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) hardly helps; the hollow Asgardian and human entourages that are meant to be foils for one another and Thor’s allies only serve to waste screen-time that could have been better spent. That’s the key reason why Iron Man, which also starts with its hero in a low point before cutting back to how he got there, is able to get the audience invested in what’s to come; everyone’s relationship to Tony Stark is established and we get a good sense of who he is, why he is the way he is, and how the people close to him deal with his personality quirks. Thor on the other hand does nothing like this for its titular character. Thor’s closest friends get no development: it’s impossible to tell them apart from one another let alone how they matter to Thor. Likewise, how Thor came to be his pompous and belligerent self and managed to inspire so much faith from those around him is less so explained and more just asserted.
This lack of grounding makes Thor’s subsequent meeting with Jane and her allies less relevant. Instead of being able to serve as ways to humanize Thor and help him grow into a hero worthy of redemption, thereby combining the two halves of the story, they seemingly transport him to a whole other narrative instead. Instead of epic, we get a meet-cute that reduces Thor, the God of Thunder, to a walking set of goofy abs and transforms Jane, an scientist devoted to her research, to a woman smitten by schoolgirl love. It’s precisely because these two worlds don’t line up with each other thematically that the movie then has to waste additional time introducing a whole other villain and sub-plot to help Thor get from point A to point B.
Imagine if the opening of the film started with Odin’s monologue about the history of Asgard and the 9 realms. We could see Thor, the warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Tadanobu Asano, Josh Dallas), Lady Sif(Jaimie Alexander), and Loki go around and engage in battles through the realms which would give director Kenneth Branagh an opportunity to distinguish the characters from one another. Thor’s headstrong and impulsive nature could be better established along with the nature of his relationships to his entourage. Each battle would require Heimdall to open the bifröst whose energy signature would be tracked by Jane. At these moments, the movie could have cut momentarily towards Jane trying to tie the nature of the events together becoming more and more fanatically attached to it.
This would make Thor and Jane’s collision with one another and their subsequent relationship would be more believable. Jane’s differences from his usual group would be pronounced and her enthusiasm in following him would stem not from his status as a hunk but rather as living proof of her research. Furthermore, many of the latter sequences of characters explaining their motivations could be removed because hopefully those details would be fleshed out in the opening Asgard section. As the film is now, these additional bits of exposition are needed to flesh out the stakes and move the story along. Removing them would make a leaner and more cohesive overall narrative.
Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is captured by Coulson’s men.
Heimdall (Idris Elba) sees Thor’s capture.
Heimdall (Idris Elba) sees all events occurring within the 9 realms.
Branagh uses this movement once and refers to it via the character’s dialogue multiple times. I wish he stuck more to showing and utilized Heimdall’s ability to piece together plot threads to move from the Asgardian to the Earth plotlines in thematic fashion. It would make for a more visually interesting story, establish Heimdall’s power, enable the “twist” in the story better by giving it more room to grow off screen in justifiable fashion, and potentially open up the ending to more wonderous possibilities. Instead, we just get teased with a one-of that barely scratches the surface.
Frustratingly, Branagh demonstrates that he’s more than capable of interweaving between the two storylines in neat movements when he wants, but he chooses not to when it would be opportune. Heimdall, given his role as watcher of the bridge, is shown to be able to pay attention to any event happening in the nine realms. As such, certain scenes reveal that Heimdall is actually seeing them which helps the movie switch from Asgard to human and back with each. However, Branagh rarely uses the Heimdall transition technique. Instead, of utilizing the gatekeeper as a way to swap between parallel plot techniques and introduce a common visual motif, the movie is more than satisfied mentioning and using Heimdall’s skill a few times and then dropping it.
Jane (Natalie Portman) looks at the space phenomena.
Odin (Anthony Hopkins) looks at Laufey.
Selvig ( Stellan Skarsgård ) talks to Coulson.
