Faced with a river, a scorpion enlists the help of a frog to ferry it across the water on its back. Fearful for being stung, the scorpion explains that if it were to sting the frog they would both drown. Alas, halfway across the river the scorpion stings the frog. As they begin to sink to their death the frog asks the scorpion why it had doomed them both, receiving the reply that it is in its nature.
The broken halo of a violent hero
Ryan Gosling plays the part of a nameless Hollywood stuntman/ mechanic/ getaway driver turned breadwinning moral avenger in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive – subverting the strong-silent type of classic cinema and, like Refn’s ValhallaRising and Bronson, calling into question the nature of violent heroes on screen. The following analysis will examine how the hero of Drive is made to appear reserved and unpredictable in an effort to make him unknowable – but really how his actions are undermined by his childlike sensibilities and confused sense of self.
Written for a blog known as MovieBoozer. That’s Movie and Boozer. Reviews alongside drinking games. Yes. It’s real and somehow this review of a mexican film I like was on there.
We Are What We Are takes a similar form to Dogtooth in presenting a darkly twisted tale, from within a warped family unit. Just trade out the incest for some good old people-eating fun.
An impoverished man, aged and worn, collapses in a shopping mall of Mexico City after perusing the dummies of shop windows. Spewing blood and bile on to the floor beneath him – he dies, only to be cleared away by paramedics and cleaning staff. An autopsy reveals a human finger inside his stomach, though this doesn’t surprise the coroner who exercises a casual familiarity with partially consumed corpses. This was the father of a now leaderless family: his wife and her three children Alfredo, Julian and Sabina, must now fulfil the role of their former patriarch. This entails the execution of a furtive ‘ritual’ that accounts for the state of their deceased father.
Hailed as the ‘Mexican Let The Right One In’, WAWA deals with social issues within an extreme context. Where the former had focussed on a young boy’s torment at the hands of school-yard bullies, this film deals with a family dynamic in the face of poverty and political disregard. With the fantastical element removed from the story, we are presented with a more feasible horror. The setting transforms from a snow-blanketed residential area, to a more slum-like location that brings with it an inescapable darkness, interlaced with bouts of uncompromising gore.
Let the Right Juan In. Forgive me
The central theme of cannibalism is shown to be a product of circumstance for the family: delivered as psychologically understandable alongside the realistic relationships of the central characters. The explanation of the ritual is touched upon but not fully explained: fitting with the visual motif of doors closing on the camera – keeping the audience out. This exclusion from the story is assisted by a volatile sound design that becomes faint and inaudible for extensive periods of time.
The film’s master stroke comes from treating the horrific elements as casual and not cowering to spectacle. The title of the film prescribes a certain shamelessness to the characters – their actions born out of necessity. In this sense, the horror becomes grounded and is almost pushed into the background by the social trials of the family.
Refusing to pander to the audience, We Are What We Are creates an intrigue that is ordinarily too contrived to be effective – utilising a lack of exposition to make the minimal that much more powerful.
The hitman has become a cultural figure that has undergone various aesthetic and moral transformations in cinema. The most typical and somewhat surprising characteristic of the contracted-killer is that he or she is shown to be a solitary figure worthy of empathy or even admiration; a sleek and often charming loner that the story is attracted to – suspending the audience’s judgement or allowing them to explore his/her inner conflict in order to understand their motivation or veiled humility. Amongst his description of the subcategories of hitmen in his chapter of ‘Crime Culture: Figuring Criminality in Fiction and Film’, Andrew Spicer describes the aestheticised version of the hitman as the ‘Angel of Death’: “a highly masculine fantasy of total self-sufficiency”. This increasingly recognisable antagonist and the subsequent notion of fantastical perfection is precisely what Ben Wheatley challenges in his latest feature – Kill List (2011).
In 2011 we saw a new generation of filmmakers with a series of debut features that emanate originality; subverting the form and challenging the typical narrative of cinema as well as the characters it produces. The hero pulled down from his pedestal with flaws displayed unashamedly – imperfect, vulnerable and sometimes far from moral. The fables clouded by removing the binary opposition of good and bad, a blurring of the lines between hero and villain as the allure is maintained but the passivity is quashed. A realism that requires the viewer to find their own moral teachings amidst the challenged stereotypes.
Blue Valentine is a contemporary take on a romance that explores the deterioration of a marriage by jumping through time to examine moments throughout the relationship.
The inevitable failure of the marriage is undoubtedly pinned on Cindy (Michelle Williams), whilst Dean (Ryan Gosling) collects the empathy of the audience. The film opens with Dean displaying a sincere, everyman charm before befriending colleagues and then displaying his lovable treatment of old people. This is juxtaposed with a stone faced Cindy who is shown annoyed at the prospect of fun, before killing the family dog. I hope that my own inherent gender is not the reason for siding with Dean at this point. However, there is a recognised tiredness to Cindy, so following the non-sequential structure of the narrative, there is an expectation of explanation – for a moment which explains or contextualizes her behavior.
The following scenes reveal the moment in which they first meet – Dean exercises his charm and sense of humor, whilst Cindy deals with her current, disagreeable boyfriend. It is once Dean has been established as the point of empathy, and the character who holds onto his sense-of-humor, that he exercises a subtle conservative, albeit loose, ideology. When they first talk at length on the bus: Cindy tells a dark joke about a child molester. Dean smiles playfully but confesses he does not find it funny – although he is playful, his comment on his taste appears sincere.
Gosling displaying his screen-permeating loveliness
When looking into their future – in an aptly named ‘future room’ of a sex motel, Dean lays bare his want for another child. The audience are aligned with the male position, almost pit against the female. He explains his discovery of fatherhood and his ever delightful concept of family, whilst she appears to act as a mother out of necessity. The sentiment of Dean is not forgotten shortly after when they proceed to have sex. Cindy insists on a rough form of intercourse, in which she is dominated. This is cut short when Dean states that he cannot do it, “I don’t want that. I want you. I don’t want you like this…I’m not gunna’ hit you, I love you”. Left to ponder these words, he seems to be condemning non-heteronormative sex.
Back in time again, twice lovely Dean is told that Cindy is pregnant, and that it isn’t his baby: resultantly she signs for an abortion. In the hospital we witness a vulnerable Cindy answering invasive questions that seem to be forming a picture of her as sexually promiscuous, as if it somehow tarnishes her as immoral or sinful. We learn that she had sex at 13 and has had sex with 20-25 people (she is not sure). Dean waits outside, the very model of a supportive partner. The procedure begins. The camera is very invasive, looking at her fearful expression and amplifying the sound of utensils. Thankfully, in the eyes of pro-life supporters, she sees the light and abandons the procedure. Dean is supportive.
Once word gets to the actual father of this relationship, he and a couple of toughs beat Dean. I’m sure somewhere in amongst the punches delightful Dean turns the other cheek, or forgives them or something. But in all seriousness, his character continues to show reasons to empathize with his position. Cindy, in turn, becomes the antagonist who acts immorally. The closing of the film has her telling adorable, lovely Dean that she wants a divorce. He responds to this by reminding her of the promises made in the ceremony; how she is not recognizing the sanctity of marriage.
samcooney 