The Valerian trailer, French comics and why I dislike Zack Snyder

Reflections from a Young Movie-Goer

The follow up part of Supernatural International will be up shortly. It's become quite a research project now, demanding much more scrutiny than I'd originally planned. The next part will be looking at 60s British ghost films, Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) and The Innocents (1961), but I also have plans to look at J-horror, haunted houses, a couple of really interesting Asian films from this year called The Wailing (2016) and Under the Shadow (2016), a few short stories, and maybe even a comparison of the two different versions of The Woman in Black. Once I started looking around, I found out there was a lot more out there than I had first anticipated. The subject matter is hugely interesting though as it seems to transcend the horror genre altogether. To merely associate ghosts with fear is to neglect how broad their cultural influence is and, furthermore, how they feed into our other emotions. Their very existence in our imaginations (both individual and collective) highlights the sheer poetry of our ability to interpret reality; how we interact as emotional, irrational beings with our surroundings, with others and with time.

In the meantime though, before I get carried away, I've been intending to write a post about the state of Science Fiction. I'd drafted a couple of posts about it but never finished them and, up until today, had since forgotten about it. However, after watching the trailer for Luc Besson's new film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017), I thought now would be the perfect time to revive the topic, seeing as what I'd written then aligned perfectly with my reasons for getting excited about the film. For those that haven't already, you can watch the trailer here. Valerian looks like it will closely echo the stylings of Besson's previous film, The Fifth Element (1997), presenting a lush, distant future filled with colourful aliens, robots, spaceships and all the other staples of a space opera. It's based on the French comic, Valérian and Laureline, written by Pierre Christin and illustrated by Jean-Claude Mézières, first published in 1967. The trailer shows us little plot-wise, hopping from one richly detailed panorama to the next as The Beatle's Because plays in the background. The song is a brilliant choice, telling us that this won't be the gritty, self-righteous Sci-Fi we've become accustomed to, but rather be closer in spirit to the French comics scene on which the film draws from.

I think that a lot of US Sci-Fi must labour under the impression that it is impossible to be intelligent and have fun at the same time. Either that, or they just don't know how to. This could perhaps be because of their national obsession with good and evil narratives, and their taking stories way too seriously. The most obvious example of this is the work of Zack Snyder and, more specifically, the way he crudely shoehorns subtext into his version of Superman. All the humour in his work, rather than being neatly woven into the story, is a separate thing altogether, as if it were carelessly sprinkled on top of the plot. Although you can't blame him entirely for exploring the serious side of Superman, as morality forms the basis of the Man of Steel myth. Yet Snyder went completely wrong in trying to make Superman dark and gritty, pulling crass Jesus poses here and there, and frowning in the rain. My own favourite renditions of Superman have been ones which have room for humour and real ideas, like Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's All Star Superman. Stylistically, All Star Superman is a lot closer to the French Sci-Fi comics of the 60s, because Morrison and Quitely know how to wield creativity to effective, meaningful ends. I think this difference between comic and film can be observed throughout many recent Super-outings, with films turning down comic-book outrageousness (weirdness, silliness, campness) in an attempt to be taken seriously. Another case in point; the X-Men. In truth, no amount of black leather and chrome will make these characters more serious and grown up, they're crime fighting mutants, one of them shoots lasers out of his eyes.

The overwhelming popularity of the Marvel films has to some extent infected the comics too, which are now simply spandex-clad soap operas. Ultimately, they pale in comparison to something like Métal hurlant, an “adult-oriented” French comic magazine that began in 1974. French comics can openly admit when they're smut, and they don't try and dress it up in sensible clothes or infuse lessons into their readers. They let the imagination roam free, providing an intoxicating, morally apathetic sense of escapism, and as a result feel a lot closer to Art than Entertainment. This is apparent in Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius' The Incal, whose fruitful panels are filled with copious amounts of colour, character and interest. For Moebius, the meaning of the comic is in the art itself, it echoes the Decadent movement providing us with art for art's sake. Like the Obelisk and Olympia press who between them published Ulysses, The Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch, art and pornography become to some extent indistinguishable. The eroticism of Moebius' work, abundant with naked bodies and sexual imagery, coupled with its chemically-suggestive psychedelia, is not just a railing against authority and good taste, but an affirmation of human sensuality. With this comes a sort of humour in the very absurdity of his fantastical creations, it is in the sheer conception of these things that the reader feels as if they are in communion with another mind, exploring the limits of the imagination.

Whilst a lot of French comics aren't overtly erotic or psychedelic, they carry this tradition with them, with a light humour that resembles the intangibility of imagination. A lot of US Sci-Fi attempts to limit the amount of imaginative stuff in a narrative in order to create a vaster sense of realism in accordance with their subtextual aims. As such, humour is a foreign element which needs to be worked in carefully, balanced correctly so as to not disturb the serious bits. Watching something like Luc Besson's The Fifth Element, one realises how much the humour is woven into its very foundations. It's a film that knows how to have fun, is unconcerned with providing a realistic, moral basis for its plot. A similar sort of approach is apparent in other French directors like Leos Carax, Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Sylvain Chomet, who understand that sincerity doesn't have to get in the way of entertainment, that in fact they can be interdependent. I think that a lot of recent American Sci-Fi films that have attempted to emulate the aestheticism of the French comics, stuff like the Riddick series or Jupiter Ascending (2015), have only failed because they don't understand the depth of their humour. Valerian, with its portly, spear-wielding aliens who don't so much as charge as waddle into battle, seems to be a good sign for Sci-Fi cinema. All the signs seem to be pointing in the right direction that it will be able to recapture the spirit of French comics, which American Sci-Fi sorely lacks at the moment. 

American Poltergeists and Vengeful Demons

Supernatural International

As those who have already visited this blog probably know, I am very interested in horror as a film genre. I think it's a great bridge between high and low forms of culture, the popular and the obscure, the entertaining and the artsy. Horror can provide shocking, visceral thrills or unnervingly probe the human condition, with the best of the genre able to do both. I've also previously stated that I find the best horror films to be those with the broadest grounding in reality, the most obvious of which can be found in the sub-genre called "psychological horror". Fear is an innate aspect of the human condition and, as films like Roman Polanski's Repulsion (1965) show, we are the only thing to be truly afraid of. Reading the works of Oliver Sacks or seeing some of Derren Brown's magic is some of the easiest to find proof of this, highlighting both the suggestibility and fallibility of the human mind. Whilst we consciously imagine ourselves to be entirely rational, we can never escape what lies beneath.

