“introducing JAMIE LEE CURTIS as Laurie”

It’s Wednesday night, it’s Halloween and what better way to spend it is revisiting John Carpenter’s 1978 classic at the Astor. Getting prepared comes in general horror banter, ‘which is scarier’, Freddy, Jason, or Mike Myers and who, even won out of Freddy vs. Jason (2003)?

Then the iconic credit sequence “introducing JAMIE LEE CURTIS as Laurie” establishes it is show time.

Beginning through the eyes of Michael Myers or as we simply refer to him as ‘Mike’ we get a sneak peek into the evil he breeds. Firstly as a child, through a voyeuristic attack on his sister before he is bound to an asylum, then what becomes his escape fifteen years later and the Halloween night on which he craftily takes down Laurie’s circle of friends. 

It was a boisterous experience seeing Halloween. Hearing the audience interact and embody near death situations. During which, the words, I’ll be right back’ had cropped up. A phrase familiar to the likes of the Friday the 13^th and the Scream narratives was indeed chuckle worthy. But indifferent to the teen slasher sub genre, Carpenter presents a monster that is not afraid to be seen day or night. A predator to the neighbourhood, framed in such a way as to disrupt and spoil what could be a safe picture. Carpenters use of wide angle shots creates disorientation and uneasiness to these streets.

Ending on a montage that looks like a crime scene, it shows us everywhere evil has been. It becomes unsettling after it is revealed Myers’s dead body has disappeared. Like a case for an unsolved massacre, discomfort still lingers on.

It was my third viewing of Halloween, but never I noticed playing on the TV whilst Laurie is babysitting, Howard Hawk’s The Thing from Another World (1951).  A film re-made in 1982 as the Thing, a celebrated and important film yet again from Carpenter.

The Innocents

The Innocents (1961) is indeed haunting, something that I was glad to have watched during the day. Based on Henry James novella ‘the turn of the screw’, it was co-written by Truman Capote and suggested to have inspired Alejandro Amenabar’s film, The Others (2001).

 

Its narrative focuses on Miss Gaddens (Deborah Kerr), a governess hired to take care of two children in a recluse old mansion. Unfortunately for her the mansion is haunted. That is the house is filled with memories of an affair between a valet and a previous governess, who are now both dead. Even though Gaddens believes to have witnessed their ghosts she is told else-wise it’s her imagination. 

The Innocents does not hide its ghostly narrative, or that the film is frightening, but instead enhances it through cinematography and dark compositions. Shot in Kerr’s first person perspective, we get a one on one perspective with the occult as it starts to infuse her persona. Kerr pushes the narrative along with her matron-esque, almost Davis meets Crawford, making it feel natural to sympathize with children, Miles and Flora. However this pair displays innocent and evil binaries, familiar to the Exorcist (1973) and the Omen (1976) archetypes, from which Gaddens domineering actions become justifiable. 

The Innocents is an accessible horror, in its location setting of a gothic mansion in Sussex which breeds paranormal tensions. But once these horror trademarks are removed, it allows us to observe the tragic descent of a women’s journey into madness.

Dude, Where's My Freud?

Ever since I caught up on the 1986 film the Fly, I went through a David Cronenberg ‘body horror’ phase. A technique seen in Cronenberg’s early films like Scanners (1981),VideoDrome (1983) and Dead Ringers (1988). It involves mutating flesh and plenty of graphic gore. Dead Ringers was the last ‘body horror’ film I have seen. Besides being classic Cronenberg, I cannot get his behind the scenes photos out of my head. In particular a picture of him holding a pair of surgical instruments that identical gynaecologist twins (Jeremy Irons) use to perform on ‘mutant women’.

Lately his films have changed, there was A history of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007), using less visceral violence and moving towards stronger character development. Gone are the days of Geoff Goldbum transformation into a fly, or James Woods ingesting a gun through the wall of his stomach.

His new film, A Dangerous Method (2012) uses Viggo Mortenson for the third time, this time playing Sigmund Freud. Alongside him are Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung and Keira Knightly as Sabina Spielrein. A Dangerous Method wastes no time in setting up the narrative, nor Knightly’s physical and vocal mannerisms. She arrives at a psychiatric hospital in Zurich with a bad case of hysteria and becomes a patient of Jung. The cinematography is enhanced through the warmer tones of the countryside giving her character a sense of freedom. Once Spielrein is forced inside, the camera tightens, its shots becoming more claustrophobic whilst the tones change to the clinical and drab. Jung proceeds to treat Spielrein through the talking cure, a psychoanalysis technique developed by Freud.

