Thursday, February 16, 2012

Three Visions of Horror

Movies: The Woman in Black, Valkyrie, We Need to Talk About Kevin

Horror films come in all shapes and sizes, the better to fit our individual profiles of what we find terrifying. When I was in middle school,  I watched Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining in my family's unfinished, drippy basement alone at night. I had no trouble getting to sleep later that night. Fast forward to high school. I went to see The Ring in the theatre with a couple friends. From the first scene on, I was crouched into a little ball in the seat with one finger in my ear and the other fingers trying to simultaneously cover my eyes and let me peep through. I couldn't sleep all week. To this day, if I start thinking about The Ring while in bed, I have trouble sleeping.

Why is it that a movie about a psycho man with an ax--ostensibly something to really fear in this world--doesn't scare me, but a ghoul who comes out of a TV set makes me cringe in terror? Who knows. What scares us is personal and primal, and there are a thousand ways to terrify. The following movies all represent some form of horror, from ghosts to sociopathic children to one of the most evil men who ever lived. Which one scares you the most?

The Woman in Black


The Woman in Black, an old-fashioned haunted house story, is Daniel Radcliffe's first film post-Harry Potter. It's a stylish movie, with Victorian costumes, creepy old houses, and misty moors. As atmospheric as the film is, its scares are by the book.

Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a lawyer and widower with a four-year-old son. His beloved wife died in childbirth and Kipps is still recovering from her death. Despite his despondency, his employer asks him to travel to a small village and retrieve the papers of a woman who recently died at Eel Marsh Manor--a large mansion just outside of town. Kipps is hardly in the mood to leave his son and run such an errand, but he does it so as not to lose his job.


As he rides into town and starts to inquire about the manor and its late owner, the townspeople become more and more hostile. They encourage him to leave, either by telling him he's not welcome or by simply glaring at him. Kipps goes ahead with his job anyway, and the scares begin the minute he arrives and the isolated manor. He sees mysterious things in the corner of his eye. He hears footsteps above him and when he goes to investigate, no one is there. He sees a figure of a woman in black outside in a nearby cemetery. Again, it's pretty by the book stuff. Meanwhile, the local children begin to meet gruesome ends. One girl drinks lye by accident and is poisoned. As Kipps looks into the papers left at Eel Marsh Manor, it becomes clear that the events (his seeing ghosts at the house and the children dying in the village) are related.

As in most ghost stories, the main character can't leave well enough alone. Instead of hightailing it out of the village, Kipps and a local man he befriends attempt to appease the ghost. And, well, let's just say the ending caught me off guard,

The Woman in Black managed to scare me in a very basic way: I jumped at the jump scenes. I winced whenever creepy Victorian toys appeared on screen. But I slept fine that night and haven't really thought much about the movie since.

Scare factor: 3 out of 5 stars
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Valkyrie


Yes, it's pushing it to call the historical film Valkyrie, which depicts the events leading up to an attempt to assassinate Hitler, a horror film. It's more intellectual suspense (not unlike Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) surrounding one of the most horrific chapters of 20th century history: the rise of the Nazi Party. However, the audience is shielded from the true horrors of WWII--the ghettos, the death camps, the torture and gruesome acts of violence. Instead, we get a glimpse into the Nazi elite. Valkyrie follows Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (played competently, though with an American accent, by Tom Cruise). Stauffenberg was a German officer who was recruited by other high-ranking (and secretly dissenting) German officers to devise a fool-proof plan to kill Hitler. Attempts had been made before and have failed, and those who are against the Nazis want to save Germany before the Allies show up and blow them all to hell.


Stauffenberg's main concern is what they will do once Hitler is dead. They can't expect to march right into his HQ and just take over. So the Colonel plots to use a contingency plan Hitler himself has backed: Operation Valkyrie. In the event of a natural disaster, Valkyrie calls for the reserve army to assemble and maintain order while the upper-level officers regain control. Much of the film deals with the technical details of this plan and how Stauffenberg and the other men meticulously planned Hitler's assassination, only to see it fail.