However, when horror does make forays into fantasy, it doesn't always mean a complete departure from reality. For instance, in Jennifer Kent's The Babadook (2014), the eponymous creature haunting the widowed single mother protagonist is a manifestation of grief. In other words, a projection of real human emotions. In a sense, all the best fantastical horror films are in fact psychological ones; the things that go bump in the night feed from our inescapable feelings of fear, desire, hatred. I find Ghosts to be, in some instances, the most obvious example of this. Their intangible, mystical quality removes them from the physical world and instead they occupy the psychological worlds of those that they haunt. Unlike Vampires or Werewolves, many people still believe in Ghosts and they are tied deeply into spirituality. Whatever your own opinions are on their existence, there's no denying their influence on our ability to connect with our surroundings. When it comes to sites of historical importance, or even places of personal significance, we often feel some sort of "presence", sometimes going as far to call a place "haunted". There's something deeply romantic about the idea of Ghosts, they result from a complicated mixture of feelings both primitive and artistic. The form they take derives from just how bizarre the mind can be, the emotional and irrational responses it takes towards places and events. In many instances Ghosts are, in fact, a by-product of psychological horror.

In this blog post, I will be examining two films that feature Ghosts; Poltergeist (1982) and Paranormal Activity (2007). This is part of an effort designed to ascertain how the supernatural is represented on film, which I will continue with over the next few weeks. The invention of photography allowed us to indulge our obsession with the supernatural, causing a trend in "Spirit photography", where the deceased were caught on film in spirit form making contact with the living. From this, one could say that the supernatural and film go hand in hand. Unlike the human mind, film cannot lie, giving Ghosts an unequivocal presence in reality. Over time, the supernatural has evolved on film. Different types of Ghost have emerged with different characteristics and behaviours, often highly affected by the places and people they're involved with. The two aforementioned films have a lot in common through the roles their Ghostly presences take, and one can determine a surprising amount about the cultures from which they originate.

Poltergeist (1982, dir. Tobe Hooper)

Directed by Tobe Hooper and produced by Steven Speilberg, Poltergeist is one of the most recognisable horror films out there, inspiring two sequels and a recent remake. Firmly entrenched in the canon of 80s US pop culture, it has been heavily referenced since its initial release, most notably in a spoof episode of Family Guy, Petergeist. In comparison to The Shining, as another famous ghost film from the same decade Poltergeist differs radically in its approach to the genre, highlighting the key aesthetic differences between Speilberg and Kubrick.

The plot follows a family from Orange County who live in a part of suburbia recently built by the company the father works for. One night, after the family have all fallen asleep, the youngest daughter awakes to see that the TV has been left on, tuned to static after programming has finished. She begins to communicate with it when suddenly a ghostly hand appears from the screen, it shoots from the TV set into the wall of the bedroom causing an earthquake. The family all wake up as the daughter turns round and announces, "They're here." Later on, the Mother begins to experience strange things happening in the house, including chairs being stacked up on the table, cutlery bent inexplicably out of shape and a mysterious force that pulls objects across the kitchen floor. Then, one night, the occurrences intensify violently during a storm; the son almost gets eaten by a tree that comes to life and the youngest daughter is sucked into a portal that opens up in her bedroom closet. The family contact a group of parapsychologists who attempt to make contact with the daughter and rescue her from the supernatural realm. Then, after the Father's boss explains to him his plans to erect new properties nearby on a cemetery, saying that the headstones can just be moved, things start to fall into place.

Poltergeist is a radical departure for Tobe Hooper from his previous film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), a lot more family oriented and oozing with Speilbergian trademarks. Unlike the former's raw, relentless sadism, this film is consistently good-natured, showing a family brought together to combat dark, malevolent forces. Rather than psychologically implied nastiness, everything is shown on screen, a phantasmagoria of 80s special effects which, while heavily dated by today's standards, are ten times as fun and magical than the reductive CGI we're seemingly stuck with today. The colourful production is topped off by an imposing score that holds our hand along the way, telling us what to feel and when.

Overall, the film is a paranormal-themed romp more than anything, providing the audience with plenty of upbeat thrills and few authentic chills. In this sense, it fits into Speilberg's oeuvre and, as a result, it suffers from a tendency to turn anything truly unnerving into sentimental mush. Good, American spirit endures and the music constantly reminds us of this, invading scenes with clear cut melodious moralising. For the most part, it's a fun film with an awesome ending (conjuring the spirit of Sam Raimi), however fans of doom and gloom will not be impressed.

The film is very telling about Hollywood's approach to the supernatural. Ghost stories usually generate their chills from the minimal; quiet knocks and brief glimpses, but Poltergeist completely subverts this with its heavy reliance on effects and faster paced action. As such, the Poltergeist is the perfect paranormal entity for an impatient Hollywood audience. Its violent, malevolent nature, portrayed alongside a protagonist who might do wrong but is ultimately good-hearted presents the audience with a binary approach to morality. The American film industry is obsessed with good-and-evil narratives, often to the detriment of horror which often requires a sense of moral ambiguity to generate a deeper sense of terror. This is especially true for the supernatural which thrives by evoking the mystical and uncanny, something otherworldly but deeply rooted in people and places, something that Kubrick excels at in The Shining. Poltergeist has many salvageable parts which conform to these ideas; the colonial-guilt-type subtext of disturbing ancient land and the Ray Bradbury-esque strangeness amongst the everyday. However, it's through aesthetic execution that the film becomes wrongfooted and lost to problematic Americanisms, the underlying politics and satire ironically drowned out by the superficial.

