Thursday, October 11, 2012

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Ew, OOWWW!!!


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.   

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