As a horror fan, I love canted angles, but even within horror they have an established purpose to make them feel more important. Thor lacks that purpose and tosses in canted angles in every type of shot whether it be Odin engaging in war or Professor Selvig talking to Agent Coulson. This is one of the many visual issues with the film that rob its grandiose moments of the impact they would need to feel lasting.
This inconsistency in use extends to all the visual flourishes on display. At one moment Branagh will have the camera swoop from the top of Asgard to the bottom in one fluid moment, while at other moments he’ll just cut without abandon to showcase character reactions. Like previously mentioned, canted angles are on full display from start to finish. However, the choice of which scenes are shot with the tilted angles seems completely at random, rendering their selection confusing. Multiple moments will feature the change in angle and a switch back to normal for no other reason than someone fancied them. Consequently, the discord from the visual and audio swaps makes the incongruity between the Asgardian and human storylines all the more palpable. It’s all one big jumbling mess.
Therefore, while Thor isn’t quite the wreckage The Incredible Hulk is, it’s a far cry from the precise and slicked out Iron Man. It provides a plot that has points that are competently expected on their own, but it never once provides the momentum or composition capable of letting those points build off and complement one another. The end result is a grab-bag of decent points swimming around a pool of mainly bland and unmemorable scenes that teases a great film filled with familiar drama and romance but rarely delivers anywhere close on its potential.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Thor is a series of interesting ideas that fail to meld into a story that can sustain interest for longer than single scenes. The script gives the actors few moments to sell the gravitas of what’s happening – a feeling which is further undermined by the film’s own inability in determining whether or not it wants to be a serious epic of a cutesy rom-com. The end result is a film that lacks any staying power after the fact.
Rating
5.9/10
Grade
D+
Go to Page 2for the for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3to 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.
It’s hard to believe that a storyline involving a psychic monster capable of brutally murdering scientists, inept help from the relevant authorities, a woman who has psychic visions of a black-robed murderer who contorts and viciously slices apart its victims, and meticulously crafted murder set pieces is the basis of a James Wan horror movie when it feels like something plucked out of Dario Argento’s giallo playbook, in particular his fever dream film, Phenomena. In other words, the movie is a showcase of spectacle; the point is not the narrative but the audio-visual journey. Extravagance matters more than plot, which functions more as a vehicle for Wan to canvas off of. He’s always been a stylistic director, but Malignant showcases the height of his visual prowess; it’s an absolute treat to behold.
The movie starts with a small taste of things to come as the walls of a institutional facility are drenched with blood. Dr. Florence Weaver (Jacqueline McKenzie) escorts a group, which includes an officer with a gun, towards a room where people are flung out with bloody aplomb. She instructs them to shoot the patient, Gabriel, who is causing all the issues. The group suffers heavy casualties, but the nature of Gabriel along with his powers is left to the viewer’s imagination as the film cuts to twenty-eight years later.
A woman, Madison (Annabelle Wallis ), argues with her husband, Derek (Jake Abel) over the nature of her pregnancies, which seem to always terminate in miscarriages. He viciously attacks her for inability to conceive and beats her against the wall, causing the back of her head to bleed. Madison locks the door to keep safe from her husband, but then nighttime comes and a shadowy assassin makes its presence known. Its form is just a shadow creeping, and Wan teases the audience slowly with its presence before letting the violence continue; the husband is stabbed with no hesitation before Madison herself is thrown on the floor.
She wakes up at the hospital where she reunites with her sister, Sydney (Maddie Hasson). We learn that the siblings haven’t had contact with one another due to Derek’s controlling nature; he stopped Madison from reaching out. Thus, the black-coated figures first kill marks the end of the estrangement between Madison and her sibling and the start of her journey to move past and overcome her trauma at the hands of abuse.
However, later at night, Madison realizes that after this attack she’s now linked to the black-coated figure and can see the murders committed by the figure as they’re happening. These psychic drop-ins, which feel like the pensieve from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, feature the walls around our protagonist dissolving and reforming around her. Within crisp and fluid shots, Madison is transported from wherever she is to the scene of the next assault. Desperate to figure out the reason for this connection, she tasks Detectives Shaw (George Young) and Moss (Michole Briana White) along with Sydney in an race against time before the killer is allowed to strike again.