Trailer for Poltergeist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ytjaMfoF2M

Paranormal Activity (2007, dir. Oren Peli)

A film that both perfected and ruined the "found footage" genre, Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity was a smash hit on its theatrical release, becoming the most profitable film ever made relative to its minuscule budget. Despite how critics might regard it now, it is in fact a hugely innovative piece of film-making. Succeeding the likes of Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The Blair Witch Project (1999), it built on these by relocating from the strange and threatening to the safe and familiar, bringing the danger into the home. This itself isn't a new setting for a horror film, but utilising the realism of the home movie camera, it's given a simple twist which results in a piece of authentically chilling entertainment.

It centres on a young couple, Katie and Micah, who live in the suburbs in San Diego. Micah starts recording video footage in the house in an attempt to capture supernatural occurrences after Katie describes an evil presence which has haunted her since childhood. They enlist the help of a psychic, who informs them that Katie is being stalked by a demon feeding off of her negative energy, recommending that they get in contact with a demonologist. Instead the couple try to tackle the issue on their own, spurred on more by Micah's self-confidence than by Katie who on several occasions insists that they give up trying to get rid of it. The film is split into day-time and night-time segments, of which during the latter all the paranormal activity usually occurs. Installing the camera in the corner of their bedroom, the audience are left to endure the eerie tension, waiting for something to happen.

The remainder of the plot is delightfully minimal, never getting bogged down in tedious exposition and always focusing on the relationship between Katie and Micah. Rather than plunging its audience directly into the action, like Poltergeist, the film instead takes its time in establishing a tense, creepy atmosphere. The realism inhabits not just the characters and setting but the very framing of the plot; what we are shown and not shown. The familiarity extends beyond this to even smaller aspects such as the inclusion of a tacky, mass produced ouija board and a garish website that the couple visits to read an account of an exorcism. Furthermore the film is relatively free from the fascistic tendencies that other horrors insufferably rely upon; there's no music to force an atmosphere and no unjust jump scares. These details go a long way in creating a sense of the unheimlich, establishing a world we're totally ready to believe in, especially during those earlier disturbances. When horror films show us ancient artefacts or blatantly fantastical occurrences, we're less inclined to engage with their version of reality because they differ too much from our own. Instances of unaccountable noises heard at night or perhaps irrational feelings of an otherworldly presence are familiar to us all, and Paranormal Activity cleverly exploits this type of fear by never straying too far from reality.

The film has since earned itself a bad name after its own exploitation by Hollywood, spawning five unwanted sequels in the space of six years, as well as leading to an explosion of "found footage" horror films. Cheap to produce and effectively scary (as proven) the sub-genre has dried up very quickly, leaving people looking back on Paranormal Activity with some distaste. Really, it's an idea that only works once. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed watching it, I could never bother sitting through it again. Both it and Poltergeist share this phantasmagoric quality, where we're dazzled with things that happen, but there's little underneath it all. In this sense, the stripped back found footage is a natural successor to expensive special effects of the 80s. Any notion of intellectual depth gets buried beneath the purely visceral thrills, and the audience is pushed to feel but not to think. This is one of the problems of the American ghost story, and why Hollywood often has to resort to the noisy, violent poltergeist rather than the quiet, equivocal spectre.

Trailer for Paranormal Activity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_UxLEqd074

Both Poltergeist and Paranormal Activity are about noisy ghosts in suburban homes. In both, the ghosts are malevolent, and both have christian undertones. These elements are so often detrimental to horror, removing any psychological or poetic complexity. Many American ghost films try to establish their own scientific sense of lore, with god-fearing paranormal professors or cross-bearing ghost hunters who talk about "paranormal realms" and have equipment to carry out supernatural experiments. It exhibits a type of American mindset where spirituality corresponds to an individual's quantifiable innate goodness. This is also evident in many other recent American ghost films; The Conjuring (2013), The Last Exorcism (2010) etc. The malevolent spirit is either a demon or a vengeful spirit refusing to move on to the afterlife and, therefore, always portrayed as the villain. In the end, the film turns out to be a spiritual conflict between good and evil, and good often has the upper hand. Films like The Shining break this trend whilst exploring what the American ghost story could be instead. Much like a Western, The Shining has an underlying sense of man against the wilderness, both geographically and psychologically. The haunted Overlook Hotel is a physical manifestation of both Jack Torrence's mental state and American colonialism. The ghosts here are ambiguous syntheses of these two aspects, manifestations of a relationship between mind, place and time. Consequently, the interplay between mind, place and time has much greater poetic traction than the interplay between good and evil.

These elements of history and location are often forgotten about in American supernatural films, with the same old haunted house cropping up again and again. Poltergeist and Paranormal Activity are good enough distractions from this trend, but they fail to do much more than distract. In the next few blog posts, I will compare these to other supernatural films from around the globe, exploring how they differ in their portrayals of the paranormal. Rooted in folklore and religion, ghosts can change vastly in their manifestations from culture to culture, often in ways that completely reshape the narrative. As shown here, there is a definite set of trends in American ghost stories including Christianity, colonial anxieties, and good and evil. The two films I have examined here both diverge from the beaten path of creepy old houses (which I would like to explore at a later date), and are oriented to feel partially relatable by the audience (through family, suburbs etc.). Furthermore both films were produced to be big-screen hits, intended to thrill rather than provoke ideas. Next week I'll be skipping across the pond to look at the British ghost on film, focusing specifically on The Innocents (1961) and Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968). Comments and suggestions for other films to look at would be greatly appreciated!

Portraying Neonazis, Pessimism and the Works of Alan Clarke

Reflections from a Young Movie-Goer 

   Alan Clarke is a criminally underrated filmmaker, albeit one who never truly reached mainstream commercial success. Whether this would've meant personal success or failure to him is debatable, a lot of his work champions the underdogs in society, often pessimistic and anti-authoritarian in tone. His chief mode of output were BBC television plays, which perhaps clarifies the reason for his being overlooked owing to the snobbery against the medium. Yet his inability to expand beyond the small screen only attests to the politics behind his work. If he wasn't given the opportunity for bigger productions, it serves as a fitting parallel to the oppression his characters faced. If he was, it's convincing evidence that he stuck to his principles; the TV was the medium of the masses, it didn't have the glitz or the dishonesty of Hollywood. 