As far as scares go, there aren't too many. And unlike other films that depict the Nazis, Hitler is not quite the monstrous figure of evil we have come to imagine him. He is a small, hunched over little man with a sweaty brow and beady eyes in this film. Hitler's little toadies, in their handsome officer uniforms, are scarier than the Fuhrer himself. They seem to know all and have perpetual smirks on their faces. Valkyrie is an interesting little historical film that pays tribute to the German men and women who resisted Hitler's domination of their country and culture.

Scare factor: 2 out of 5 stars
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

We Need to Talk About Kevin


Now this is a damn horror film. We Need to Talk About Kevin is a devastating, emotionally draining film based on the novel by Lionel Shriver. It focuses on the relationship between an ambivalent mother and her increasingly sociopathic son and the events that lead up to an inevitable and insane act of mass murder, as well as the consequences that follow. We Need to Talk About Kevin is, at its core, about the horrors of motherhood. For most women, motherhood is difficult and beautiful. Having a baby grow inside you, giving it life and nourishment, raising it and teaching it; the decades-long experience of being a mom brings both enormous pain and deep joy. But not for everyone, and not for Eva (played by the excellent and truly vanity-free Tilda Swinton).


Eva's main sin is that she is passive. One day she's a free and happy woman on a tour of Europe, the next she's married to a nice but ineffectual dude and pregnant. She's not happy about being pregnant. She's not happy while giving birth. She's not happy with a screaming baby in her arms. And in Eva's defense, her dummy-hubby, Franklin (played by John C. Reilly, who is perfect in this role), gives her little support and instead tries to convince Eva that her fears about her young son are all "in her head" and that she is the one being cruel and difficult.

As Kevin grows, it becomes obvious that in addition to showing signs of a personality disorder, this little brat hasn't been raised right. Eight-year-old Kevin curses at his mom, who instead of punishing him, ignores him or tiptoes around him. Kevin treats his father with love and his mother with a disdain that borders on hatred. Eva is simultaneously resentful, fearful, and oddly submissive to her son--attempting to appease him and win him over. I'm not a fan of corporal punishment, but in the case of Kevin Eva would have done well to start spanking him for misbehavior as early as possible.

Things get really scary when Eva and Franklin have another child--a little girl. The first time young Kevin sees his baby sister, he sprinkles water on her to make her cry. These small tortures add up until a truly tragic "accident" occurs that seriously harms little Celia. Eva blames Kevin. Franklin tells Eva she needs to get therapy. Same as always, Franklin fails to see what Eva sees so clearly: Kevin is dangerous.

The film does not follow a straightforward narrative arc. Instead, we get flashes from the present (in which Eva visits her son in prison and tries to get back on her feel despite being tormented by neighbors and locals who know that she's the killer's mother), flashes from the past, and brief glimpses of the immediate aftermath of the killing spree. Most scenes last a few minutes or less, adding to a sense of chaos and confusion. Yet we see enough to put the pieces together.

By the end of the movie, I didn't understand why Eva hadn't changed her name and moved to another city. Eva's passiveness and desire to be a martyr grip her in the weeks and years after her son's act of violence. It's clear that she feels guilty about the way she raised Kevin. She probably torments herself with thoughts of "what could I have done differently?" But it's too little and too late. Although Kevin surely had this capacity for evil in him all along, one wonders that if Eva and Franklin were more of a team, if they had been more disciplinarian with their son, could they have nudged him onto another path? Who knows. Dave Cullen points out in his book Columbine that Dylan Klebold's parents were very involved and loving toward their son--but that didn't stop him from going on a school shooting spree.

It's easy to sympathize with Eva because for all the destruction her son wrought, she doesn't deserve to be the target of so much hate. However, it's difficult for me to put myself in her shoes since I do feel that I would have done things differently than her--I would have raised my son differently, married a different sort of man, and been less of a willing victim than Eva.

But then again, we don't know what lurks around the corner for us and how we would react--we can only guess, and pray that nothing so horrific happens to us or our loved ones.

Scare factor: 4 out of 5 stars
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Sex on the Couch

Movies: A Dangerous Method

In the opening scene of David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method a hysterical young woman is taken to a mental hospital run by psychiatrist Carl Jung at the turn of the 20th century. This young woman, Sabina Spielrein, is played by Keira Knightley with an intensity and ferocity that made it impossible for me to look away. In the throes of hysteria, she juts her jaw and bugs out her eyes. She twitches and growls like a wild animal. Jung (played by Michael Fassbender, who is quickly becoming my favorite actor) treats the suffering young woman calmly and kindly, explaining that he is going to try a new method to help her. He is going to sit in a chair behind her (so as not to distract her) and let her talk. That's it. It's called "the talking cure". What is so common in our society today (who among us hasn't been to, or at least considered, talk therapy? And if you haven't, you should. It's awesome!) was a radical approach to psychiatry a century ago.


