Tag: symbolism

MEN – Review

(L-R) Jessie Buckley and Rory Kinnear in MEN. Courtesy of A24.

A woman alone in a secluded old house, who is being terrorized, is a standard of horror films but director/writer Alex Garland crafts a far different, mind-bending film from that familiar premise. In MEN, toxic masculinity and patriarchy play a major part in the horror.

Alex Garland, whose credits include the scripts for 28 DAYS LATER and SUNSHINE, is a visionary filmmaker who has previously used science fiction to delve into philosophy and a dark side of technology in EX MACHINA, a film that touched on the classic theme of the male creator controlling a female creation, with references to Frankenstein, Pygmalion and the mechanical doll of The Tales of Hoffman. Now Garland turns to the horror genre and, likewise, MEN is no ordinary horror film, although it plays with many of the familiar tropes and types of the genre. On one level, it is a feverish nightmare, an unforgettable, queasy experience, but on another it is a symbolic-laden exploration of patriarchy and toxic masculinity, along with references to ancient folk symbols and myths surrounding lust, sex, fertility and birth.

The film opens with a shocking sight, of a man falling past a window. The falling man is James (Paapa Essiedu), the husband Harper (Jessie Buckley) was in the process of divorcing despite his emotionally-manipulative threats of suicide, although we don’t know if what we see is an accident or a suicide. Seeking a place to heal and grieve, Harper rents a manor house near a tiny village in the quiet English countryside, to be alone and process what has happened.

The stately old house is beautiful and the landscape around it is lush, green and idyllic, the perfect spot. Strolling up to the front door, Harper plucks an apple from a tree in the front yard. The biblical reference is not subtle and as she takes a bite from it, we feel a momentary disquieting shift. She enters the old mansion and begins to explore, and normalcy seems to return with the arrival of the genial owner of the house, Geoffrey (Rory Kinnear), a slightly awkward but likable country aristocratic type. As Geoffrey shows her around the house, he asks slightly intrusive questions about her personal life, questions she deflects while implying she is divorced rather an widowed. When the owner spots the partly-eaten apple on the kitchen counter, his ever-present smile fades, followed by the words “forbidden fruit,” but he quickly adds that he is joking, as the smile returns. We feel he isn’t and, in fact, disturbing things quickly follow.

Harper decides to take a walk in the intensely green woods around the mansion, which leads her to an abandoned old railroad tunnel, where she lingers, playing with echos. That is until she spots a strange man, naked and scratched, at the other end, who then follows her back to the house. Although the police take him away, the incident starts a chain of disturbing events, as the film ratchets up the tension.

What unfolds is a surreal, head-spinning horror film experience steeped in myth and archetypes of masculinity while exploring aspects of the connections between men and women. Garland keeps the tension high throughout, as events become increasingly disturbing and nightmarish, heavily laden with symbolism, much of it drawn from folk traditions, particularly the ancient Green Man and mysterious sexual female image Sheela-na-gig.

The acting is superb, particularly Kinnear, as is the film’s masterful use of framing, the wildly lush sets and locations, and gorgeous photography, all suffusing a film of unrelenting tension. Some scenes, particularly the mind-bending climax, are disturbing to watch and graphic. although not in the usual horror film way.

After the encounter in the woods, Harper faces a series of increasingly unsettling encounters with men in the village, who demonstrate an array of sexist, patriarchal and toxic masculinity behaviors. They all share a version of the same face, including a malevolent 9-year-old boy. While the manor owner is merely awkward, others are more offensive, with a police officer who dismisses Harper’s fears, or even sinister, like the threatening boy and a vicar who seems at first to offer sympathy but quickly shifts to sexist critique.

The men in the village are all played by Rory Kinnear, with the aid of various prosthetics, wigs and false teeth and plenty of nudity. It is a brave, impressive multiple role performance by the lauded British actor, who crafts distinctly different characters for each role and endured some daunting physical challenges for them. Kinnear is famous in Britain for his stage work and as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company but he may be most familiar to movie audiences from his role in the Bond movies as Bill Tanner or supporting roles on TV shows like “Penny Dreadful” and many others.

Jessie Buckley, whose career is soaring, especially after her Oscar nomination for THE LOST DAUGHTER, is on screen nearly throughout the whole film. The film is a real acting tour-de-force by both Buckley and Kinnear, but while Buckley is excellent, this film may be a star-making turn for the gifted but lesser-known Rory Kinnear.

Although Harper is alone in this rural house, she frequently chats with her supportive friend Riley (Gayle Rankins) who sometimes offers to join her. Periodically, we see flashbacks to Harper’s troubled relationship with her late husband James, in a nice performance by Essiedu. Both sequences add to our understanding of Harper and the trauma she suffered, but her character is explored in less depth than might be expected.

