SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.As a huge The Night of the Hunter fan, I can’t help but gush over every reference to the movie. When Barry learns that it’ll take 6-8 weeks for him to get his pudding cups verified, he gets mad and smashes his hand against the wall. He gets up, but his bloodied hand wound spells out love against the knuckle. This is a direct call back to Reverend Harry Powell (played by Robert Mitchum) who had the words “love” and “hate” tattooed on his right and left hands respectively.

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In the context of the movie, love is a stand in for hate. They’re both expressions of a violent kinetic energy that must be let out in same way. Barry punches the wall because his love is threatened. He’s not filled with hate but with love. That’s why his injury comes out on that first. He’s fighting for love- it’s the path he’s chosen over hate. Him putting the hand over the harmonium solidifies that he’s fighting for the chance to be with Lena – her presence is what brings the music to his life.

2. The movie reminds me a lot of Lynch’s Blue Velvet in the way it tackles a person’s journey through a “light” fantasy of the world and a “dark ” fantasy of the world. Both character’s experience a kind of breaking in – there world and its fantasy no longer works for them soo they have find a new way to live. In BV, Jeffrey’s father collapses and then the former finds an ear later. The missing stabilizing force is what lets the underside seep in. In PDL, it’s constantly shown that Barry is missing that kind of stabilizing force. He’s alone and isolated looking for guidance. Like Jeffrey in BV, Barry has to fight off a dark “father” figure in the form of Dean. He’s not as bad as Frank Booth, but he serves a very similar purpose in that he serves as a kind of stand in for this darker world order and is an antagonistic force that has to be confronted for the main character to move back to something more conducive.

Barry also has to navigate “normal” vs “deviant” sexuality through his “light” relationship with Lena instead of Sandy and his “dark” one with the phone sex line instead of Dorothy. This is even represented in the constant Freudian slips – the way the unconscious (in this case the repressed underside of love) breaks through. Barry obviously says stuff that’s incorrect (ex: “doing very food”) , but even during his phone sex conversations the phone operator slips and switches between calling him Jack and Barry. There’s a constant interplay between the two worlds – it’s a battle between light and dark that Barry is navigating.

3. The use of colors, focus on the power of interpretation, and beautiful creation of motifs/symbols reminds me a lot of Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. That movie similarly uses reds and blues to examine perspectivism. Like PDL, it’s great at setting up psychic connections between different characters, actions, moments, and events by grouping and transitioning between similar events.

4. The attention to detail extends to even the most minute things in the movie. For example, the grocery store (which features more than you’d expect given the importance of the flying miles good) is color coded. It not only makes these moments visually pleasing, but accentuates the importance of the colors as theme and storytelling. The boxing of multiple colors that fade into one another in gradients (from a view) is a callback to to Jeremy Blake’s living art piece. It’s poetic that his decision to buy and act on the pudding (one of his most important decisions) is tied so intimately to Lena and the couple’s eventual resolve to be one because it reflects the important and potential of making determined decisions.

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This is just a small example. You can pause multiple scenes and just peer for detail and you’ll most likely find something small whether it be a prop, the lighting, colors being used, etc.