Wan said he wanted Malignant to be his take on giallo and the film more than delivers a set-up let lets him have fun. [1]Navarro, M. (2021, September 1). “My version OF GIALLO”: James wan lets us know what to expect from his new horror Movie ‘Malignant’ [Interview]. Bloody Disgusting! Retrieved … Continue readingThere’s a mysterious killer in possession of a distinctive weapon, brutal murders, a race to figure out the identity of the murderer, and law enforcement characters who are meant to help but who actively inhibit the protagonist while bumbling around. However, penchant of any great gialli, like the ones made by Argento and Bava, is to structure the violence with great care around fluid and dramatic camera moves which transform the macabre into the sensational. Malignant nails all of this and more. The plot moves along at a pace that keeps the audience invested until a reveal 30 minutes before the ending which then ratchets the film into an utterly enthralling cinematic experience that any fan of sensual cinema should watch. It’s entirely unpredictable; even if you guess one element of the way events will unfold, the entirety of the combined threads is something that can only be described as Shymalanesque in the best possible way.
Wan, who has always been stylistically talented, is allowed to push the boundaries on his own patterns. While the movie starts slow with some of his trademark sequences, like a tense overhead tracking shot which follows the characters as they navigate a household à la The Conjuringand The Conjuring 2, it really starts to show its hand once Madison is allowed to “dissolve” into the psychic visions that she’s made to see. The transitions are as evocative as the murders which follow and serve a purpose in delineating the contours of Madison’s psyche. As the film continues and Madison is allowed to explore the connection, its visualization changes in ways to reflect the same.
However, what pushes Malignant over the edge is the vitality and fury by which Wan shoots some of the larger set-pieces, moments which blow out scenes from even movies, including even Wan’s own Aquaman. The camera is an assassin and follows the path of blood and carnage with surgical precession. Every blow is brutal. Every slice is sinister. Every moment is an extension of the dance of the fabulous blood-bath. He lets the impact of the ferocity sit with the audience as the frame sticks on the murders unbroken. There may be a lot of the stereotypical horror movie teasing with the slow set-ups and the disappearing shadows, but the pay-off is bloody, excessive, beautiful, and utterly worth every moment in wait – a carnivalesque celebration of blood and splatter.
The supernatural slasher often takes place in rooms lit by rich reds and glowing greens along with rooms dyed in shades of dark blue and pockets of darkness. Often times, the camera glides from one room to another, swinging between colors in a way to accentuate the visual momentum of the spectacle occurring. Even though some of the needle drop moments feel like they could have been timed to synch up with the emotional intensity of the film a bit better, most of Joseph Bishara’s electric score fulfills what it sets out to do – provide a companion to the visuals that can match their energy. Many of the tracks inject a head-bobbing energy that add a fiery intensity to the scenes. The combination of both elements creates dynamite film-making that serves as proof that some things have to be seen on the big screen to be experienced in their full glory.
While there are some plot issues here and there, the muscular film-making put on display by Wan is more than worth witnessing for fans of the genre and for those people looking for a off-the-walls story to have fun with. It’s more than just stylistic homage. Malignant is a celebration of sheer and utter excess in the best of ways. It’s the best of Wan’s artillery amplified to the next level – truly bravura filmmaking.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Since his horror debut with Saw, Wan has put out some of the most well-loved horror classics. Insidious galvanized a new-age of horror fans and The Conjuring confirmed that his arrival was no fluke. Malignant is a confirmation of the director’s potential and showcases some of the highest highs in his oeuvre as of yet.
Rating
9.0/10
Grade
A
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 .
Navarro, M. (2021, September 1). “My version OF GIALLO”: James wan lets us know what to expect from his new horror Movie ‘Malignant’ [Interview]. Bloody Disgusting! Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/3680994/james-wans-malignant-take-giallo-made-horror-fan-interview-post-9-1-11am-ct/.
