Burn the Witch pt 1: Mandy (2018) TW: mentions of sexual abuse and death

 

Andrea Riseborough as the eponymous Mandy

Sometimes, I think existing as a woman is a death wish. I have faced sexual harassment starting from the age of 4. As a young girl and teenager, I had to endure it silently, in fear of retaliation if I defended myself. Around my early 20s, I grew tired of it all. I started to push back. I told men to fuck themselves. I gave them dirty looks and gave them the middle finger in response to their catcalls or pickup lines. Most men just called me a bitch, whore, whatever but some men took it further. They did not handle the rejection well. I've been followed, threatened with violence. I have been groped. I have been raped.

Isn't it sad that I'm relieved? 

Because at least they didn't kill me.

And that is the fate that befalls Mandy. She is walking home one day when she catches the attention of a cult leader as he is driving by in his van. He becomes immediately smitten and kidnaps her, believing she is the one, that she will complete him. She is his dream girl.

He plays her his folk music and dances naked in front of her as a means of seduction.

And she laughs.

And laughs.

She rejects him thoroughly. The dream girl becomes a mocking nightmare.

So he burns her. Literally. He kills her in one of the most horrific ways possible. All to soothe a bruised ego.

Because what are women to men, but witches that need to be burned?

poison comes in many forms - The Power of the Dog

 

I just finished watching Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog last night and it unsettled me to such an extent that it actually kept me up way past my bedtime - such was its strength. 

I initially wanted to write about wrath and the many forms it is represented in the film but then I realized that wrath is just another form of poison.

Phil Burbank is a man poisoned by his own self-hatred and self-isolation, due to his own homosexuality that he attempts to hide under a super machismo persona. He has become a bitter and abusive man. He takes out his self-hatred on all those around him, especially his beloved brother, and then later, his brother's newlywed wife, a widow named Rose, and Rose's son, Peter. 

When Rose and Peter move into the ranch where Phil and his brother reside, Phil's presence becomes a dangerous miasma to Rose - his toxic energy surrounds her.  She can feel his hatred and loathing even when he is not in the same room. When they are in the same room, the effects are debilitating to the wife - he mocks and belittles her, slowly tearing her down from a strong, independent mother to a shade of her former self. Rose copes with Phil's metaphorical poison with a literal one - she turns to alcohol to numb herself from Phil's attacks.

Seeing his mother deteriorate before his eyes, Peter decides to eliminate the problem that is causing her downfall - Phil.

However, despite being a western, Peter and Phil don't have a gunslinging shootout to resolve their problems. Phil is just as hostile to Peter as he is to Peter's mother - he mocks Peter for his effeminate manner and perceived weakness. His own repressed sexuality poisons his impression of Peter from the beginning. However, an unlikely friendship forms between the two, initiated by Peter. Phil attempts to make Peter a "man," and to not be made a "sissy" by Rose. He eventually becomes fond of Peter, even making him a rope. It is this rope that becomes Phil's downfall.

Unbeknownst to Phil, Peter intentionally supplied him with an anthrax-ridden hide to complete the rope. Phil's handling of the rope soon leads to him becoming ill and dying shortly thereafter. Peter poisons Phil in retaliation for Phil's abuse of Peter's mother. However, even before Peter handed Phil the diseased hide, Peter had slowly poisoned Phil with a promise of friendship. Peter lulled Phil into a sense of vulnerability, pretending to understand him and pretending to want to emulate him. The self-isolated Phil latched on to Peter, in a guise to fill the loneliness in his life, not knowing that Peter was plotting to kill him. 

Poison is ever-present in this film, in tangible and intangible forms. And as evidenced by Peter, the invisible poisons are the ones that can be the most harmful.

prisons of our making - In the Mood for Love and Double Indemnity

Maggie Cheung as Su Li-zhen

Tony Leung as Chow Mo-wan

Fred MacMurray as Walter Neff

In the Mood for Love (2000) and Double Indemnity (1944) are two vastly different movies from different periods and cultures, with different stories and presentations but some things are just universal. For example, both films use shade and light to show the internal processes and emotions of our characters.

Maggie Cheung and Toney Leung play two would-be lovers, but they cannot act on their desires or love for each other due to the both of them being already married. Their love is not only unconsummated but it is also unspoken. They are bound and imprisoned by external circumstances to keep their love for each other contained and repressed as so beautifully illustrated in the above scene from the movie, where the shadows create an illusion of the two characters being trapped in a cage.

Walter Neff's story is not as romantic but just as tragic. Before he is wrapped up in the schemes of the  Phyllis, we see him bathed in the shadows cast by the windows. His suit is marked with stripes, mimicking a prison jumpsuit. This is a foreshadowing of his eventual spiral and downfall, from an innocent insurance agent to a murderer and most likely, to a be hauled off to a prison, a prison of his own making.

religious imagery in non religious movies pt 2. Exotica

Exotica (1994) takes its title from the main location of the film, Exotica, an upscale strip club somewhere in Canada.