His anti-authoritarianism ran to the core of his film making; a lot of his work depicts a bleak, post-industrial Britain, with angry and misunderstood characters filmed from a cold distance. The audience are detached onlookers rather than active emotional participants. Often there is no music to goad us into a certain frame of mind and the narratives are simple rather than complex and involving, appearing as a series of incidental rather than interconnected events. Clarke's style was carried to its logical excesses in his penultimate film, Elephant (1989) [watch here], set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The film is 40 minutes long, features no dialogue, and is made up of 18 scenes which all feature long tracking shots (Clarke's most potent stylistic motif) and culminate in murder. It was the inspiration for Gus Van Sant's later film about the Columbine shooting, also called Elephant (2003), which mimicked a lot of Clarke's stylings. It's within this sparse, alienating approach that his anti-authoritarianism was most significantly manifested. The viewer is given full reign to interpret the events how they wish, completely subverting the fascistic trappings drawbacks usually associated with film. This brings to mind Jean Cocteau's remark about Jean Genet, "He is also a moralist, in the fullest sense of the word – but a moralist is not to be confused with a man who moralizes."

Everywhere American History X (1982) goes wrong, Clarke's collaboration with screenwriter David Leland, Made in Britain (1982), goes right, for the very reasons mentioned above. Both attempt to explore the mindsets of neonazis, however the former's heavy handed plotting is far too reminiscent of its subject matter's less sympathetic traits (Nazism), whereas the latter's is analogous to its protagonist's alienation and pessimism, something the audience can truly sympathise with. American History X never really gets to the bottom of its protagonist's outrage and disillusionment, but in Made in Britain, the main character is constantly surrounded by it. Setting plays such a significant role in character development, and exposition can be incorporated effectively into a location depending on the actor's ability to interact with it. In the case of Tim Roth's performance as Trevor, his presence perfectly compliments the decaying urban scenery. He rebels against authority in his very manner of occupying a space. The long walking shots are testament to this, seemingly encapsulating the entirety of the character through his angry strutting, all without a single word being uttered. As he looks into a shop window at a group of mannequins posed as a family there is a pervading sense of the uncanny, echoed later when he ends up at his social worker's flat before dawn, sharply juxtaposed by a scene within a prison cell. The film gives the audience time to exist within the places it presents, needless explaining and artificial mood-enhancers (music, excessive camera angles) are traded in for silence and atmosphere.

Clarke gives the characters room to breathe and grow through, perhaps a skill learnt from his work as a play director. That being said, there appears to be little explicit growth in Tim Roth's character, his performance is instead beautifully nuanced and it's as if through overt character development Clarke runs the risk of moralising and departing from the film's sacred social realism. Trevor's self-centred volition and refusal to change is as much a product of his environment as anything else. In these underlying politics, the film corresponds closely to our own world and, while its now over 30 years old, it still presents an alarmingly familiar situation. One could easily pass it off as nihilistic, but its inherent pessimism is as much a call to arms as anything else. The unresolved purgatory we see on screen, one that resembles our own social climate, gives us a chance to get up and fight for our own happy ending. This exemplifies the importance of pessimism in social realist film making, as Mark Fisher points out in Capitalist Realism, "[A]nti-capitalism is widely disseminated in capitalism... [a] film performs our anti-capitalism for us, allowing us to continue to consume with impunity." Supplanting the term "capitalism" with something along the lines of "current social climate", the statement is a lot closer to explaining Made in Britain's lack of clear-cut moralising. When clearly shown the way on film, we're a lot less inclined to find it ourselves in real life.

Recently television has become a much more highly esteemed medium. Programmes like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead are causing a much bigger stir than anything the film industry has to offer. With this, though, has come more public focus and executive control over content. Clarke's TV work really excelled because of his ability to fully realise his visions using the medium, his only real problem being post-production censorship issues. Perhaps if he were alive today his primary mode of output would be independent film, his work fits closer into that canon than anywhere else, with all his BBC work recently released on blu-ray by the BFI. He treads a similar filmic path to Ken Loach whom, in comparison, appears soupy, sentimental, and too much a social justice warrior. In Loach's Cathy Come Home (1966) we know who to root for, but that is part of the problem, it comes off as mere pamphleteering against the poetry of Clarke's work. Building on the point made by Mark Fisher; Loach has done our crusading for us, but Clarke leaves the sword to be taken up by his audiences, the thousands who watch behind small screens.

Alan Clarke's steadicam shots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIpeGVdr_60 

Is there any good modern Horror out there?

Reflections from a Young Movie-Goer

In reference to my last piece on Robert Eggers' The Witch, in which I claimed that cinema was in need of more good horror; I partially take that back....

Kill List (2011, dir. Ben Wheatley)

Despite what others might say; I would class this as horror. It both breaks and revitalises the genre, creating something chillingly authentic. Also check out A Field in England (2013) and Sightseers (2012). Each film Ben Wheatley makes is utterly original and innovative, delving deep into the human psyche without ever leaving the audience behind. I'm not even going to begin to describe the plot because its best watched with a pair of naive, unsuspecting eyes. 

Antichrist (2009, dir. Lars von Trier)

Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a grieving couple who retreat to a cabin in the woods for a vacation (echoing Don't Look Now) and bizarre things start to happen. The first in Lars von Trier's "Depression Trilogy" (followed by Melancholia and Nymphomaniac), its easy to file Antichrist under "showy pretentious rubbish", but that would only validate its provocative brilliance. Like most other good horror, the real monsters are inside your head, its simply a matter of how this can be communicated with film that reveals the director's true genius. All art is essentially a psychological experiment, this gives horror a fast track to digging up and exploiting our deepest fears and anxieties. Those who down-rate Antichrist for its showiness forget that they are also participating in the film just as much as those behind the screen. 

Under the Skin (2013, dir. Jonathan Glazer)

Perhaps my favourite film from the last decade, if not of all time, Under the Skin is both a visceral and a sublime experience. The plot is minimal but never leaves you in want of more; Scarlett Johansson plays an alien disguised as a human driving around Glasgow, picking up men from the streets to harvest for her mothership. I say "harvest for her mothership", but in the sequences where this happens, anyone's interpretation is as good as mine. It is slow, hypnotic and visually stunning. Check out my review of it from January. Even better, watch it for yourself and try to work out who the true monster is.