Of course, as the title indicates, this film is about the men who surround and menace her, men who are symbolic, facets and archetypes rather than real individuals, representing aspects of masculinity and patriarchy. The film offers up both presentations of toxic masculinity and male privilege that have current day and recent historic reference, and ancient symbols of nature, sex, fertility and birth. But what exactly writer/director Garland is saying with all that is unclear, leaving it all to the interpretation of the viewer. The film is disturbing yet haunting, and puzzling, while it is also a polished, terrifying horror film.

MEN opens in theaters on Friday, May 20.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

MOTHER! – Review

Left to right: Javier Bardem and Jennifer Lawrence in mother!, from Paramount Pictures and Protozoa Pictures.

Darren Aronofsky’s new film MOTHER! is a nightmare of a movie, but it is intended to be. It is like going over a waterfall – sudden, terrifying, exhilarating, disorienting, an assault on the senses, but not what one would call fun. Still, if one survives, a few might want to do it again.

MOTHER! is not a film for everyone but it is a brilliantly made bit of cinema, filled with haunting images, moving performances and intellectually intriguing themes. Those who have seen Aronofsky’s films know that he can go dark and surreal – think of “Black Swan,” parts of “Requiem of a Dream.” This film takes you further down the rabbit hole – much further. It is sometimes like walking through a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, a landscape of symbolism. Some will be intrigued by that idea and others won’t but, regardless, it is a film that will stay with you.

MOTHER! (in the posters, the title is written in lowercase and always with an exclamation point) is like experiencing a nightmare. In dreams, as in this film, sometimes things seem ordinary and make sense, then they become surreal and strange. Sometimes you notice the strangeness while others in the dream do not. Symbolism is everywhere, and the line between what can happen in the waking world and what happens in dreams is ever-shifting. You might want to wake up but you can’t always. Sometimes it returns to the ordinary, sometimes it takes bizarre turns, but it tends to get stranger as it evolves. In BLACK SWAN, Aronofsky gave audiences an anchor in the real world by implying the dancer was descending into madness but in this film, the director gives no such safe haven. Like a vivid nightmare, it is not necessarily an experience you want but you might learn something when you wake up – or in this case, leave the theater.

MOTHER! is the kind of film that invites discussion and analysis, even between those who liked it and those who didn’t, the kind of film that stays with you and has layers upon layers of meaning to be peeled back. The symbolism and allegory exist on many levels, from the cosmic to the global to the personal. It is packed with Biblical references, commentary on fame and on obsessive artists, references to myth and archetypes, creation and destruction, the environment, and even, possibly, Aronofsky’s relationship with former lover Rachel Weisz. All these interpretations have been suggested for the film, and each can make a valid argument without excluding the others.

The film begins with a brief wordless sequence, in which time is reversed and a house destroyed by fire is restored to its pre-destruction state. In the restored Victorian house, a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) awakes and goes to look for her husband (Javier Bardem). He is a writer, older than her and apparently famous, who is working on his next project while she works on restoring the old house damaged by fire. Their life looks quiet and idyllic, a rural paradise. The house is surrounded by green grass and trees, with neither neighbors nor roads in sight. Suddenly, unexpectedly, a man (Ed Harris) turns up at their door, saying he had been told the house was a bed and breakfast. She wants to send him away, but her husband, who apparently had met him in town, invites him in. Her unease is heightened when his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) arrives as well, expecting to stay. Having opened the door to them, more people soon come in. What starts as a tense situation quickly escalates into nightmare.

That is a pedestrian description of a film that is anything but. However, further description won’t help; this surreal wild ride has to be experienced. The cast also includes Domhnall Gleeson, his brother Brian Gleeson (the play brothers in the film) and Kristen Wiig. The characters have no names, although later in the film Bardem’s character is call the Poet and Lawrence is called the Inspiration, and in the credits they are listed as “mother” and “him.” Who they are or what they represent is open to endless interpretation. The story is told mostly from the point of view of Jennifer Lawrence’s character. There are murders, brother against brother, fame and crazed fans, bizarre events, violence, love, betrayal, and birth. Given the title, there had to be at least one mother, but the title could easily mean Mother Earth or Mother Nature instead.