The talking cure was adopted by famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (played by Viggo Mortensen), who mentored and worked with Carl Jung. A Dangerous Method follows their relationship, as well as Jung's doctor-to-lover-to-colleague relationship with Spielrein. A Dangerous Method could perhaps be classified as a "kink-illectual" film. It is obsessed with mind and body; sex and theory equally. And I must say, the scenes of Jung and Freud deconstructing Jung's dreams are just as stimulating as the scenes of Jung spanking a trussed up and hot-to-trot Spielrein.

Despite the presence of the two heavyweights of early psychoanalysis, the film belongs to Spielrein. Sabina Spielrein was a real person--a patient and lover of Jung who eventually went to medical school and studied child psychology. Sadly, she and her daughters were killed by the Nazis in 1942 and to this day she remains nothing more than a footnote in the body of knowledge that favors the men who shaped psychoanalysis. But in A Dangerous Method, Spielrein is front and center and treated with an equality and respect that kind of blew my mind. Cronenberg doesn't make this a movie about how a lowly female overcame the odds to follow her dream of studying medicine in the early 1900's (though she did); nor does he make it a heavy-lidded love story between a masochistic woman and an obliging male mentor (though it perhaps was). Instead, the fact that Spielrein became a medical student and was easily Freud and Jung's intellectual equal is treated as unremarkable. She was a smart lady; why wouldn't she study medicine.

Likewise, Spielrein's mental issues, her history of abuse at the hands of her father, and her sexual proclivities are treated with respect and sensitivity. As much as I love the film Secretary, it's annoying that Maggie Gyllenhaal's character Lee is both sexually submissive and a "cutter"--as if the two are in any way related. It's also annoying that when Lee and her boss, Mr. Grey, begin a Dominant/submissive relationship, all of a  sudden Lee no longer needs to hurt herself. Very inaccurate and misleading portrayal of both cutting and BDSM. Admittedly, A Dangerous Method flirts with the whole abuse = crazy/masochistic line: in one of the most riveting scenes, Spielrein discusses being beaten as a child and finds the strength to admit "it excited me". Since then, the thought of being beaten and/or humiliated has driven Spielrein into a state of hysteria and sexual excitement. But instead of "curing" her of her desire to be beaten, Jung helps Spielrein heal through talk therapy...oh, and also spanks her as part of their sex play. Spielrein emerges as a far more mentally healthy woman independent of her sexual masochism. And Jung is no screwed up, self-loathing sadist. He's just a nice guy with a belt and a willingness to use it on Spielrein any way she wants.

What is perhaps most remarkable about this film is that all the controversial and interesting things--sadomasochistic relationship, crazy-ass woman, woman going to medical school, two men chomping cigars and discussing penises, etc--are treated as totally normal and pedestrian. It's actually quite funny to see Freud and Jung speak so frankly and so dryly about sexuality in women or their own subconscious castration fears.

On top of this, the acting is superb. Mortensen and Fassbender are a delight to watch together--sipping brandy and hashing out ideas about psychoanalysis and sex. Knightley, whom I've always thought was a far better actress than her mainstream roles permit her to be, is finally is given the chance in this movie to chew the scenery (in a good way). Spielrein is a bit like Lisbeth Salander: her very existence is an extended middle finger to the patriarchy (and the patriarchy was especially alive and well in Spielrein's day). She encompasses many people's worst fears about "crazy bitches" and sexually lascivious women--and upends them. Spielrein is simultaneous "crazy", sexual, and intelligent. She gets to have her cake and eat it too--to have a lover and a career, all on her terms.

A Dangerous Method is one of the most fascinating, sexy, well-acted, and subversive films I've seen in a long time. I can't recommend it enough.