Troll Hunter (2010, dir. André Øvredal)

With the falling costs of CGI and decent film-making equipment, smaller production companies are now able to realise and bring to life visions wholly unimaginable a couple of decades ago. Back then, Jurassic Park (1993) was a big-budget A-list film on the cutting edge of technology. Its incredible how something like Trollhunter can create something just as effective on a fraction of the budget. Furthermore, its a film completely rooted in Norwegian folklore and culture. It would be awesome to see more films like this from across the globe that integrate their own cultural and folkloric elements into the story, seeing as we're already pretty familiar with America's. 

Berberian Sound Studio (2012, dir. Peter Strickland)

Starring Toby Jones as a quiet English sound engineer who goes to Italy to work on recording the sound for a Giallo film, Berberian Sound Studio is a psychological meta-horror (for lack of a better term) where all the scares are implied rather than shown. Its slow moving, claustrophobic and alienating albeit in a very subtle way, perhaps too subtle for most horror fans. 

This is not to mention the likes of Cabin in the Woods (2012), It Follows (2015), Creep (2014) or Drag me to Hell (2009), but you get the idea. 

There have been at least a handful of films over the last decade or so that have utilised the horror genre to brilliant effect. However most if not all of these are independent films. Aside from something like Cabin in the Woods, most don't receive the full recognition that they should in comparison to what usually passes for Horror recently. We're too used to defining horror by those exhaustive, executive-driven franchises like Saw and Paranormal Activity, or those god-awful soul-crushing remakes such as the 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The real problem is what we think constitutes a horror film. We're stuck with these dry expectations; jump scares, zombies, gore, things jumping out and making snarly faces. We're stuck with the same characters, the same situations, the same places, the same effects, and they've lost all their genuine scare value. Its given the genre an image problem, and a chance for executives to churn out sequel after sequel and remake after remake. In spreading awareness of good horror, perhaps change can come from below, from the audience who truly have more power over the industry than the executives.

Most of the films mentioned can be found on Netflix, Amazon Prime or BFI player.

 

The Witch (2015, dir. Robert Eggers)

Reflections from a Young Movie-goer

   The jump-scare is perhaps one of the worst afflictions of cinematic horror today. Countless films recently have forgone the often emotionally-complex slow burn of atmosphere building to instead churn out a series of uniformly dull, predictable shocks with no inherent reward, value or insight to them. The need to make a quick buck drives this trend; jump-scares are easy, cheap and, to a lot of people, enough for the price of admission. This is problematic for horror as it doesn't give the producers any incentive to risk making more complex, thought-provoking pictures, on account of the fear that they won't perform at the box-office. However, this is a vicious circle as the average cinema-goer has been conditioned to expect cheap, superficial thrills from horror. When they are confronted with a film that doesn't seem to provide these, they won't bother with it. This means that when indie films like The Witch (2015), devoid of jump-scares and full of ideas, get mainstream attention, its something to be quite excited about.

Robert Eggers' directorial debut, describing itself as "A New England Folktale", centres on a family of Puritans in colonial New England who are expelled from their plantation over what seems to be differences in religious belief. The family moves to the edge of a forest, where they build a new home and a farm to live on. Frequent, lingering shots of the vast landscape and forest, almost completely absent of human life save for the family, create a sense of almost overwhelming isolation, almost sublime in its quietude. The youngest of the children, Samuel, mysteriously vanishes while under the care of the eldest daughter, Thomasin. What follows is a dizzying, paranoid descent into the delusional minds of a fanatical family on the edge of absolute wilderness, and the persecution that follows. There are few cheap thrills, but what the film suggests rings true in a deeply disturbing way.

It's essentially a story about stories, and this is where the film's real genius is. Elsewhere people have claimed that it should have been marketed as art-house rather than horror. Perhaps this would have better accommodated some people's expectations, but it would deprive The Witch of the full power of its central thesis. It shares this self-awareness with Jennifer Kent's The Babadook (2014), another recent horror film that fully utilises the conventions of the genre to illustrate its message. (I won't spoil its brilliance by deconstructing it here, but I will say that it goes further than The Babadook in its clever usage of horror.) In an industry divided amongst the axes of art and entertainment, films that seem to transcend this rigid apparatus stand out as perhaps the most authentic. And while The Witch isn't the most transcendent of these authentic visions (as evidenced by its leaving many baffled), it makes a brilliant case for the potential of the genre in cinema today.

Using horror to such effect, it rivals the likes of Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (2009), another film examining religion's effects on family and community. Perhaps it surpasses it through its very contrivance, the idea behind it satisfies immensely. In terms of production, the film is also exceptional. The acting, while at first seeming a bit stiff, stuck up in the drama of its world, progresses and culminates into some breathtaking scenes. Performances all round become spectacular, especially Anya Taylor Joy as Thomasin and Ralph Ineson as the father (his low, rattling northern accent fits the scenery perfectly). Both lighting and camerawork bring out the full creepiness of the landscape and the sheer primitive struggle of the period, creating ripe conditions to examine the humanity in unnerving depth. Its usage of ye-olde dialect and language accentuate the sense of alienation, the distance of characters from one another and the audience. Its a clever technique, which puts the audience right into the middle of the paranoia; what we see is as fantastically equivocal as what the characters see. Its interesting in comparison to Aleksei German's Hard to Be a God (2013), which achieved a similar affect through a completely different, more visceral means. Rather than creating a claustrophobic, stream-of-consciousness-type atmosphere, with characters leering down the lens at you, The Witch's audience involvement requires a level of intellectual participation.