Unlike many strip clubs, in film or reality, Exotica is not a seedy or lurid place, it is opulent and luscious. It is an Eden-like garden, filled with beautiful women and dreamy promises. But like many things in this film, it is an easily shattered illusion, because just as easy it is to find paradise, it is even easier to lose it.

Flowers in Midsommar and Annihilation

"Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys

Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;

Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet

Clear of the grave." 

 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Florence Pugh as Dani in Midsommar (2019)

Tessa Thompson as Josie in Annihilation (2018)

Midsommar's Dani and Annihilation's Josie both succumb to the forces of nature in their respective films. Both characters journey into unknown territories: Dani travels to a reclusive tribe in Sweden; Josie investigates "the Shimmer," a mysterious zone at a meteorite crash site.

At the end of each of their journies, they are consumed and transformed. Dani is crowned as the May Queen and has to don a heavy, engulfing dress made of colorful flowers. Josie, due to the anomalous properties of the Shimmer, is transformed into a  flower person. 

Their transformations wouldn't be possible without their self-destruction first. By the point Dani is crowned as the May Queen, she has already imploded. She is suffering from the grief of the death of her family and the death of her relationship. Josie has witnessed the death of team members and is suicidal, indicated by the scars on her wrists. 

They are both able to be reborn through nature, specifically flowers. Although the floral dress is heavy at first, at the end of the film, Dani wears it gleefully, becoming a new member of the tribe. Her past is behind her, and she has gained a new family. As Josie becomes a flower person, she can live and thrive without her sorrow and suicidal thoughts burdening her. She can escape everything.

The flowers consume these characters, but they also heal them. 

Nature is beautiful. It is lush. It is colorful. It is magical. It is awe-inspiring. It is chaotic. Untamed. Indifferent. Life-giving. Life-taking. It is ever-evolving yet ever-unchanging. To take inspiration from the Emerson quote above, the same earth which gives vibrant flowers is the burial site for humanity. Everything begins and ends in the ground.

religious imagery in non-religious movies pt. 1 #Alive (2020)

 

#Alive was a decent and fun zombie movie but what really impressed me was the imagery. Especially the one above, which is actually one of my favorite scenes in a movie in the last few years.

Our protagonist covers his windows with paper as a way to safeguard against the zombies which surround his apartment. The result resembles stained glass representing the sanctuary and haven his apartment has become; much akin to a church.

A window of the Chartres Cathedral                           

Candyman and Hellraiser

Virginia Madsen as Helen in Candyman (1992)

Clare Higgins as Julia in Hellraiser (1987)

Here we have two dreamy, surreal movies which are both presented as horror films but at the core, they are both love stories.

Each romance is tragic: in Candyman, a black slave falls in love with a white woman and is brutally murdered as a result. He becomes an urban legend - a haunting figure coming back to torment anyone who dares to say his name. In Hellraiser, a woman does everything to bring back the man she loves - no matter what the cost. 

loves haunts us all

                                        

The immaculate Tony Todd as the titular Candyman 

REVIEW: Hereditary (2018)

 Wrote this in 2018 lol

Hereditary is a masterfully crated, yet deeply unsettling directorial debut from Ari Aster.

The film presents itself as a taught, psychological family drama in the beginning – we open to the funeral of a family’s matriarch. Yet, the family does not mourn their grandmother, nor do they celebrate her life. Her daughter delivers a brief, cold, and distant eulogy and that is the most grief anyone in the family shows. There are no tears. Her granddaughter nonchalantly munches on a candy bar at the funeral. The grandson when asked by his father if he misses his grandmother, smiles smugly. The family expresses their grandmother’s death with as much emotion as a person would if they had suddenly realized they left their keys at home or if they had to take another route home from work due to traffic.

It becomes apparent that the grandmother’s death is but a minor inconvenience. It also becomes apparent that something isn’t quite right with the family, yet no major reasons can be pinpointed. There is a sense of uneasiness elicited in the viewer and that feeling only grows throughout the film.

Two prominent psychological themes are woven throughout the film. The first being the deterioration of the familial structure due to the inability to cope with loss and grief. The second being the deterioration of one’s self due to mental illness. Both themes are brilliantly played off each other, creating a feeling of suffocation and dread as you watch the characters completely collapse in on themselves.

Yet there is a darker undercurrent to the film. It plays with our fear of the unknown. With our fear of the shadows and specters and figures which may lay within them. With the Eldritch horrors awaiting us in the night.

This film was amazing. But it was completely unenjoyable to watch. It was too real, too visceral, and completely oppressive in the atmosphere. I can’t recommend this film to anyone unless you want to take a long, hard look into the void and if you decide to do so, the void will look back.