Even though I love watching movies I have already found out
that finding topics for my infant blog is tough. And when I find a topic and
then watch the movie it feels like I m watching it because I have to and not
because I enjoy it. In the back of my mind I knew that I would feel this way,
and I knew it would happen quick just like with most things I pursue. This
isn’t work but I m so good at quietly sabotaging myself into camouflaging an
entertaining outlet for me to express myself with something that I love. Maybe
that’s why I love film so much, because all you do is sit there and take. There
are no expectations from the audience, only that they become emotionally
involved and then leave. I am not required to do anything and that is just fine
by me. The simplicity of feeling all these synthetic emotions is a relief from
experiencing them in reality when reality isn’t nearly as forgiving or humorous
or compassionate or empathetic or friendly or pleasurable as what is seen on
the screen. I have taken for too long and I would like to give something back,
even it only amounts to a just barely floating blog.
I finally
watched Sleeping Beauty, not the Disney movie, last night and honestly I really
can’t make out what the story tried to convey. I did understand that it was
filmed in Australia ,
Oi Mate!, and that this dark story reminded me of Snowtown, an even darker true
story but I’ll get to that in a bit mate. The main character, Lucy, who is
classically beautiful is struggling out in the real world but has no problem in
using her beauty to escape these troubles. Throughout the movie she seems
completely detached with each new encounter that arises, except for one. The
only time Lucy feels vulnerable is when she is laying unconscious, which is her
decision, and fully naked with old men who pay to have their way with her in
anyway as long as they follow the golden rule of “no penetration” and when she
visits her alcoholic shut-in friend. She is always kind enough to supply vodka
for him and even pours it in a bowl of cereal, substituting it for milk, for
him. They are made to understand each other in ways that we are not suppose to
understand and that much we should at least understand….uummmmmm yeah. Neither
judge one another for their choices and both are there to console and soothe
for any mistake that is made. He is there to lull her to sleep and she is there
to ease his pain as he pulls a Nic Cage from Leaving Las Vegas and drinks
himself to death. Even though they are there for each other that does not mean
they are connected in any way; they are more like to objects floating in space
that happen to glide next to one another until one collided and smashed into a
planet.
Once her
friend dies Lucy becomes desperate for money and constantly needs that break
from reality that she has lost. She starts volunteering more and more to render
her services out to these rich old men desperate for a beautiful girls body,
and not for sex, more along the lines to console them in whatever way they need
to be consoled without judgment. Each time the ritual is the same: drink the
potion and sleep soundly only to remember nothing. We watch each new man reveal
his insecurities to Lucy while she sleeps and becomes an emotional punching bag
for them to wail on. After a couple of sessions her curiosity succeeds her
apathy so she places a small hidden camera in the room. In this session though
the man can take living no longer and purposely drinks too much potion. He
cannot bear to live or die alone so he chooses Lucy to help ease his pain, just
as her alcoholic friend did. Lucy goes to bed with her dying friend only to
wake up with a dead stranger in her bed. Her reality finally sets in that she
is awake. Even when she is asleep she cannot escape knowing how ugly and
uncontrollable everything is. Her beauty cannot shield her from unhappy ugly
experiences that need to be endured. She may have been paid a lot of money for
her beauty but that act just reassures the unfortunate greed for something that
should be pure and not peddled around like currency or exhibition of power. It
is now clear to her that beauty can be as big a burden as commonality.
I honestly
was hoping to be more shocked by this movie, I have no idea why but it was kind
of a let down. It was beautifully shot though. Many of the shots when Lucy is
sleeping appear like an old colonial painting instead of a movie. It reminds me
of the ending shots to 2001: A Space Odyssey when the main character is trapped
watching himself evolve through the stages of life only to be reborn. The plot
felt like it needed a little more substance throughout though. Lucy’s
interactions with each character left me kind of unsatisfied and felt more like
a loosely woven story of many different vignettes which made each scene drag on
and feel heavy. All together I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would but
it definitely wasn’t a disaster. I guess the Australian movies that I have seen
have just been so brutal and raw, like Snowtown, that I wasn’t expecting the
subtleties of Sleeping Beauty.
Snowtown is
one of the best movies I’ve seen in a while. As soon as the film begins it
radiates a feeling of intense restriction, like a mouse being dropped into a
cage with a python. A low steady beat dramatizes a fast moving shot of the
country side as the main character narrates a reoccurring dream. From the
beginning I was hooked and on the edge of my seat.
We are
introduced to a family of a mother and three young teen boys living, in what
looks like, the slums or outskirts of a major town. Right away they are all
abused by their neighbor, someone who was thought to be a friend. The mother
then becomes trapped with a deviant neighbor because the cops don’t do anything
about it and neither can she. Enter John, a man who shows empathy towards the
family by vandalizing the abusive neighbor’s house until he moves and quickly
earns the trust of all the kids which can only lead to earning the trust of the
mother. From there John infiltrates the house like he has been living there for
years and becomes a father figure. Once he has earned the oldest boys (Jaime)
trust John manipulates that trust by molding Jaime into a drone out of fear.
In one of
the scenes Jaime is staying over at John’s house and they are eating dinner
until John, with a smile on his face, asks if Jaime likes being raped. Jaime is
dumbfounded but of course says no. John wants to know why he doesn’t do
anything about it and gives Jaime a gun. John calls his dog over and politely
asks Jaime, over and over again, to shoot it. John’s patience runs out and
orders Jaime to shoot and he does out of fear. From that point on we know Jaime
is John’s drone. John will stand for nothing more than obedience, whether it be
his dog taking the bullet or his dog shooting the bullet. John finishes what
Jaime can’t do by stolidly ending the dog. Jaime becomes brainwashed with
John’s rhetoric of “well if you aren’t fighting for us, then you must be one of
them”. With Jaime, John can now begin what he has been planning for a while.
In another
scene John sits in a lawn chair in the backyard with a smirk on his face
staring straight ahead. He stares for a bit, then picks up two bricks and hands
them to Jaime’s little brother who is wearing a woman’s dress and standing on a
table. John hands them to the little brother and makes him hold them out at
shoulder height as he watches in his chair. John constantly needs to control. John
watches him struggle with pleasure. His manipulation through fear has trapped
the entire family and the claustrophobia only rises from there. They have no
where to go or no one to turn to. John has permeated into their family and now
owns and delegates them as puppets.
The best
way to describe John is when he satisfyingly watches and becomes entranced as the
life escape from a strangled victim. Over and over the victim is strangled
within one breathe of his life only to be allowed air so John can watch this
torture again and again. John is in control. He is a disturbed character with
no remorse. The worst part about John is he knows how attract the damaged souls
who are looking for a stronger person who can supply answers, even if they are
not the right ones. Jaime is looking for an outlet from all his problems:
sexual abuse inside and outside of the family, lackless existence and rejection
from all the people that should be protecting him. It doesn’t take much for
John to gain Jaime’s trust, just a few kind gestures are enough to manipulate
Jaime’s genuine confidence.
The movie
follows how Jaime becomes involved with these ugly crimes but the movie is
clearly about the brutality of John. John is relentless from the beginning and
we see early that he should not be underestimated in his sadistic nature. His
manipulation soaks deep within the family, so much so that he commits these
crimes at their house and in front of them. John is one of the most ruthless
characters I have seen in a long time and this is one of the most brutal and
thrilling movies I have seen in a long time. There is no confusion when
watching this movie it is just a straight to the point brutal assault raw
film.