The only real negative aspect of the whole experience ironically stems from the limitations of the genre. This isn't really a problem inasmuch as a hindrance of the film reaching a state of pure poetry. Genre will always be prosaic and this can hold it back from reaching total cinematic sublimity. As long as it's horror, one will always know roughly what to expect. Compare this to a Tarkovsky film, which is pure poetry, the viewer can be carried away into lofty, spiritual reaches. The Witch is first and foremost a statement and as such it can never reach the open-ended wonder that some other brilliant films do. This isn't a large price to pay for what we get instead, its barely even an actual qualm. What it is, though, is a comparison of genre to non-genre cinema, or perhaps comparing poetry to prose. Cinema needs both, and its particularly in need of more innovative, masterful prose as we get from the likes of good horror, especially The Witch.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQXmlf3Sefg

American History X (1998, dir. Tony Kaye)

Reflections from a Young Movie-goer

   More often than not, films with "American" in their title seem to be aiming for some sort of grandiose parable status. American Beauty, American Psycho, American Sniper, American Pop, all of these films are to some extent concerned with evoking something about the American condition, something which transcends the film itself. Part of it is inherent within the very use of "American" in the title, it makes this particular aspect of the film central. This is more than apparent in Tony Kaye's American History X (1998), which aims directly at the weighty issue of race relations and racism in the USA.

Told in a non-linear, fragmentary style, aided by the use of black and white photography to indicate past events, the story follows two brothers involved in the neo-nazi movement in Los Angeles. Edward Norton gives an immense performance as the older brother, Derek, who after being released from prison renounces his membership of the movement, only to discover his younger brother is becoming increasingly involved in it. The younger brother, Danny, played by Edward Furlong, is in trouble at school after submitting a paper about Mein Kampf, and has been tasked by his principle with writing a paper about his brother titled "American History X". The film then dots around, switching between black and white; charting in a non-chronological sequence Derek's path to racial hatred, activities as a gang leader and rehabilitation in prison, and colour; the events of the evening which involve Danny attending a neo-nazi party against Derek's wishes. The film's heart is in the right place, but there are some very obvious missteps in its approach which hold it back from being something far greater.

The fragmentary mode of story telling can result in some ingenious narrative structures, not to mention some sublime, filmic moments. Take for example Mike Leigh's Mr Turner (2015), by portraying only several carefully selected episodes from J. M. W. Turner's later years and using a kind of impressionistic realism that Leigh does best, he evokes almost perfectly not just the mind of the artist, but the era in which he lived. Furthermore, what we are not shown is just as important as what we are; the aftermath of something momentous can hold just as much power than the something momentous itself. Though this is not always the case, every film which employs a fragmentary method needs to be aware just how much it gives its audience. Ironically, much like its subject matter, American History X manages to be completely fascistic with its material, leaving very little room for contemplation or emotional depth. Too often, it feels as if the film is demanding its audience's emotions without properly earning them. As a result, there's one or two moments which fall completely flat in their intentions. Ideally, rather than taking any of these bits out, the whole film needs a least another hour of material to space out the scenes it intends to be more arresting. Either this, or it re-structures the narrative to create situations which allude to what is instead show.

The few effective moments of the film, though, reach much greater heights than the rest. Central to these are Edward Norton's performance which attempts to dissect the mentality of disaffected suburban youth, and almost succeeds if it were not for the heavy handedness of the narrative. The characters he's surrounded by resemble the scenes themselves, lacking the essential nuance and complication for real drama to occur. This is especially damaging to the film given the effort it puts into examining race relations. Unlike other films which tackle the same subject matter, for instance Boyz n the Hood (1991), to which it pales in comparison, it feels itself too worthy to spend time establishing characters or atmosphere. It hurries to get to the point without bringing its world to life first.

American History X isn't a bad film at all. It's just that there's a much more sophisticated, nobler film beneath the ineffective clutter of scenes that it actually is. A film only glimpsed momentarily, almost entirely lost if it were not for Edward Norton's performance which saves it from mediocrity. However, it does show a genuine intent towards analysing a very real and problematic mindset. Its a film that wants to make a splash, it wants to present on film an ugly side of America and show the humanity that hides underneath. Yet overmanipulative scene after overmanipulative scene consistently undermine its good intentions, and instead of humans we get simplistic ciphers giving a simplistic explanation for a complicated problem.  

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsPW6Fj3BUI 

Dead Man (1995, dir. Jim Jarmusch)

Reflections from a Young Movie-goer

   The Western is an interesting genre. Using the cowboy era, a relatively short span of American history, the Western has managed to mythologise the rugged individualism that sits at the core of American ideology. They are, in some sense, the fairy tales of the US, their macho heroes are not characters so much as ideals. And in the best of the classic Westerns, this ideal is opened up and scrutinized on a deeper level. Take, for instance, John Wayne's character in John Ford's The Searchers (1956), he is the image of rough, American masculinity, fearlessly pursuing his kidnapped niece across a dangerous, unforgiving landscape. But at the same time he is psychologically scarred, a veteran of the Civil War (having fought for the Confederacy), and on his quest he is as much driven by feelings of hatred for the Native Americans than by love for his niece.

The Western not only has the power to construct the American ideal, but also to deconstruct it. Ford doesn't necessarily condone Ethan's (Wayne's character) actions and motivations, but simply puts them up on screen for the audience to view from an apathetic distance. This apathy makes the Western increasingly existential, its process of deconstruction and introspection more self aware. Against an unpopulated and belittling backdrop, and alongside the various struggles and atrocities that accompany the growing pains of a nation, the Western's of today are a vastly more political and philosophical affair. Take for instance Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012). As a film-maker, Tarantino deals mostly with already established filmic types and ideas, and nowhere is this more evident than in Django, taking staples of the Western and putting them into new configurations; the liberated slave becomes a cowboy. But whereas the intentions of Django are more political, films like Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995) are philosophical.

In Dead Man, Johnny Depp plays William Blake an accountant who journeys by train westward to the small town of "Machine" following the promise of a job at a metal works. Upon arrival, he finds the job has been given to someone else and he is driven out at gunpoint by the company's owner, John Dickinson (played by Robert Mitchum). With no prospects and very little cash left, Blake goes home with a former prostitute who sells paper flowers. In the morning, her ex-boyfriend surprises them in bed and, aiming for Blake, accidentally shoots her. While he is shocked, Blake nervously reaches for a gun and shoots him, missing twice before finally hitting him. Blake realises the bullet that killed the woman is deeply embedded in his chest (thus making him a Dead Man).The ex-boyfriend turns out to be John Dickinson's son, who dispatches three bounty hunters to track him down and bring him back dead or alive. While on the run, Blake meets a stoic Native American called Nobody who believes that he is the famous poet of the same name. What follows is a film that is all at once dark, gritty, hilarious, slow and incredibly dreamlike. Depp starts out looking more like Buster Keaton, but after he is confronted with his own mortality he slowly undergoes a transformation into something a lot more like Clint Eastwood's man with no name.