In classic Freudian psychoanalysis, Spielrein’s humiliation and sexual arousal began as a child from her father smacking her bare bottom. Gradually Spielrein improves, but Knightly’s character consistency is shown through her continued body spasms. Her improvement is seen through Jung’s eyes, seeing her in a different context, he breaks the patient physician ethics and it turns into an affair. The deliberate uncomfortable sex scenes not only looked like re-enactments of her childhood but became over indulgent and overdone. Sometimes it felt hard to take the film serious. Especially from the pervy camera work that stalked their every encounter.

Most of the audience were laughing or making agreeing sounds that suggested a deeper understanding of psychoanalysis. Interestingly this came from the guy in front of me, who was playing on his phone the whole time. During some of these tedious moments, I started to notice a change in Jung. What first started out as the highest professionalism now came across creepy. Fassbender showed this subtly, through a gradual deterioration Jung became more reminiscent of something typically Cronenberg.

Still, this was not enough. Cronenberg seemed to miss something. It is hard to believe that Freud was even in this film, it seems like he was used only as a spokesperson for his craft. Freud appeared from Jung’s minor visits and was used like a springboard to challenge each other’s methods. More from Freud would have helped add weight and tension to the film. In the few moments we see, Mortensen portrays Freud as arrogant, uppity and stubborn, always puffing on a cigar. This made me want to see more of him, not less.

Whenever A Dangerous Method showed tension, other than on a sexual level, it seems to pull back and gloss over it. This could be put down to the time period it was trying to cover, starting at the advent of World War I right through until World War II, all within the space of 100 minutes. 

A Dangerous Method would have worked better as a miniseries, where it could have explored its characters and given an effective balance to them. But as a film, the acting and cinematography alone did not help the overall structure. The narrative felt unclear and focused on too much of one thing and not enough of another. Like the guy on the phone, I too, wanted to play. The problem was I was hoping for more of that ‘Cronenberg’s’ body horror I once enjoyed.

Terrible Monsters

With an ominous name like Monsters, I thought that this 2010 film directed by Gareth Edwards would be a something I would enjoy. Not only did I like its title, but was under the impression that with a narrative of humans trying to live with aliens (in this case, monsters) I was going to see similar themes as explored in District 9 (2009).  

Now I think to myself, was it just me? Did I miss something? Or was this a film I should just taken for what it was? I realised no.

Monsters tries to open strongly or even ambitiously with its handheld camera work in night vision for us to witness a battle, where guns and missiles are used to attack a gigantic squid-like monster. This then cuts to the disruption of its title Monsters, setting itself up as an appetiser of what’s to come whilst, also implying that there are other monsters….

 When I saw this, I thought of the opening to Children of Men (2006) and similarities of handheld movement that is also interrupted by its title. Children of Men introduces a depressing, futuristic narrative of human infertility leading into a well structured narrative. But with Monsters, there is no connection to its opening sequence, or the military within most of the rest of the film. The film presents that the word ‘monsters’ could in fact be a metaphor for the US government ( funny coming from a British director) and their treatment of South America or Mexican people to be exact. But like the opening, this metaphor is touched upon but never really explored in any real depth, it is just obviously stated.

Obviousness comes also with the two main hipster looking characters, who re- explains any loose ends that had already been suggested or implied. We get to know Andrew, a photojournalist (Scoot McNairy) who has the job of getting his wealthy employer’s daughter back home safely. While, Samantha (Whitney Able) shows off her bilingual skills and complains about her fiancée. Throughout the film we seem to be involved in endless conversations which are deep, deep on a Facebook level.
 

I enjoyed the few times we got to view actual monsters, which gave Edwards a chance to show off his special effects. Or, the occasional time I thought I was watching Avatar (2009), in the films exploration of the way that the two main characters would try to connect with the locals and their habitat.  This was enhanced by the films location shooting and exploration of the culture of the Mexican natives. Although that was what warranted the confusion I had for where Monsters was actually heading or what it was suggesting.

Monsters, like District 9, used improvisation. However, as it is done badly then we get two characters that appear lost, uttering lots of boring dialogue and manage to come across as patronising tourists. Maybe intended, or not, perhaps it’s the two main characters who were the real monsters of the film and killed anything that could have been remotely enjoyable about Monsters.

The Road

 

The Road (2009) is based on Cormack McCarthy’s novel, a book I may not have read, but a film believed to accurately capture the books atmosphere.

The Road conveys a miserable post- apocalyptic setting, miserable in the sense of its unpleasantness, where every living plant and animal has been killed resulting in humans living in conditions of scavenging and cannibalism. Reminding his son that they are the ‘good guys’ because they don’t eat people, the main characters known simply as ‘man’ (Viggo Mortensen) and ‘boy’ (Kodi-Smit McPhee) travel a treacherous journey in hope of going in a southward direction (believed to be warmer).  The film has an underlining fear of strangers generally through the good, fearing the bad. In one particular scene you can witness a quasi horror scenario when Mortensen discovers a bolted trapdoor, a’ la Evil Dead, revealing the ‘bad guys’ to have imprisoned almost zombie-like survivors for their cannibalistic ways.

While the Road feels almost too grim there are moments that become hopeful, or at least to be enjoyed for a short time, the tender moment when they stumble across a drink machine and score a soft drink. This moment is shared with particular camera focus on the bright red soft drink breaking up its consistent use of black and grey tones. Luck also comes their way when they discover a basement filled with food, where they indulge and board for a couple of nights.

Whenever, there is not an obvious bad guy around, I found I had started to observe Mortensen’s character, whose strong motivations of looking after the boy over time starts to reflect selfishness. With some debatable occurrences of refusing to spare the ‘old man’ (Robert Duvall) some food (a good guy) and demoralising a thief, this perhaps is a good time to question who the good guy really is. This scene is nicely contrasted with the boy’s optimism, which too has changed over time, initially he appeared naive and timid but now he becomes the moral voice of the journey. Not only does Mortensen’s strength gradually becoming weaker, but his character too, we now focus on the boy.

 The Road was a miserable journey, and when I say miserable I mean sad. But what I loved about the film, apart from the brilliant connection between Mortensen and McPhee, was its beautiful still-like shots that felt like old photographs, or perhaps even like distant memories of the boy and the man.

This type of reflection is made possible by the film’s ambiguity, towards morals and even the events that led to their situation, which is never explained and doesn’t need to be. Making it not only more interesting to watch but, as cliché as it may be, added different perspectives to how I chose to view its ending which stayed in my mind long after the film had finished. The Road was a heartfelt journey both haunting and beautiful which illustrated to me a clear narrative with no conventional outcome.

No Illusion

 In the same hand drawn style of the Triplets of Belleville (2003) comes Sylvain Chomet’s bitter sweet adaptation of an unrealised Jacques Tati script, The Illusionist ( l’llusionniste, 2010. Again, we are reintroduced (or introduced) to Chomet’s quirky charactertures and the gibberish dialogue his characters perform), which works perfectly with a Monsieur Hulot type character. For me, I most enjoyed the drunken Scottish man, where on one occasion we get to see a lot more of him than we want too, as the wind swayed his kilt in all kinds of directions.

The narrative focuses on the relationship between a struggling illusionist (Jean-Claude Donda) and a girl named Alice (Eilidh Randkin), who believes that the illusionist is a successful magician and travels with him as he performs to only minimal crowds. The hand drawn animation comes to life as it characterises the locations he travels, Paris, London and Edinburgh. 

Although there are moments of comedy, it only helps to heighten its tragedy. We see a struggling clown try to commit suicide and a ventriloquist who eventually becomes homeless, like the illusionist they are part of a dying breed of performers. This is all set in contrast to the successful sold out performers, a new, hip, rock and roll band with over exaggerated hair and clothes. The band, bend and gyrate to crowds of screaming teenage girls in the very same theatres.

Throughout, the illusionist keeps his magic alive for Alice, he is determined to scrap enough money together and even resorts to other forms of employment in order to pretend he’s still successful. The character is reminiscent of Roberto Benigni in Life is Beautiful (1997) who also keeps up an illusion in order to protect his son from the reality of actually being a prisoner in a concentration camp; but both cannot conceal the reality forever.

 The Illusionist provides a beautiful father and daughter relationship with the added farcical direction of Chomet. The script was rumoured to have originated from a letter written by Jacques Tati to his eldest daughter asking for forgiveness over his negligence as a father.  Allegedly, Tati’s eldest daughter wanted credit for majority of the script, but Chomet claimed that he too is a father who does not live with his daughter anymore and that the script had also begun to mirror their relationship.

This was something I had read after viewing the illusionist, helping to highlight that this was a film without illusions, but instead honesty.