MOTHER is being presented as a horror film, and in a way, it is – certainly horrifying things happen. But it is a horror film for thinking people, for those with a taste for myth and symbolism, for puzzles that cry out to be unraveled. It is also a kind of ghost story, a feverish nightmare, a creepy psychological thriller, a mythic tale, and an allegory on many things including cost of fame, and maybe a symbolic cautionary tale on looming environmental danger. It is also a kind of retelling of creation. That is a lot for one film. Jennifer Lawrence, who is the writer/director’s girlfriend as well as the star of this film, has hinted at an environmental/Mother Nature interpretation, but there are several possible meanings for the film.

Where one likes the film or not, MOTHER certainly has the intellectual goods, and the artistic ones. Visually, the film is gorgeous, alternating between pleasing symmetry in the house, its graceful furnishing, and pleasant natural setting, and the dark, haunting Gothic nightmare images that invade. Aronofsky calls on all his skills to create that kind of world which he showed us in BLACK SWAN, and then takes it up a notch. The photography is excellent, special effects perfectly creepy, and pacing just right to keep us on edge. Although the story spins us around (as it does Lawrence’s character), one always is aware that the director, the story-teller, is in charge.

 

Jennifer Lawrence may well earn an Oscar for this performance. At the beginning of the film, she plays an un-demanding wife, deferring lovingly to the wishes of her older, famous husband. As he starts to allow people into their isolated little paradise, she objects gently at first. He seems able to leave for the larger world but she does not (is it agoraphobia, we might wonder) and wants to stay home. She is afraid of his crazed fans and he tells her he shares that concern, but then seems to bask in their adoration. The characters and their relationship evolves, or maybe is just revealed, throughout the film. Lawrence exudes a mix of sweetness and love, but with a sense of power underneath. She is a woman of many skills, renovating the old house on her own – plumbing to plastering – something she proudly proclaims at one point, but she acknowledges it is his house she is rebuilding. Lawrence’s luminous face often fills the screen, and feelings of doubt, love, fear, or confusion play across it. At times, we wonder if she is losing touch with reality. Bardem’s character is more opaque, more mysterious than Lawrence’s open one. There are repeated references to their age difference, and his fame (and his handling of that) looms over their home. She wants it to be just them, but Bardem is clearly drawn by the siren call of fans, energized by their praise even while aware there is danger. What his intentions are, his inner thoughts, are not clear until the film’s horrifying end.

The rest of the cast provides strong support. Ed Harris is a man who seems to be one thing but is revealed to be something else. His easy bond with Bardem’s character unsettles Lawrence, but it is the intrusive, demanding character played by Michelle Pfeiffer that is most upsetting, a woman who seems no boundaries. Other actors turn up and play out their dramas in her house, dramas which Lawrence’s character is powerless to stop.

Symbolism and allegory fill this film. Myth and the natural world touch in this film. Hexagons appear everywhere in the house, in the windows, doors, even the shape of the entry hall, and in the frame of a photo of Javier Bardem’s character that his adoring, crazed fans carry. It is a geometric shape common in nature (think honeycombs but also in soap bubbles), one that confer structural strength. There is a paradise lost theme, a cycle of life, history repeating, creation and destruction cycle underlying things. There are plenty of Biblical references but there are references to other religions and mythologies as well. One of the characters carries a lighter with a symbol on it, an ancient rune called a Wendehorn, a symbol from German history with links to the occult. The Wendehorn combines the symbols for life and death and represents a uniting of opposites like life and death, light and dark, order and chaos, good and evil. It also is associated with the Norse goddess Freyja, goddess of love, fertility, battle, and death – all of which are part of this film. Many religions have forces of creation and destruction, order and chaos, light and dark, themes about finding balance between them, which is part of physics too. There are themes of Nature versus Man, leading some viewers to read the events in the film as symbolizing the destruction of the natural world. These are just some of the elements present, there are plenty more to unearth.

Like a nightmare, there are times when it is hard to tell what is going on because the story is told from the point of view of Jennifer Lawrence. We know what she knows, the confusion is her confusion. The film unfolds like a bizarre clockwork, beautifully structured and folding back on itself in a brilliant way. Things are made more clear by the end, although nothing is spelled out.

Some film-goers feel that movies should entertain and that if they strive to be art, they are breaking the rules somehow. Others are open to wider view, that film can be art too. MOTHER is not a non-narrative film, it has a plot and story but it is the kind of story you find in myths, fairy tales and fantasy, one filled with allegory. Those who like a smart, artistic film where not everything is clearly spelled out or even grounded in everyday reality, will relish this film, even if the experience cannot be called “fun.” But then again, what is it that draws people to scary movies, to roller coasters and risky thrills?

If all that complexity sounds intriguing, then MOTHER! is a trip you want to take. It is not for everyone, and plenty of people will hate it, but even then most will have to admit its a brilliantly built bit of cinema.