5 out of 5 stars

Friday, February 3, 2012

Silence is Golden

Movies: The Artist

I have some mixed feelings about The Artist. The film is undeniably beautiful and novel. We rarely see movies that are filmed in black and white these days, let alone silent films. The film's homage to the silent era of cinema and the advent of sound is touching, and its stars (the magnetic Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo) light up the screen.You can't help but melt at Dujardin's radiant smile. And Bejo doesn't look like a typical actress: her "flaws" (large front teeth, wide-set eyes) make her beautiful in a way that sets her apart from the dozens of interchangeable starlets in the industry. Half of the pleasure of the watching The Artist was just gazing at the lead actors.


On the other hand, there is something about The Artist that struck me as gimmicky and forced. I'm not talking about the fact that it's a silent, b&w film--I actually thought that was a very cool tribute to silent cinema. I think it has something to do with the wildly vacillating emotions the film tries to force on the audience. And that damn dog that's in every scene. I mean, I like dogs, but come on! There is nothing more manipulative than using an animal for reaction shots.

But let's go back to the forced emotion issue. One of my favorite scenes in the history of film is that very last shot of Charlie Chaplin in his masterpiece, City Lights. In the film, Chaplin plays a poor man who falls in love with a blind woman who sells flowers on the street for a living. He eventually pays for an operation to cure her blindness. In the final scene, the woman is now the successful owner of a flower shop. Chaplin walks by her shop and the woman, not knowing it was this poor man who saved her from destitution and paid for her operation, offers him a flower. As he gazes at her with love and adoration, she realizes who he is. Here's the famous final shot:
City Lights, particularly that last scene, is deeply emotional in a subtle way. The whole movie, despite its heavy subject matter (blindness, poverty), is a comedy, so the final shot feels that much more sincere--and not in a schmaltzy way.

The Artist is also a comedy with heavy themes. Dujardin plays George Valentin--a star of the silent screen who is slowly pushed out of the business as "talkies" come to dominate the movies. Bejo plays Peppy Miller, clearly modeled after Clara Bow and other "It Girls" of the 1920's. As George's career sputters out, Peppy's star rises until she is rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams--and George is divorced and living alone in a crappy apartment after losing his fortune. At the climax (SPOILER!!), George goes so far as to put a gun in his mouth (with the dog barking and biting at his pant leg--I admit that I did tear up at this point). As he's about to pull the trigger, Peppy rushes in and convinces him not to give up. And then in the very next scene, George and Peppy are gaily tap-dancing in a movie together. Wait, whaa...? The ending is some serious emotional whiplash. We watch George's life fall to complete shit for an hour and then immediately snap back to happy days in the final seconds of the film. The pacing of the movie was way off.

If it sounds like I'm tearing The Artist a new one, it's only because I'm holding it to a high standard. The Artist has won dozens of awards and is set to be one of the front runners for Best Picture at the Oscars this year. It's also a critical darling. And while it is a lovely film, it's ultimately too forgettable and just too...not enough...for me to give it the accolades other critics have given it. For my money, Hugo, which pays the same tribute to early film, is the superior movie and should win Best Picture. That said, it's a beautiful film and it was fun to let the images, rather than the words, tell the story for once.

3.75 out of 5 stars

Girl Fight

Movies: Haywire

I'll be brief with this one. Haywire, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is nothing more than an excuse to watch a woman beat the shit out of men bigger than her. To this end, the film succeeds. The fight scenes are stylish and exciting. The lead actress, Gina Carano, is not a waifish Hollywood starlet, but a real-life mixed martial arts champion. Therefore, it's easy to buy her in the role of Mallory Kane, a female black ops soldier who is betrayed by her superiors and must fight for her life multiple times.


It's fun to see Carano smash Channing Tatum's head against a bar stool in a diner and cut off Michael Fassbender's airflow with her thighs in a hotel room. There is so much (heterosexual, female-friendly) eye candy in this movie, it *almost* distracted me from the fact that the plot is practically non-existent. But as fun as the fight scenes and car chases are, Haywire is very, very thin and forgettable. It borders on pointless.

Haywire is the perfect movie to get on Netflix or at Red Box for an enjoyable evening of slick entertainment at home. It's as light and digestible as the popcorn you'll make in your own microwave. But please, don't spend over 10 dollars to see it at the theatre like I did. Let Mallory Kane kick the bad guys' asses, and not your wallet's ass.

3 out of 5 stars