Like Tarantino, Jarmusch draws heavily from culture. Rather than just pop culture and filmic types, though, he expands this to include culture itself, and draws two or more together in various ways to create authentic, new experiences. This is most apparent in films like Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999), which fuses Japanese philosophy with a Hip Hop soundtrack to construct a new American cultural formation on film. In the case of Dead Man, though, Jarmusch takes Native American spiritualism and applies it to the filmic elements of the Western. The result is something that blends poetry and existentialism, meaningless death with fate. This is to put it simply, though, the film is rather more a melting pot of ideas and references which puts mood and inventiveness before plot and characters. As a result, it can appear increasingly jagged around the edges at times, feeling either daring and new, or overblown and vapid (or even both, for that matter). The vignette structure, fading to black after each scene, alleviates this somewhat by making the film seem more like a set of dreamlike fragments.

In comparison to the polished prose of John M. Maclean's Slow West (2015), Dead Man is pure poetry. Neil Young's spare, electric guitar soundtrack is repetitive, sometimes irritating in its recycling of sounds, but it feels almost like a mantra, collapsing the events of the film into a single, discordant memory, like a dream had the moment before awakening. The film's ending could easily loop back to the beginning, and play in an infinite cycle. This is the essence of the film's Native American spiritualism, thoughtfully meditating against an absurdist backdrop of death and deadpan humour. Alongside this is a plethora of Blakean imagery, riffing on the themes of innocence and experience, apparent in Depp's transformation and a scene in which he lies down next to a dead fawn. Here the American frontier is not a place of growth and prosperity, but death and decay. Life in this strange, deadly land can best be understood through the outlook of Nobody.

Jarmusch utilises a high sense of artifice, particularly in the town of Machine, not only to amplify the film's dreaminess, but also as cultural reference points for the audience. Drawing attention to these stereotypes, the film is much more effective in conveying its philosophy. The rugged individual is no longer the upright, American ideal, but an amoral, nameless cultural hybrid faced with his own mortality. Justice and honour aren't so important as an animalistic awareness of the chaos of being. Reason has no place in the West, neither on the vast plains nor the unruly frontier towns. The Western and its myths might have been dissected and scrutinised many times before, but Dead Man manages to do it to far more interesting effect.

It meanders, providing hits and misses along the way, but there's no doubt that the audience is left with a series of thought-provoking, poetic images that will resurface in the mind many days later. The cast and their performances are both exact, Gary Farmer's Nobody is endlessly expressive and enigmatic, while Depp is the exact reverse, stony-faced yet transparent, together they provide a highly watchable and compelling on screen duo. In his utilisation of the Western genre and its tropes, Jarmusch has confronted not just political ideas about the US, but philosophical ones about the very nature of being. This might seem a grandiose way of putting it, but the power of the dreamlike storytelling simply speaks on a more human level than those it shares a genre with. It might delight and dazzle some, others will be left aggravated and baffled, but surely if anything this is an immunisation against mediocrity, film's deadliest disease.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn2nQMfLqwg

Rosemary's Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski)

Reflections from a Young Movie-goer

     After watching and loving Roman Polanski's 1965 psychological horror Repulsion, I was more than excited to see his more well known film Rosemary's Baby. Its a title frequently thrown around when the subject of “best horror” comes up, along with the likes of The Shining, The Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all three of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Horror is perhaps one of the most versatile (and definitely visceral) genres in cinema, as well as one of the most accessible. Its role is to play on the common-held fears of mankind. Therefore it is one of the most inclusive modes of storytelling. One could argue that there are many other types of film which do a similar thing, but, to me, horror is the most profound. Horror can be loud or quiet, terrifyingly abstract or dreadfully real, political or personal. It gives the film maker an excuse to explore their inner-most selves without seeming self-indulgent. The more we explore the dark and depraved world through the lens, the more we can see its depth and beauty in real life. Furthermore fear is active as an emotion, it doesn't need an enormous intellect to be understood but it can lead one into deep thought. Horror is also a response to every other genre. Take Ben Wheatley's Kill List, for instance, which starts out as a socially realistic domestic drama before taking a complete turn into horror. Rosemary's Baby does a similar thing but with much more nuance.

Its plot follows a young couple, Rosemary played by Mia Farrow and Guy played by John Cassavetes, who move into an old apartment in New York city. A friend of theirs, called Hutch, warns them against moving in to the apartment and tells them about its sordid history. Their neighbours include a nosy and eccentric elderly couple whom they unintentionally start socialising with. The elderly couple start involving themselves a lot in the young couple's lives, giving Rosemary a charm containing “Tannis root” and, on one night, a dessert to eat when they're planning on conceiving a child. After noting that the dessert has a strange undertaste, Rosemary passes out and dreams she is raped by a devil as all of her neighbours, standing naked, look on. From here on a number of complications start to arise. As the due date, June 28^th 1966 (hint hint hint) approaches, her health deteriorates and she falls into madness, learning that her neighbours are possibly witches who wish to take her baby for Satanic purposes.

The film works as a horror because it keeps the audience questioning Rosemary's speculations and her perspective; Is it going to be a psychological or a supernatural horror? I find films almost always scarier when the viewer is uncertain as to what they are actually scared of. This is something I've explored in other reflections (see Videodrome and Under the Skin reviews). Though I didn't find it nearly as scary or meaningful as Repulsion, which is far more visceral, raw and psychologically shocking as a horror film. The eeriness of Rosemary's Baby lies in its absurdism, the bizarre lurking beneath the every day. But, overall, it has far less effect today than the other's punchy realism. Its higher budget and bigger story roots it more in the 60s, and this makes many of the dramatic and comic aspects of the plot fail because of their datedness. Yet, with many of the narrative tropes of horror combined with the aesthetics of a drama, it has an impressive sophistication in its plot, drawing more on the eery rather than the scary. This is what gives it its nuance in comparison to something like Kill List, which channels one genre then the other.

There are many similarities in the progression between Repulsion to Rosemary's Baby and Jean Cocteau's two films The Blood of a Poet and Orphée. The director has explored similar themes, but their first is a lot more weird and visceral (almost more so for its age and lower budget), while the second has a bigger budget, a wider story and is more rooted in the canon of popular film. I think that both films for both directors are good in different ways, but in both instances I got more out of their first films.

But there were several parts to Rosemary's Baby I really enjoyed, which all stick out against the datedness of some of the other parts. The use of space and lighting in all the interior shots was incredibly atmospheric, adding more to the sense of eeriness than most of the characters. The visual motif of one room viewed from another. The sound of a ticking clock. All of these were utilised to similar effect in Repulsion, and are developed perfectly here. Polanski's approach to shooting interiors must have influenced Stanley Kubrick in The Shining in some way. Another performance I really liked was Guy's, which paralleled the uncanniness of the apartment through both his distance and his familiarity. The notion of the bizarre lurking underneath the everyday is most expressed through the apartment and Guy, drawing attention to the status of marriage and the home. Polanski is really exploring how these can turn against the woman, as well as questioning maternal duty. There is an interesting subtext to the film, which makes repeat viewings much desirable. At least Rosemary's Baby has this over Repulsion, which one can understand more completely the first time around.

Usually I'm not too keen on remakes, unless they are also reinventions. I was sad to hear that Nicolas Roeg's masterpiece Don't Look Now is being remade, which, if this were to happen, would lose a lot of its power. Yet, I feel as if I would welcome a remake of Rosemary's Baby, if put in the right hands. This is mainly because I felt the effectiveness of the plot against its datedness was jarring in places. As I have said before, some films attain a vintage quality with age where their oldness becomes charming. But in the case of this film, I think it tarnishes some of its desired effect. The most recent film I could think of which bears some resemblance is Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, which is definitely worth checking out for those interested in seeing something that explores similar themes of madness, marriage and maternal grief. Its also quite scary.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PewtQsgN5uo

Slow West (2015, dir. John Maclean)

Reflections from a Young Movie-goer

    I somehow managed to watch three other films in my break from writing on here; Man Bites Dog, Jean Luc Godard's Le Mepris and What We Do in the Shadows. For the first film I was only half-alert, but the other two I sat down and watched and enjoyed greatly. I won't do a full review on either of them now, but might reflect on them in future (I think Le Mepris might be one of the best films I've ever seen). I had Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby next on my schedule, but wasn't able to watch it last night. I did, however, watch something which I was just as interested in, Slow West.

I'm not overly-familiar with the Western genre, the extent of my watching includes The Searchers, No Country for Old Men, Django Unchained and bits of old Westerns on TV. Only one of these did I really enjoy; The Searchers. The latter two, while I appreciated them and really like some of their respective directors' other work, left me cold. I felt that the primary problem I had with both films was their actual attempts at the genre, despite my own inexperience with it (or perhaps because of my own experience with it). The only Tarantino films I've truly enjoyed were Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. I feel that his trademark is making style look like substance; if you don't enjoy the style, there won't be any substance. The three other Coen Brothers films I've seen: Fargo, The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou? have all been excellent. I think the main problem with No Country, which isn't really a problem with the film itself, was the fact that I'd previously read the book by Cormac McCarthy and preferred it a lot more. I'm not a believer in the “books are always better” argument and I think that film adaptations create something new altogether. But McCarthy's style complemented the plot a lot better than the Coen Brothers'. The Searchers feels a lot more daring and innovative as a western, compared to the other old westerns I'd seen bits of. It's dark and complex in its themes while epic and picturesque in length, and the modern viewer can revel in all its vintage western wonder. The other two films, though, tread similar ground in terms of morality, bringing not enough new to the screen.

Based on this trend, I didn't think I'd find much to like in Slow West, John Maclean's first full length feature starring Michael Fassbender and Kodi Smit-McPhee. The plot is simple and, as the title suggests, slow; Smit-McPhee plays a 16 year old Scottish boy who travels west across America in search of a girl he loves, who also emigrated from Scotland with her father. He runs into a bounty hunter, played by Fassbender, and pays him for protection. The bounty hunter soon discovers that the girl and her father are wanted and are being tracked by another gang of bounty hunters. It balances traditional western tropes with an offbeat, indie sensibility which fit together near-perfectly. This quirky sensibility allows it to approach the western tropes with a humour and a depth one would usually associate with European films. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

Slow West feels like it innovates its genre. The diverse range of ethnicities we see; Congolese, Scottish, Swedish, Native American (not to mention the bounty hunter's mixed heritage) drifting across a dangerous and largely unconquered land makes it feel truly wild, exciting and primordial. Along with an interesting score, the locations (its actually shot in New Zealand) bring a fairy-tale beauty to the mix, adding to this whole sense of genre-revitalisation. This is the main difference between it and films such as Django Unchained, it only takes from the Western genre what it really needs to. When watching Django, I felt that Tarantino was trying to cram in everything he knew about Westerns, which made it seem more like a facsimile than anything. Slow West, on the other hand, is a lot more lean and refined. Lasting only 84 minutes, its slow but not sprawling, and the mastery of its story telling means it never seems gimicky or self-indulgent.

Ultimately, its a story about two universal elements; love and death, which it handles with all the mythicising absurdism of a western. But it has an exotic freshness and black humour which summon up many, many names before the likes of John Ford. But, above all, it engages the viewer on an emotional level, something which neither No Country for Old Men or Django Unchained did. Overall, it is this quality, with its fairy-tale simplicity, that makes all of the film's other innovations truly shine. I would like to see more films like Slow West in the future. Another film which I imagine to be just as innovative is A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, tagged as the first "Iranian Vampire Western", although I'm guessing it innovates in a completely different way. Despite my inexperience in the genre and my dislike of half the films I've seen from it, I would still say I have a lot of time for the Western.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFfsTsdJfF8