tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/film-review-1695/articles
Film review – The Conversation
2024-03-26T12:50:09Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/226533
2024-03-26T12:50:09Z
2024-03-26T12:50:09Z
Road House explores what it means to be a hyper-masculine hardman in the 21st century
<p>Through Doug Liman’s reimagining of the Patrick Swayze vehicle Road House (1989), Amazon Prime is trying to draw a distinction between “toxic” hyper-masculinity and “useful” hyper-masculinity. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/hypermasculinity">Hyper-masculinity</a> refers to the exaggeration of stereotypical masculine traits and behaviours, emphasising physical strength, violence, aggression and sexuality. </p>
<p>Road House tells the story of Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) a down on his luck former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighter who takes a job as a bouncer at a Florida Keys roadhouse. He soon discovers that the roadhouse is at the centre of a power struggle between gangsters, corrupt cops, and its charismatic owner Frankie (Jessica Williams). And guess what? Dalton’s the only one who can sort it all out. </p>
<p>The film plays out as a western, and it’s a bit meta about it too. Charlie (Hannah Lanier), a teenager that Dalton befriends, continually reminds us that Dalton’s life mirrors <a href="https://jweberle.com/2023/04/26/a-stranger-rides-into-town/">the stranger archetype</a> of the wild west genre. “Your job,” she tells him, “it’s like something out of a western. You’re the Lone Ranger walking into a lawless town, bringing order to chaos.” </p>
<p>If you like action films, and you have your tongue firmly in your cheek, then you’ll probably like this. Road House is packed with fun, fighting, fast cars and frivolous funnies. But what makes it interesting is the not-so-subtle exploration of what it means to be a hyper-masculine hard man in the 21st century.</p>
<h2>The hardmen of Prime</h2>
<p>Over the past few years, the Amazon Originals slate has heavily invested in hyper-masculine stories, with several films dedicated to adrenaline-fuelled muscle men kicking butt and taking names. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Road House.</span></figcaption>
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<p>With prominent action hero productions such as Reacher (2022), The Terminal List (2022), and the forthcoming <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/god-of-war-tv-show-amazon-1235460972/">God of War</a>, it is not much of a stretch to suggest that Prime Video is fast becoming the new home for the hyper-masculine hardmen of the small screen.</p>
<p>The Amazon Studios <a href="https://press.amazonstudios.com/us/en/press-release/amazon-studios-releases-inclusion-policy-and">inclusion policy and playbook</a> claims that: “Amazon Studios has long prioritized telling innovative and inclusive stories from a diverse range of creative talent.” So why, then, are the 1980s calling and asking for their action genre back?</p>
<p>The 2024 Road House is in keeping with the Amazon Studios’ playbook in that diverse casting is front and centre in the story – but at its core it is a <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Hard_Bodies/7nERHha7TZUC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=hard+bodies+the+reagan+heroes&pg=PA24&printsec=frontcover">portrayal of hard-bodied hyper-masculinity</a> and its associated ultra-violent behaviour. </p>
<h2>Masculinity in Road House</h2>
<p>From the outset, masculinity in the movie is associated with drinking, gambling, aggression, social dysfunction and thoughts of suicide. Dalton is a loner, who lives in the shadows and makes his money by hustling at underground mixed martial arts fights. He has few possessions and nowhere to live. </p>
<p>Yet, for all he is disempowered financially, he is empowered by the physicality of his body. His existence is defined by and dependent on his hyper-masculinity. You can stab him, beat him up, hit him with a pickup truck and he’ll just keep coming back.</p>
<p>Frankie harnesses Dalton’s hyper-masculine aggression to sort out the trouble at her roadhouse, which is overrun with thugs who are chasing off her customers. She can’t get help from the cops because they’re corrupt. So, she hires a harder man to sort out her hardman problem. And it works. Dalton’s hyper-masculine aggression is presented as functional. Given a purpose, Dalton becomes a useful tool. His hyper-masculinity is deployed for good.</p>
<p>It is up to Knox, played by former UFC champion <a href="https://www.ufc.com/athlete/conor-mcgregor">Connor McGregor</a>, to represent the “toxic” side of hyper-masculinity. As the only antagonist capable of challenging Dalton, Knox’s aggression has no real purpose. His violence is uncontrollable, unpredictable and sexually aggressive. He is the dark mirror of Dalton and as the story progresses, the boundary between the two men becomes less clear. To overcome Knox, Dalton must embrace the darkest aspects of his own hyper-masculinity.</p>
<p>Dalton’s hyper-masculinity is ultimately tragic. Once he has defeated Knox and solved the problem at the roadhouse, he is of no more use to the community of Glass Key and must move on. </p>
<p>So, does this mean that Road House is problematic in its messaging? Well, that’s up to the viewer to decide. The story is ridiculous, and it doesn’t pretend otherwise. It’s a guilty pleasure. A pastiche. So, in that sense, probably not. But then again the character of Knox cuts close to the bone in light of McGregor’s <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/conor-mcgregor-ufc-champion-timeline-arrests-abuse-1234772835/">real life legal troubles</a>, which include allegations of assault, reckless driving and robbery, which he has denied – all of which are featured in Road House. And these are characteristics that probably aren’t worth celebrating. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Quinn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
If you like action films, and you have your tongue firmly in your cheek, then you’ll probably like this.
John Quinn, Lecturer in Screen & Performance, School of Business and Creative Industries, University of the West of Scotland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222606
2024-03-15T05:07:18Z
2024-03-15T05:07:18Z
‘An exceptionally queasy atmosphere’: the unsettling new Aussie horror You’ll Never Find Me
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582118/original/file-20240315-20-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=142%2C11%2C7797%2C5249&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Credit Ian Routledge. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle of the night, during a terrible thunderstorm, a sodden stranger knocks on Patrick’s door hoping to use a phone. Insomniac Patrick (Brendan Rock) is a paranoid, bearded loner who sits alone in his dimly-lit mobile home as if he is waiting for a dawn that may never come. The nameless, barefoot visitor (Jordan Cowan), a 20-something woman with long dark hair and haunted eyes, seems unsure if she’s stumbled across a saviour, or a predator. </p>
<p>This unexpected encounter opens the Australian psychological horror film You’ll Never Find Me, an unsettling and economical chamber piece that makes effective use of its limited location and its dialogue-heavy script.</p>
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<h2>Shifting identities</h2>
<p>We begin the film unsure about either character’s identity or motivations. “I’m afraid you’ve knocked on the wrong door,” drawls Patrick mournfully. </p>
<p>He shows the visitor initially reluctant but surprisingly tender hospitality and she is uncertain how to respond. At time drags on, Patrick demonstrates a deep willingness to wax lyrical about his take on life’s difficulties. “It’s nice to pass the time with a stranger,” he confesses. </p>
<p>As the storm knocks out the power, it’s unclear whether the visitor will be able to leave. It’s also obvious something more ominous and perhaps infernal is unfolding. </p>
<p>Directed by Josiah Allen and Indianna Bell, the film offers a gothic, moody ambience. The mobile home is isolated from others in the park. It presents a claustrophobic environment and comes to be a character in its own right: it creaks and groans like a ship riding the waves. </p>
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<img alt="A man sits at a table at the end of a hallway." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582119/original/file-20240315-22-dge1jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The mobile home comes to be a character in its own right.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit Maxx Corkindale. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span>
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<p>The shadowy space seems simultaneously too cramped and too spacious, as if everything is being slowly sucked into the strange, curtained-off section at the back of the home. Ratty 1970s décor aside, time does not seem to be passing in a legible manner, something emphasised through an unsettling string-heavy score and slow, invasive tracking shots.</p>
<p>Information is doled out carefully. The visitor finds odd mementos stashed around the house and is confused at her own inability to keep her story straight. Patrick picks anxiously at the edges of forgotten memories, repeatedly describing the night, and his recollections, as “strange”. </p>
<p>Is this all an insomniac’s drifting thoughts, or the pair’s subjective experience of mutual distrust and paranoia? Has the young woman come looking for Patrick, or has he somehow summoned her? </p>
<h2>A careful dance</h2>
<p>You’ll Never Find Me builds successfully on a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/10-years-of-homegrown-horror-hits-talk-to-me-and-the-golden-age-of-aussie-horror-211031">golden decade</a>” of Australian horror. </p>
<p>This period has showcased diverse innovative and internationally-acclaimed films, ranging from maternal horrors The Babadook (2014) and Relic (2020), to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_footage_(film_technique)">found footage</a> 70s throwback Late Night with the Devil (2023) and runaway hit supernatural horror Talk to Me (2023). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/10-years-of-homegrown-horror-hits-talk-to-me-and-the-golden-age-of-aussie-horror-211031">10 years of homegrown horror hits: Talk To Me and the golden age of Aussie horror</a>
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<p>You’ll Never Find Me also illustrates the importance of an industry pipeline. Writer/director Bell and co-director Allen, as Stakeout Films, found earlier success with shorts Safe Space (2019), Call Connect. (2019) and The Recordist (2020), some of which also featured performances from Rock and Cowan. Each short plays across genres, featuring evocative soundscapes, moody lighting, tense relationships and claustrophobic settings. </p>
<p>These prior relationships are evident in the film’s confident tone and performances. Cowan and Rock have a compelling chemistry. Extreme close ups on their faces and bodies chart the film’s careful, slow-burn dance between threat and disclosure, or vulnerability and dread. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A bearded man" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582121/original/file-20240315-24-dr4lqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">At time it feels like we are watching a play.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit Maxx Corkindale. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span>
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<p>The pair move through odd, circular conversations about their life philosophies and past experiences, as if we are watching a play. We’re aware we are witnessing a careful dance – but for a long time it is unclear who might be the biggest threat to whom. </p>
<p>“You’re the one who knocked on my door,” Patrick reminds the visitor, as she becomes increasingly insistent about wanting to leave. Throughout, he posits whether this visitation was a matter of choice or chance, even as the true and terrible nature of the pair’s encounter makes itself known.</p>
<p>You’ll Never Find Me will appeal to audiences who appreciate a rich atmosphere, character-led drama, and creeping yet tense pacing. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman's face, half in shadows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582123/original/file-20240315-28-wwqmdg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The film has a rich atmosphere, character-led drama, and creeping yet tense pacing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Credit Maxx Corkindale. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd</span></span>
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<p>For its many strengths, though, the film may divide audiences with its chaotic, surreal final act. As the pair’s conflict comes to a head, the world of the film tilts in a lurid burst of colour, and the narrative doglegs into a conceit that is challenging to pull off. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/14/youll-never-find-me-review-movie-australian-horror">Some may see</a> this climax as a fitting conclusion that upends some of our assumptions about character, relationships and motivation. Some, including myself, may find this nightmarish sequence, and the film’s denouement, displaces much of the film’s fine earlier work – particularly its manipulation of space and point-of-view – in a frustrating manner. </p>
<p>There is no doubt, though, this film exhibits a distinct sensibility, captivating performances and an exceptionally queasy atmosphere. It is further proof low-budget Australian horror is currently a site of significant innovation, and it successfully showcases Bell and Allen’s ability to do an awful lot with limited resources. </p>
<p><em>You’ll Never Find Me is out now in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/analog-uncanny-how-this-weird-and-experimental-side-of-tiktok-is-forging-the-future-of-horror-222882">‘Analog uncanny’: how this weird and experimental side of TikTok is forging the future of horror</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erin Harrington does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For its many strengths, the film may divide audiences with its chaotic, surreal final act.
Erin Harrington, Senior Lecturer in English and Cultural Studies, University of Canterbury
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225050
2024-03-05T12:03:12Z
2024-03-05T12:03:12Z
Wicked Little Letters: this hilarious detective story is a meditation on the art of swearing
<p>Wicked Little Letters is not a film about swearing, but it’s safe to say that swearing is a big part of what makes it such a great story. In 1920 Edith Swan (Olivia Colman), a well-to-do, devout Christian spinster who lives with her elderly parents in the southern English seaside town of Littlehampton, receives anonymous, abusive letters that are bristling with expletives. </p>
<p>Suspicion falls on Rose Gooding (Jessie Buckley), the Swans’ next-door neighbour. Gooding is hard-drinking, foul-mouthed and – horror of horrors – does not clean out the bath that she shares with the Swans. Inspired by a true story, the film is part soap opera about neighbourly conflict, part cosy teatime detective story. And it’s also a showcase for some delightful swearing – <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/for-fcks-sake-9780190665067">a topic I explored in my recent book</a>.</p>
<p>In the course of telling the true story of the Littlehampton letters, Wicked Little Letters shines a light on some of the most fascinating aspects of swearing. One of these aspects is the hilarity that can result from the incongruity of encountering a swearword at an unexpected moment, from an unexpected person, and in an unexpected context. This can be unpleasant, especially if it’s you who’s on the receiving end of a sweary insult. But it can also lead to delight and glee. </p>
<p>The latter is what we get with this film, and it’s a time-tested formula. As philosopher Immanuel Kant remarked in his <a href="https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bernard-the-critique-of-judgement">Critique of Judgement</a>: “In everything that is to excite a lively convulsive laugh there must be something absurd.”</p>
<p>It’s unlikely that anyone who chooses to watch Wicked Little Letters is going to be caught off guard by swearing, but even so, we very much hit the ground running. The film opens in the Swans’ front room, just as Edith has received yet another anonymous letter. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SeTeCWbF8KY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The trailer for Wicked Little Letters.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Edith herself is demure and prim, and the family gathering (her parents are sitting at the table with her) is straight-backed and proper. If this atmosphere of austere respectability is the setup, then the sweary contents of the letter are the punchline.</p>
<p>Hypocrisy is another theme explored in the film through swearing. Many characters who are outraged by the letters (or, perhaps more accurately, at the idea of letters like these being penned by a woman) are unconcerned by far more pressing moral matters. </p>
<p>Edith’s father (Timothy Spall) is contemptuous of the suffragette movement’s attempt to give women like his daughter the right to vote. Police officers who condemn the sweary letter writer unhesitatingly use similar language to gossip about their sexual escapades. </p>
<p>Hypocrisy is evident, too, in contemporary attitudes about swearing. In 2012, the team working on the Ken Loach film, The Angel’s Share, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/may/22/ken-loach-bbfc-hypocritical">complained about the hypocrisy</a> of the British Board of Film Classification. The board refused to grant a 15 certificate, opting for an 18 due to the film’s swearing. Yet it has awarded 15 certificates to films depicting torture, racism, violence and cruelty. All subjects far more shocking and concerning than swearing.</p>
<h2>The power of swearing</h2>
<p>The film also explores how satisfying it can be to swear. Letting rip with powerful language is so cathartic that, as <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19590391/">research has shown</a>, it can help us withstand pain. </p>
<p>Swearing has this power in large part because we know we’re not supposed to be doing it. It’s fun because it goes against the rules. For the characters in Wicked Little Letters, there are plenty of exasperating rules to rail against. </p>
<p>The values of the time not only forbade women from voting, but also held them to high and ridiculous standards of decorum. The ridiculousness of these values did not stop women from internalising them. Rose Gooding forbids her daughter from the unbecoming activity of playing the guitar, while Edith Swan pastes on a smile while her father exerts his tyrannical authority over the household. </p>
<p>It was an especially frustrating time for women to endure such oppression. As Mabel (Eileen Atkins), a neighbour of Swan and Gooding, observes at one point, women were called upon to do all manner of traditionally masculine work during the first world war. But once the war ended, they were expected to return to docile domesticity. They had plenty to swear about.</p>
<h2>The right way to swear</h2>
<p>Toward the end of the film, there’s an entertaining discussion about how to swear properly.</p>
<p>Rose Gooding thinks that “foxy ass piss country whore” – a real turn of phrase from the Littlehampton letters – is an inept attempt at swearing. Historian Christopher Hilliard, who wrote <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Littlehampton_Libels/IjwkDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover&bsq=foxy%20ass%20piss%20country%20whore">a book on the letters</a>, agrees. “Just what is a ‘foxy ass piss country whore’?” he asks, before complaining that multiple dictionaries have failed to enlighten him. </p>
<p>But what’s the difference between competent and incompetent swearing, and who makes the rules anyway? As children, we’re not taught by our parents or teachers how to swear. Nor is swearing a skill that tends to be taught to foreign language learners – an oversight that the linguist Geraldine Horan <a href="https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1403857/1/10.1080-14708477.2013.804533.pdf">has argued should be corrected</a>. </p>
<p>Sometimes, as in the case of “foxy ass piss country whore”, we view an unusual sweary expression as evidence that the speaker doesn’t know how to swear properly. But in other cases the same thing points to the speaker being an impressively creative and imaginative swearer. Think of the <a href="https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/film-and-tv/20-of-the-thick-of-its-malcolm-tuckers-most-cutting-insults-595074">original expressions uttered by Malcolm Tucker</a>, the notoriously sweary character in the British political satire show, The Thick of It. What makes the difference here? Very little, I suspect. </p>
<p>Whether we view someone as an incompetent swearer or an especially clever swearer probably depends largely on whether they strike us as the sort of person who is good at swearing. Well brought-up women in 1920 did not strike anyone as the sort of people to be good at swearing. This is what made the Littlehampton letters so shocking to the nation in 1920, and Wicked Little Letters such a fun watch today.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Roache does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The film is part soap opera about neighbourly conflict, part cosy teatime detective story. And it’s also a showcase for some delightful swearing – my area of expertise.
Rebecca Roache, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223614
2024-02-22T17:09:13Z
2024-02-22T17:09:13Z
Out of Darkness: I’m an expert on human origins – here’s how this stone age thriller surprised me
<p>Neither the choice of genre (survivalist horror) nor time period (43,000 years ago) bodes well for Out of Darkness. After all, films set in the stone age tend to be comedic, sexualised or woefully historically inaccurate. Think Ice Age (2002), Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) or 10,000BC (2008) – in which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVzdHEhC8YI">mammoths help build the pyramids</a>. Yet this film is neither. It goes way beyond expectations with its attempts at historical accuracy, and what’s more it is fun to watch – especially if suspense or a high body count are your thing.</p>
<p>A film set at the time of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-long-did-neanderthals-and-modern-humans-co-exist-in-europe-evidence-is-growing-it-may-have-been-at-least-10-000-years-222762">modern human and Neanderthal interactions</a> is long overdue, given both the better public understanding of this period and Neanderthals being thought of in <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/biology/hominin-species-neanderthals/">more humanised terms</a> than ten years ago.</p>
<p>What’s more, as we face more existential threats there is a greater tendency to look to the distant past for inspiration for how we should live, both <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-living-like-a-hunter-gatherer-could-improve-your-health-208813">physically</a> and <a href="https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/site/chapters/m/10.22599/HiddenDepths.k/">emotionally</a>. Still, the producers of Out of Darkness should be applauded for having the guts to tackle some of the real challenges of setting a film in this period. </p>
<p>They have used as authentic a language as possible – hiring linguist Dr Daniel Andersson to create a stone age-sounding language especially for the film, translated for the audience using subtitles. They also cast actors with accurate skin tones. The makeup of the group at its heart is realistic, with older and vulnerable members and, refreshingly, a competent, proactive woman lead (who is dressed in appropriate clothing, rather than a <a href="https://www.biography.com/actors/a42940234/raquel-welch-fur-bikini-mixed-feelings">fur bikini</a>). </p>
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<h2>Is the film historically accurate?</h2>
<p>Out of Darkness follows a small group of modern humans who set out across the Europe of 43,000 years ago, trying to find new land and rescue the leader’s son, who has apparently been taken by some strange creatures. </p>
<p>There are amazing landscapes, tense scenes and – as is expected from a survivalist horror – few people left standing after the carnage. For those of us looking for meaning under the macabre, there is a cautionary tale about acting on assumptions and the dangers of rage and fear.</p>
<p>There is plenty of detail here which fits the evidence we have about this period of the stone age (known as the middle-upper palaeolithic transition). There’s fitted clothing with fur inside, decorated spears, fire-lighting kits, a <a href="https://www.donsmaps.com/discs.html#:%7E:text=Discs%20from%20the%20stone%20age,objects%20in%20their%20own%20right">rondelle</a> (a bone disc with a central hole) and Neanderthals with raptor feather headdresses. </p>
<p>There are even rather slick references for the knowledgeable. Dead mammoths are shown at the bottom of a ravine modelled on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-this-spot-on-the-jersey-coast-was-like-a-magnet-for-neanderthals-70369">La Cotte de St Brelade</a>, a Neanderthal hunting site in Jersey. Neanderthals are shown taking and wearing modern human jewellery as a nod to the <a href="https://phys.org/news/2016-09-evidence-ancient-jewelry-grotte-du.html">Châtelperronian bone pendants</a>, found in the south of France.</p>
<p>People are buried at a location that looks remarkably like the most famous Neanderthal burial site, <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/shanidarz">Shanidar Cave</a> in Iraq. Even depictions of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10816-016-9306-y">cannibalism</a> are not at odds with what we know of mortuary practices in the period.</p>
<p>The wider social settings also bring some welcome authenticity. Telling firelight stories of courageous journeys into new lands, the elderly, young and pregnant work together.</p>
<p>Is Out of Darkness entirely prehistorically accurate? No, of course not. But it goes way beyond most depictions. In reality, stone age people would have carried tents and built shelters, not fought over a cold damp cave. They would also have found a fair bit of food in the tundra rather than starving. And of course it is not clear how the characters in the film managed to shave. </p>
<p>I would also expect links to other groups, or perhaps more of a story as to why this group is so isolated. And the voices of the Neanderthals are a bit too far fetched (more like a squawk than high-pitched language). What’s more, the lack of other living things depicted feels like a missed opportunity to include more predators, which were <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-015-0248-1?origen=app">genuinely dangerous and scary</a> in the stone age.</p>
<h2>Stone age bad guys</h2>
<p>As a professor of the archaeology of human origins, the one thing I dislike about the film is that subservience to the “bad guys” doesn’t fit <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376635717303698?casa_token=6nkGRzHGKkwAAAAA:yrmVb7eFtEzSxibNdEJ1HNt0Utw94yl2p0IJRcCR514KP6RZ0P_SsaT226vYMhEiIyJnf3X7">what we know</a>. </p>
<p>The leader of this small band of travellers, Adem (Chuku Modu), is a bit of bully, who tells women what to do or say, and supports some hierarchy in which “strays eat last”. Neither the impulsiveness nor the violence fit what we know of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12015116/Myths_about_hunter_gatherers_redux_nomadic_forager_war_and_peace">hunter-gatherer populations</a>. Their <a href="https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.22599/HiddenDepths/">emotional regulation</a> (capacity to feel emotions consciously rather than simply act on them) was actually far better than ours in our <a href="https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/f6f8491c-dbf5-46ed-bf5b-c62342a7ae3b/content%7DChaudbury%20ref">comparatively dysfunctional</a> modern societies. </p>
<p>It is also hard to see how humans and Neanderthals could <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-long-did-neanderthals-and-modern-humans-co-exist-in-europe-evidence-is-growing-it-may-have-been-at-least-10-000-years-222762">live contemporaneously</a> for as much as 10,000 years with such a mutual wipe out. But given that bloodshed comes with the genre, all of this may be something we need to forgive. </p>
<p>I might perhaps let them get away with this if we accept these people were some kind of <a href="https://openquaternary.com/articles/10.5334/oq.ai">dysfunctional outcast party</a>, in which dominance tactics might be more tolerated and normal rules didn’t apply.</p>
<p>There is, after all, plenty to love. Out of Darkness offers a great portrayal of a capable stone age woman protagonist – and equally capable Neanderthal woman. Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green) is adept with both knife, spear and any convenient rock, dispatching people whenever the occasion demands (which seems to be pretty regularly).</p>
<p>There will always be some gripes over accuracy here and there but Out of Darkness is fun to watch, and it is great to see the period opening up to more informed popular imagination. I’m hoping for a sequel.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Spikins was amongst several academics who spoke to the film producers in the very early conceptual stages of the film. </span></em></p>
Out of Darkness attempts at historical accuracy are a welcome surprise, and what’s more, it is fun to watch.
Penny Spikins, Professor of the Archaeology of Human Origins, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222754
2024-02-21T01:23:39Z
2024-02-21T01:23:39Z
A small film asking big questions: The Rooster is a study of fragile, lonely masculinity
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576361/original/file-20240219-22-54tww8.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C8%2C5928%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Enticknap/Bonsai Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This review contains mentions of suicide.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>What does it mean to be alone? Who do you live for when it seems like you have no one? These are some of the big questions asked in The Rooster, a deceptively simple film from Mark Leonard Winter.</p>
<p>Before opening in cinemas this week, the film played at major film festivals in Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane in 2023 and Hugo Weaving recently <a href="https://if.com.au/talk-to-me-takes-home-best-film-at-aacta-awards-the-newsreader-crowned-best-drama/">won the best supporting AACTA</a> for his performance as the hermit. </p>
<p>Winter’s feature directorial debut, The Rooster is a study of fragile, lonely masculinity. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-zone-of-interest-new-holocaust-film-powerfully-lays-bare-the-mechanisms-of-genocide-222017">The Zone of Interest: new Holocaust film powerfully lays bare the mechanisms of genocide</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Guilt and devastation</h2>
<p>Dan (Phoenix Raei) is a lonely country copper, whose morning routine is spent feeding his angry rooster. The film opens in a disorienting fashion that indicates Dan’s own fragile mental state. Before any image is shown, the crackle of Dan’s radio is interspersed with the evening crickets. “Hello? Can you hear me? I am not sure what to do,” Dan speaks into his radio. “Can you repeat that please? I don’t understand. I don’t know what to do.” </p>
<p>The first image we see is of a hanged body swinging in the wind lit by the car’s lights. Dan, in his car, is visible only by his red and blue lights. Suddenly, he looks up. We see a naked woman walking towards the car holding his rooster. Dan wakes up in a fright.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/z_v9I6smU08?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>These opening images pose questions of Dan’s mental state for the audience. Who is this woman? Who is the hanged person?</p>
<p>The following day, Dan fails to follow police procedure when dealing with an incident. His childhood friend, Steve (Rhys Mitchell), is caught naked while spying on a girl’s netball team. The day after this, Steve is found dead in a shallow grave. While it is clear he committed suicide, this doesn’t explain the shallow grave. Dan’s superior (John Hughes) blames Dan for Steve’s death, as he failed to alert anyone over Steve’s risk for self-harm.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, Dan also discovers his much-loved rooster killed by a fox. Forced to take time off from work to process his guilt and devastation over Steve’s death, Dan retreats to the bush where Steve was found in search for answers. </p>
<h2>How to cope with loss</h2>
<p>Dan’s struggle to cope with this loss is depicted through the repeated nightmarish scenes of the bush, Steve clucking like a chicken and the naked woman holding his rooster.</p>
<p>While stumbling through the bush – its haunting beauty captured wonderfully by Craig Barden’s cinematography – Dan finds the hermit’s hut and spies the man having a bath through the window. The hermit initially threatens Dan and tries to drive him off. Dan, however, offers him a drink, which allows the two to have a conversation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hugo Weaving in a dilapidated structure." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576364/original/file-20240219-23-42nfsl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While stumbling through the bush, Dan finds the hermit’s hut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Enticknap/Bonsai Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This informal tete-a-tete leads Dan to learn that the hermit was most likely the last person to see Steve alive. </p>
<p>In order to learn more about the hermit’s role in Steve’s death, the two must bond. Dan is introspective and shy; the hermit is prone to violent, angry outbursts. The two men drink heavily, play ping pong – sometimes naked – and help each other process their own hurt. </p>
<p>The film’s narrative is not driven by the investigation into Steve’s death. Rather, it is about two men learning how to cope with the loss in their lives. Through this friendship, both men learn how to share what has led them to being so isolated.</p>
<p>The Rooster is inconsistent in tone. Up until the moment where the two men meet, the film is slow and disorienting. Once the hermit confronts Dan for spying on him, the film kicks into gear, and the chemistry between the two men is the energy the film needs to progress.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men play ping-pong in the woods." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576365/original/file-20240219-20-sgszai.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rooster is about two men learning how to cope with the loss in their lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Enticknap/Bonsai Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the most part, however, the balance of comedy and drama works. A heavy conversation about suicide quickly shifts, assisted by the two very different performances from Raei and Weaving. </p>
<p>“I can’t see myself in the future,” Dan says. “Your daughter, she’ll remember you. But when I’m gone, I’ll just be gone.” </p>
<p>“You won’t be gone,” the hermit replies. “You’ll be a fucking tree”. </p>
<p>This conversation on life’s failures and “ending things” quickly shifts into the hermit helping Dan release his feelings by crowing loudly like a rooster. A heavy conversation easily shifts into an absurd one.</p>
<p>The dynamics between both characters allows Raei and Weaving to excel in their performances. Winter primarily worked as an actor before this film, and this experience is evident in the space given to the two lead performers here, giving them extended moments to let their characters breathe. Capturing minute shifts in expression are key to Winter’s skill as a director.</p>
<p>The Rooster may be a small character study of two fragile men, but it’s a powerful examination of isolation and moving on. </p>
<p><em>The Rooster is in Australian cinemas from tomorrow.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-of-us-strangers-heartbreaking-film-speaks-to-real-experiences-of-gay-men-in-uk-and-ireland-222628">All of Us Strangers: heartbreaking film speaks to real experiences of gay men in UK and Ireland</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222754/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Richards does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New Australian film The Rooster is a small character study of two fragile men, and a powerful examination of isolation and moving on.
Stuart Richards, Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222879
2024-02-12T02:26:17Z
2024-02-12T02:26:17Z
New Aussie rom-com Five Blind Dates could become your next comfort watch
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574524/original/file-20240208-16-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5991%2C3988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prime Video</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A good romantic comedy balances two things: expectations and questions.</p>
<p>We all have expectations of a rom-com. There’s the obvious one – the central couple will wind up together in the end – but there are plenty of other familiar elements that recur in this genre: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_cute">meet-cute</a>, the not-that-realistic-but-sure-we’ll-go-with-it premise, the wacky best friend, the other (wrong) potential love interests, the makeover, the grand gesture, the declaration of love. </p>
<p>What gives the rom-com energy, though, are the questions. Yes, we know the couple are going to end up together, but how are they going to get there? We know our plucky protagonist will probably extricate herself from the sticky situation she’s in, but how will she do it? We know these other suitors are all wrong for her, when and how is she going to realise?</p>
<p>Five Blind Dates doesn’t quite have the balance of expectations and questions right. It hits all the expectations – indeed, there are so many classic rom-com moments in here you could definitely win rom-com bingo – but sometimes telegraphs the answers to the questions a bit too hard. </p>
<p>This said, though, the balance is only a little off, not a lot. The end result is a lovely film, one I could see becoming a comfort watch for a lot of people – it’s as warm and familiar as the cups of tea purveyed by its heroine.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/you-cant-have-a-hollywood-meet-cute-on-a-dating-app-but-is-that-such-a-bad-thing-153454">You can't have a Hollywood meet cute on a dating app — but is that such a bad thing?</a>
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<h2>In search of a soulmate</h2>
<p>Lia (Shuang Hu, also the co-writer) has used her inheritance from her grandmother to open a traditional Chinese tea shop in Sydney, where she employs her best friend Mason (Ilai Swindells). Unfortunately, her business is failing, and she a) has no idea how to save it, and b) is dreading telling her family.</p>
<p>It would normally be easy to avoid her family, because they live in Townsville. However, her sister Alice (Tiffany Wong) is getting married and Lia is the maid of honour, which means a great deal more contact than usual. </p>
<p>The film’s premise is established very quickly when, at one of the pre-wedding events, Lia is told by a fortune teller she will meet her soulmate on one of the next five dates she goes on. And then, when she re-encounters her ex-boyfriend Richard (Yoson An) at Alice’s engagement party, Lia ends up on a mission to go on these five dates as fast as possible so she can bring her soulmate to the wedding – and thus show up Richard, who is the best man.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A date at the beach." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574527/original/file-20240208-24-yyrxk1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lia ends up on a mission to go on five dates as fast as possible.</span>
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<p>This beginning section of the film is perhaps its shakiest. It contains quite a lot of exposition very quickly – some of which, if you miss, could make later sections a bit confusing. While Lia and Richard’s re-meet-cute is very sweet, it makes it very clear just which way this is going to go.</p>
<p>The film also doesn’t give us much insight into why Lia and Richard broke up in the first place. While this is revealed slowly over the course of the film, this is very important when it comes to the audience having confidence in a second-chance romance: if it didn’t work out the first time, why would it work out now?</p>
<p>Without this information, we don’t have a great sense of Richard as a person, which makes his characterisation for the first half or so of the film feel a bit thin.</p>
<p>By contrast, though, the first three men Lia meets as part of her dating project are beautifully drawn. Sometimes, in romantic comedies, the premise is sacrificed on the altar of the romance and alternative suitors are one-dimensional, possibly villainous caricatures. </p>
<p>Here, though, Lia’s other options are refreshingly and fascinatingly human. There’s Apollo (Desmond Chiam), the very wealthy businessman her dad (Tzi Ma) has set her up with. There’s Ezra (Jon Prasida), the Chinese language school-teacher her mum (Renee Lim) has set her up with. And then there’s Curtis (Rob Collins), the touchy-feely yoga teacher Alice introduces her to – a character who could easily have become a Byron Bay stereotype but who is given nuance through both writing and performance. </p>
<h2>A refreshing film</h2>
<p>Mixed in with Lia’s many dates is her anxiety about her failing tea business. The way this problem is resolved is another one of the things the film telegraphs a bit too hard; however, it’s also very funny, which mitigates this somewhat.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A date in a bar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574529/original/file-20240208-22-yp2yfo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">While there is nothing particularly surprising in Five Blind Dates, it is nevertheless a really refreshing film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prime Video</span></span>
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<p>While there is nothing particularly surprising in Five Blind Dates, it is nevertheless a really refreshing film. We don’t have a lot of rom-coms set in Australia, much less ones which centre on Chinese Australian characters. It’s a playful, joyful film with a likeable and layered heroine which doesn’t outstay its welcome (it clocks in at under 90 minutes).</p>
<p>If there was to be a follow-up about some of the other characters, you could sign me right up. I, for one, would be fascinated to see what Apollo Wang does next. </p>
<p><em>Five Blind Dates is on Prime Video from tomorrow.</em></p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-a-perfect-romcom-an-expert-explains-the-recipe-for-romance-212487">How to make a perfect romcom – an expert explains the recipe for romance</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jodi McAlister does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
While there is nothing particularly surprising in Five Blind Dates, it is nevertheless a really refreshing film.
Jodi McAlister, Senior Lecturer in Writing, Literature and Culture, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223252
2024-02-09T14:52:26Z
2024-02-09T14:52:26Z
Zone of Interest’s striking depiction of Nazi banality – and other things you should see this week
<p>Rudolf and Hedwig Höss are a couple who “strive to build a dream life for their family”, as Zone of Interest’s official synopsis goes. In the film, we watch the mundane patterns of their lives: the children being sent off to school, the family sitting down to meals, Hedwig tending her garden and Rudolf fishing. However, Rudolf Höss is not any man, he is the commandant of Auschwitz and these scenes of domesticity take place in a house bordering the camp.</p>
<p>You never see any physical violence in Zone of Interest but it is always there pushing in on the periphery of frames, its sounds humming deeply under everything.</p>
<p>Hannah Arendt’s notion of the “banality of evil” is wrought powerfully in this film that envisages the lives of these real people. The Hösses are no evil geniuses – they are quite boring actually. They commit evil because they have been ordered to and they do so without introspection, awareness or care. They are, in their opinion, simply living and living well.</p>
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<p>Zone of Interest is a deeply unnerving film. It’s not the Nazi uniforms that are the most affecting but the small details that represent the horror. The bag of silk undergarments carelessly thrown upon the table and offered to the family’s servants. The ashes used to make the Edenic walled-in garden bloom. The water turning red as Rudolf’s boots are cleaned. The sound of shots and the near-constant mechanical drone of what I assume is the crematoriums coming from the near distance. </p>
<p>I stayed up late the night I saw the film, talking with a friend about the different things we heard in the intricately woven soundscape and the details we saw hidden among the horrible domesticity. <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-zone-of-interest-new-holocaust-film-powerfully-lays-bare-the-mechanisms-of-genocide-222017">This review by Archie Wolfman</a> increased my appreciation of just how thoughtful every artistic decision was, and why the film is nominated for both best international feature and best picture at this year’s Oscars.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-zone-of-interest-new-holocaust-film-powerfully-lays-bare-the-mechanisms-of-genocide-222017">The Zone of Interest: new Holocaust film powerfully lays bare the mechanisms of genocide</a>
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<h2>Stateside stories</h2>
<p>Another film nominated for best picture that has just hit cinemas is <a href="https://theconversation.com/american-fiction-scathing-and-accurate-portrayal-of-the-obstacles-black-writers-face-in-publishing-222557">American Fiction</a>. The film is an adaptation of the book Erasure by Percival Everett, and follows disillusioned novelist Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) as he tries to get what, frankly, sounds like quite a boring and pretentious book sold, but is having no luck. The book, his agent tells him, is just not “black enough”.</p>
<p>Enraged by what he sees selling, Monk writes under a pen name what he perceives as an obvious farce that employs all the worst stereotypes of black people to shame publishers for loving such sorts of books. Called My Pafology (later renamed Fuck), it ends up selling big time and all sorts of hilarity ensues as he chooses to profit from the kind of book he purports to deplore.</p>
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<p>It’s a really funny film that makes some really serious points about structural racism and explores different ideas of authenticity and blackness. It also succeeds in doing what Monk wants for stories about black people by black people, in that it is also a touching and nuanced look at the life of a middle-aged black man who faces all sorts of joys and hardships in his personal and professional life.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/american-fiction-scathing-and-accurate-portrayal-of-the-obstacles-black-writers-face-in-publishing-222557">American Fiction: scathing and accurate portrayal of the obstacles black writers face in publishing</a>
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<p>Apple TV+‘s new series, Masters of the Air, is a big-budget star-studded series about the 100th Bomb Group of the US 8th Air Force. <a href="https://theconversation.com/masters-of-the-air-apples-air-force-drama-is-imperfect-but-powerful-222220%22%22">Our reviewer was pleasantly surprised</a> at how accurate and rich the storytelling is. The nine episodes are not action-packed representations of different missions but sensitively woven stories that show a more rounded picture of their experience, including the impact of Allied bombs on civilians.</p>
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<p>Another inclusion, that has caused a bit of debate, is the famed “Tuskegee Airmen”. <a href="https://theconversation.com/masters-of-the-air-the-real-history-behind-the-shows-black-fighter-pilots-222429">In this piece</a>, Graham Cross explains why the story of these black airmen was right to be included but why he wished the writers had dared to push their story further.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/masters-of-the-air-apples-air-force-drama-is-imperfect-but-powerful-222220">Masters of the Air: Apple's Air Force drama is imperfect, but powerful</a>
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<h2>In your feelings</h2>
<p>If you’re looking for a film that will make you cry, which sometimes I am, <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-of-us-strangers-heartbreaking-film-speaks-to-real-experiences-of-gay-men-in-uk-and-ireland-222628">All of Us Strangers</a> might be for you. It’s a romantic fantasy drama about 40-something screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) and 20-something Harry (Paul Mescal). Their burgeoning relationship opens something up for Adam who is driven to finally confront the loss of his parents.</p>
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<p>Both our reviewers felt it depicted <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-of-us-strangers-coming-to-terms-with-the-grief-and-trauma-of-being-gay-in-the-1980s-222530">dating as a 40-year-old gay man today quite well</a>. While both Adam and Harry have experienced prejudice, Adam’s romantic life began during the AIDs crisis in the 80s, a scary and hostile time that has left him more suspicious and closed off. All of Us Strangers is a beautiful film that shows that the love we nurture, for the living and dead, is powerful and transformative.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-of-us-strangers-heartbreaking-film-speaks-to-real-experiences-of-gay-men-in-uk-and-ireland-222628">All of Us Strangers: heartbreaking film speaks to real experiences of gay men in UK and Ireland</a>
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<p>And at London’s Somerset House, a new exhibition has opened examining the notion of cuteness and how it came to be such an influential part of global culture. This show explores cuteness in all its forms, from the Victorian obsession with cats to our obsession with small things, adorable memes and plush toys.</p>
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<p>However, what does cute mean? <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-something-cute-inside-the-exhibition-defining-the-phenomenon-222229">As our reviewer found</a>, it’s a slippery term that is quite hard to pin down. But this exhibition, the first of its kind to examine the idea, does its best to consider it from all angles, including why it might not be a good thing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-something-cute-inside-the-exhibition-defining-the-phenomenon-222229">What makes something 'cute'? Inside the exhibition defining the phenomenon</a>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223252/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A harrowing portrayal of banal evil, a nuanced look at black fiction, a historically accurate TV series, a story about the power of love and a seriously cute exhibition.
Naomi Joseph, Arts + Culture Editor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222340
2024-02-08T16:28:07Z
2024-02-08T16:28:07Z
Origin: this outstanding portrayal of India’s caste system is hugely important to Dalit people like me
<p>Origin, the latest film from acclaimed director <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ava-duvernay">Ava DuVernay</a> (Selma, When They See Us), depicts marginalisation as a thread that connects race, class, caste and gender. It is inspired by Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 book, <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/321303/caste-by-wilkerson-isabel/9780141995465">Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents</a>.</p>
<p>In the film, Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) sets out on a global journey to explore the concept of “caste” as she writes her book and grapples with personal loss. She visits three countries as part of her research.</p>
<p>First, she explores the elements that give rise to discrimination in her home country, America. Next she goes to Germany, where she connects the racial segregation of people during the Nazi era to America. Finally, she travels to India, where she connects the plight of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Dalit">Dalit people</a> in a caste-based, divided society to that of black people in America and Jewish people in Germany. What she creates is a book that fundamentally exposes the insidious and global nature of caste systems. </p>
<p>Caste is a system of classifying society in a hierarchical order in which some people are kept inferior and others superior. In India, Dalit people have been placed at the lowest rung on this social ladder, in America, black people and in Germany, Jewish people.</p>
<p>It’s the way DuVernay weaves these stories together that makes the film so outstanding. In doing so, she highlights how inhuman, unethical and unjust discriminatory practices happen irrespective of geographical location, local cultures and social norms.</p>
<h2>Dalit stories in Hollywood</h2>
<p>I come from a Dalit background and I research Dalit representation in film. So I know first hand Origin’s importance to people like me. </p>
<p>In the film, Wilkerson visits the Dr Ambedkar National Memorial in Delhi to learn about the lawyer and social activist’s life and work. This is the first time that <a href="https://main.sci.gov.in/AMB/">Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s</a> fight for the rights of India’s Dalits and other deprived classes has been portrayed in a Hollywood film. Origin traces the journey of Ambedkar (played by Gaurav J. Pathania) from his childhood to writing the Indian constitution. </p>
<p>Ambedkar, revered as <em>Babasaheb</em> (Respected Father), was born in India in 1891. At that time, people were treated differently depending on their heritage. Imagine a big ladder, with some people at the top getting all the entitlements, and others stuck at the bottom, never getting a chance to climb up. Ambedkar was a Dalit born at the very bottom of this ladder, in a group called the “<a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/pages/article/indias-untouchables-face-violence-discrimination">untouchables</a>”. </p>
<p>Despite facing many obstacles in school – such as having to study sitting on a mat outside the classroom and eat his food separately – Ambedkar was determined to pursue education. He was intelligent and studied hard, eventually going to college in the <a href="https://globalcenters.columbia.edu/content/mumbai-bhimrao-ramji-ambedkar">US</a> and <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/south-asia-centre/Collaborations/ambedkar-research-scholars#:%7E:text=Dr%20B%20R%20Ambedkar%20is%20one,Son%2C%20Ltd%2C%201923">England</a>. </p>
<p>He became an expert on laws and rights, and when India gained independence, he was chosen to write the <a href="https://main.sci.gov.in/AMB/Speech.php">constitution</a>. Ambedkar made sure that it included rules for treating everyone fairly and equally, no matter where they stood in the social hierarchy.</p>
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<h2>Origin and caste</h2>
<p>Using extreme close-ups, DuVernay shows Wilkerson’s inner turmoil as she learns more about India’s caste system. At times, the film has an almost documentary style, which gives it a feel of authenticity as Wilkerson interviews people, discussing and debating the issue of caste while highlighting the complexity of the subject. </p>
<p>Origin doesn’t shy away from topics like untouchability. For thousands of years, Daalit people have been excluded from all forms of amenities and educational opportunities, and denied the right to read and write.</p>
<p>In one scene, the film depicts the practice of manual scavenging, the work many Dalit people undertake to make a living. In the past five years, <a href="https://indianexpress.com/article/india/339-died-cleaning-sewers-septic-tanks-last-5-years-centre-8859409/">339 people</a> have lost their lives doing this kind of work, cleaning sewers and septic tanks. </p>
<p>The scavenging is shown with brutal honesty and empathy, avoiding unnecessary sensationalism or dramatisation. It compels viewers to confront the shocking reality that this inhumane practice persists in our supposedly modern world. The character of Wilkerson acts as a powerful catalyst, opening the eyes of audiences around the world to this hidden and often unbelievable cruelty. </p>
<p>Another incident shows a father in the US who, in a bid to escape the trauma and humiliation of the caste system, named his firstborn daughter “Miss”. He sees this as a loophole in the social system, hoping that by giving her this title, he can indirectly grant her the respect denied to their ancestors. </p>
<p>This echoes other stories from the real world. In India, names indicate a person’s position in the social hierarchy. Generally, Dalit names are derogatory. In a <a href="https://fiftytwo.in/story/knife-in-the-back/">tragic incident</a> in 2022, a father in Rajasthan named his daughter “Baisa” (which means “Miss” and is used to convey respect, power and authority to the daughter of the upper-caste Rajput community), a choice that upper-caste people strongly disapproved of. As a result, he was beaten to death.</p>
<p>Despite the darkness of its subject matter, Origin doesn’t only expose the problem of marginalisation, it also offers a glimpse of hope and possibility. By showcasing acts of resistance, resilience and solidarity, the film encourages viewers to become active participants in dismantling systems of oppression and building a more equitable, caste-free future – one based on equality, fraternity and liberty.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neeraj Bunkar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
I come from a Dalit background and I research Dalit representation in film. So I know first hand Origin’s importance to Dalit people.
Neeraj Bunkar, PhD Candidate, English, Linguistics and Philosophy, Nottingham Trent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222628
2024-02-02T16:25:35Z
2024-02-02T16:25:35Z
All of Us Strangers: heartbreaking film speaks to real experiences of gay men in UK and Ireland
<p><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>A lonely 40-something screenwriter living in an almost-empty London apartment block, Adam (Andrew Scott) is alienated, exhausted and struggling to write about his past, but can’t get beyond the opening line.</p>
<p>One evening, Harry (Paul Mescal), a younger man from downstairs, appears at his door. He’s tipsy, vulnerable, flirty and charming. “There’s vampires at my door,” he says. Adam doesn’t let him in and later reveals that fear had stopped him.</p>
<p>This rings true, especially for a 40-something gay man like Adam: someone who grew up in the 1980s, during a period of rampant and violent homophobia and the AIDS crisis. England and Wales had <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/overview/sexuality20thcentury/">partially decriminalised homosexuality in 1967</a>, but Thatcher’s Britain was an ugly place for LGBTQ+ people. </p>
<p>The screenplay Adam is writing is set in 1987, the year that <a href="https://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/explore-the-collection/stories/origins-section-28/">Section 28</a> was introduced, banning the “promotion” of homosexuality. At that time, the tabloids demonised AIDS victims as deviant plague-carriers and there were <a href="https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/aids-health-campaign/">terrifying government health warnings</a> on national television. </p>
<p>Homosexuality remained illegal in Ireland and the 1980s witnessed notorious hate-crimes, including the <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/murder-in-monkstown-the-brutal-killing-of-charles-self-1.3126696">murder of Charles Self</a> by a stranger when they hooked up. These crimes don’t belong to the past: in 2022, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2023/10/23/double-murderer-yousef-palani-jailed-for-life-for-attacks-on-gay-men-spurred-by-hostility-and-prejudice/">two gay men in Sligo were murdered</a> by a man they met through a dating app. Small wonder that a fortysomething gay man like Adam would shut Harry out.</p>
<p>But it wouldn’t be much of a story if it ended there. </p>
<p>As an academic of LGBTQ+ history, I hugely enjoyed this delicate, melancholy and life-affirming film. It speaks to many of the real and heartbreaking experiences gay men in the UK and Ireland have had to navigate. It also highlights the progress and more hopeful world that has been carved for younger generations of queer men. But most of all, its a testament to the power of love. </p>
<h2>Open to love</h2>
<p>There is a spark between them; Adam reaches out to Harry and we see a relationship develop from an initial hook-up to long-lasting companionship and love. This connection allows Adam to revisit two painful relationships he had left in the past.</p>
<p>Spurred on by a photograph of his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), he returns to the suburbs where he was born, and meets them again. They were killed in a car crash when he was about 12, but here they seem to be alive, welcoming and not a day older.</p>
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<p>When Adam tells his mother that he’s gay, she isn’t hostile, but she is worried. She says that she’s seen the ads about that awful disease and “they say it’s a lonely life”. Adam’s reply – “they don’t say that now” – is contradicted by his own experience before meeting Harry. He has been shut down by homophobia.</p>
<p>He tells his father about the relentless name-calling and physical bullying he endured at school. But he had never revealed it when he was a child and his father had never consoled Adam when he heard him crying in his room.</p>
<p>This again speaks to the experiences of many gay men and isn’t confined to the past. A man easing his son’s pain is still perceived by some as a weakness and we still live in a society where LGBT+ children are tormented by bullies. The 2022 <a href="https://www.belongto.org/support-our-work/advocacy/lgbtq-research/belong-to-school-climate-survey-2022/#:%7E:text=Almost%20all%20LGBTQ%2B%20students%20who,2019%20to%2036%25%20in%202022.">national survey conducted by BelongTo</a>, an Irish LGBT+ rights group advocating for young people, found that 76% of LGBT+ secondary school students felt unsafe at school.</p>
<h2>Embracing the word ‘queer’</h2>
<p>In the film, twentysomething Harry refers to continuing homophobia when he asks Adam if he is queer; it seems a more polite word than gay, he says, recalling children using the word as a slur. Harry’s remark points to an extraordinary transformation in language. </p>
<p>In the 1980s, “gay” was the most positive word used to describe LGBTQ+ people, and “queer” was used by homophobes as a vicious insult. “Queer-bashing” was the term used by the five youths who killed Declan Flynn in Dublin in 1982: a <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2022/09/10/hundreds-gather-in-dublin-to-remember-declan-flynn-40-years-after-his-death/">notorious Irish hate-crime</a>. The judge at their trial did not regard them as murderers and gave them suspended sentences for manslaughter. </p>
<p>I mention Ireland again because, in the film, Adam was sent to live in Dublin with his maternal grandmother after his parents’ deaths. He tells his mother that he got on better there because he had learned how to fit in, an act of self-censorship still familiar to many LGBT+ people in Ireland, as referenced in drag queen <a href="https://gcn.ie/remembering-pantigate-historic-noble-call/">Panti Bliss’s “Noble Call”</a> speech. But today’s Ireland is also a place where “queer” is no longer a hateful word: it’s used by many LGBT+ people to celebrate their identities.</p>
<p>BelongTo’s 2022 survey points to the positive impact of adults’ support for LGBT+ young people and shows that there are pathways out of oppression and suffering.</p>
<p>In the film, the adult Adam comforts his father, who cries when he grasps how much young Adam had suffered. In a beautiful scene we see the two of them hugging. Through the reflection in the mirror Adam is transformed into his younger self, and without any words the film conveys a sense of acceptance and forgiveness between the two.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-of-us-strangers-coming-to-terms-with-the-grief-and-trauma-of-being-gay-in-the-1980s-222530">All of Us Strangers: coming to terms with the grief and trauma of being gay in the 1980s</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The film’s final scene makes us rethink its storyline of Adam’s and Harry’s relationship. It again affirms “the power of love”, the title of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood song (and LGBT+ anthem) that plays over the ending and credits. “I’ll protect you from the hooded claw, keep the vampire from your door,” promises Adam, repeating the words of the song and echoing Harry’s first words to him.</p>
<p>Whatever “really” happens in All of Us Strangers, it leaves us with a sense of hope and love transcending loss and death. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222628/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diarmuid Scully does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A beautiful fantasy drama about grief and love and reclaiming the past.
Diarmuid Scully, Lecturer in medieval history, University College Cork
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222557
2024-02-02T16:25:20Z
2024-02-02T16:25:20Z
American Fiction: scathing and accurate portrayal of the obstacles black writers face in publishing
<p><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers.</em></p>
<p>Drawing inspiration from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, <a href="https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571370894-erasure/">Erasure</a>, Cord Jefferson’s directorial debut American Fiction follows disillusioned novelist-turned-professor Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) as he grapples with the challenges of the American publishing industry. Despite his clear talent, Monk continuously faces rejection for his latest novel. </p>
<p>It’s never explicitly said but it’s made pretty clear that his book is just not “black enough”. As a scholar exploring the relationship between black British literature and its intersections with the British publishing industry, I was struck by the similarities between the UK and US industries.</p>
<p>The industry continues to face global criticism and has come under constant scrutiny particularly after the Black Lives Matter protest in 2020 brought attention to the inequalities faced by black people, including the persistent lack of diversity and representation in creative industries like publishing.</p>
<p>Authors from historically marginalised communities, including black authors, repeatedly encounter obstacles to getting their work published, receiving post-publication support, or securing a safe platform that allows their voices to be heard. </p>
<h2>The struggle for authentic representation</h2>
<p>In American Fiction, Monk encounters the work of Sintara Golden (Issa Rae) who has gained major success with her novel We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, the sort of “black book” publishers want. Monk considers the book as pandering “black poverty porn” and its success drives him to the edge.</p>
<p>In one scene, Monk asks a bookseller why his books are being stocked in the African-American Studies section as they’re “just literature”. When he takes his books to sit among the general fiction, he’s confronted with a large display of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto. </p>
<p>The pigeonholing of books by marginalised authors is common. In 2010, the writer <a href="https://nkjemisin.com/2010/05/dont-put-my-book-in-the-african-american-section/">NK Jemisin wrote on her blog</a> that she wanted libraries and bookshops to stop stocking her novels in the “African American Fiction” section as she doesn’t believe such a section must exist. She went on to say that writers who find that their books are stocked in this section have a much lower earning potential after being marketed as a “black book” and rarely sell enough copies. </p>
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</figure>
<p>This pigeonholing reinforces the idea that only black readers find stories by black authors interesting. When framing certain stories as representative of the black experience, publishers overlook other black experiences – causing the market to be saturated with monolithic depictions of blackness. </p>
<p>The year 2020 was a perfect example of publishers commissioning “black books” to absolve themselves of guilt. A swathe of books by black authors were commissioned and aggressively marketed. As a result, books such as Reni Eddo Lodge’s <a href="https://afroribooks.co.uk/products/why-im-no-longer-talking-to-white-people-about-race-by-reni-eddo-lodge">Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race</a>, a book with a target white audience by a black author, became incredibly popular during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.</p>
<p>PEN America’s 2022 report <a href="https://pen.org/report/race-equity-and-book-publishing/">Reading Between the Lines: Race, Equity, and Book Publishing</a> found that waves of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts made by the publishing industry since 2020 have largely been temporary efforts. They engaged with these sorts of equity and diversity drives without enacting real structural change.</p>
<p>Publishing companies sought to “diversify” their catalogues, both as a marketing tactic and so that they could shape themselves as influencers of public opinion rather than be subject to it. In American Fiction, although it is not outwardly discussed, I believe these are the likely reasons for the publication of Golden’s book. It reflects an idea of blackness and black experience that publishers are all too happy to buy into.</p>
<h2>Commercial success vs. authenticity</h2>
<p>After his sister dies unexpectedly, Monk becomes the primary carer for his mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. In a desperate position, in need of money and support – and driven mad by the unfairness of it all – he begins to write. </p>
<p>Under the pseudonym Stagg R Leigh, Monk pens My Pafology (later renamed Fuck). It’s his answer to the absurdity of the publishing industry, replete with almost every black stereotype he could think of, including gangs, absent fathers, guns and drugs. To Monk (and initially his agent) this is an unsellable book that obviously calls out the racism inherent in the success of such books like Sintara Golden’s. </p>
<p>To his complete bewilderment, however, he’s offered a $750,000 advance from a publisher who had passed on his other work. Part of the draw of this book for many of the white decision makers he encounters is the perceived “authenticity” of the story and, under the advice of his agent, he takes on the persona of Stagg Leigh, whom he makes a convict on the run from the FBI. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, Fuck quickly becomes a bestseller.</p>
<p>In the midst of all this, Monk is asked to be the diversity inclusion to judge a prestigious literary award. Fuck happens to gain a nomination and Monk is surprised to learn that Golden shares many of his criticisms of Fuck, labelling it “pandering”. </p>
<p>The conversation between the two touches on the complex issues surrounding authenticity, commercialisation, “selling out” and the definition of meaningful representation. Monk critiques Golden’s novel as “trauma porn” – a needlessly traumatic story created to shock and entertain – arguing that narratives like hers oversimplify the black experience, “flattening” black lives. </p>
<p>Black authors constantly grapple with the pressure to conform to the <a href="https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/31240/10/18752-63096-1-PB.pdf">expectations of the publishing market</a>. These are undoubtedly extreme examples, but both Monk’s and Golden’s novels are a product of this pressure. While Monk seems to feel ashamed of chasing the money, Golden sees no issue with it, arguing that she is simply writing to the market’s demand.</p>
<p>Black authors are more heavily criticised for writing books that feature stereotypically black experiences. Alex Wheatle’s <a href="https://afroribooks.co.uk/products/the-dirty-south-by-alex-wheatle">The Dirty South</a> is one such novel that, to this day, faces criticism for depicting black people as “eternal victims”. Wheatle <a href="https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/authors-live-on-demand/unheard-voices-panel">has defended himself</a> stressing that he draws inspiration from his real, everyday life and that he thinks characters should be three dimensional.</p>
<p>Monk, however, isn’t able to come to terms with his own fight against the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMkXeteb_8g">burden of representation</a>, wanting desperately to depict “true” black experience but seemingly unwilling to believe narratives that counter his own understanding of what blackness is. Without even meaning to, Monk is just as guilty of flattening the black experience due to his rejection of Golden’s work. </p>
<p>Both the British and US publishing industries face parallel challenges concerning the portrayal and treatment of black writers. American Fiction showcases these issues and highlights the industry’s tendency to pat itself on the back for small acts of perceived diversity, rather than take any meaningful action.</p>
<p>I thoroughly enjoyed American Fiction and it emerges as a clear voice among critics of an industry that has proven it is greedy for profit over inclusion and representation.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ellis Walker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Meaningful engagement with diverse writers is still a struggle for the publishing industry.
Ellis Walker, PhD in English Literature, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222017
2024-01-30T12:31:13Z
2024-01-30T12:31:13Z
The Zone of Interest: new Holocaust film powerfully lays bare the mechanisms of genocide
<p><em>Warning: this article contains spoilers.</em> </p>
<p>The Zone of Interest opens by introducing viewers to a husband, wife and their family as they picnic by a river. The scene seems idyllic. Shortly after, the family drives home. Everything seems normal – but on closer inspection, their number plate is adorned with the insignia of the SS, the elite guard of the Nazi regime.</p>
<p>This scene encapsulates why The Zone of Interest is so unsettling. It depicts the everyday life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller) and their family – yet, industrialised, genocidal violence moves along, continuously, in the background and periphery.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Zone of Interest.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Through meticulous camera setup and editing, writer and director Jonathan Glazer’s film depicts scene after scene of the daily routine of Rudolf, Hedwig and their children. Just as the viewer is becoming immersed in these scenes – perhaps even disturbingly aligning themselves with these characters – the film jarringly cuts away. </p>
<p>It cuts to abstracted, pure, bright red or white frames, to Mica Levi’s gut-wrenching, cacophonous soundtrack, or scenes disruptively shot with night vision cameras.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/descendants-of-holocaust-survivors-explain-why-they-are-replicating-auschwitz-tattoos-on-their-own-bodies-206821">Descendants of Holocaust survivors explain why they are replicating Auschwitz tattoos on their own bodies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Creating the Höss home</h2>
<p>Production designer, Chris Oddy, and his team built the Höss house and planted the garden from scratch. The set was constructed on location in Poland, directly next to Auschwitz, using detailed, historical records and photographs. </p>
<p>While domestic scenes of Höss and his family are routine, Johnnie Burn’s sound design is abrasive and incessant. </p>
<p>A continuous, low-pitched, industrial humming sound plays throughout. Its source is not shown, but it could be the sound of the crematoria. As the family go about their daily lives, there are distant screams, shouting, dogs barking and gunshots. The Höss family don’t seem to register them, apparently desensitised.</p>
<p>The film is formally rigorous. It makes use of the hidden cameras Glazer previously deployed in docu-fiction, Under the Skin (2013). With director of photography Łukasz Żal, Glazer positioned ten fixed cameras and 20 microphones around the Höss house. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjmRu2nlv4g">Żal has described</a> how he and Glazer endeavored to use exclusively natural lighting, to avoid aestheticising the unthinkable.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Łukasz Żal talks about lighting the film.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The problem with making films about the Holocaust</h2>
<p>The problem with making films about the Holocaust is that formal decisions inevitably also become ethical ones. The choices filmmakers make about camera movements, angles, lighting and editing have as much ethical significance as what is in front of the camera. </p>
<p>Audiences are familiar with (perhaps anaesthetised to) the typical iconography of the Holocaust in film, such as watchtowers, barbed wire and smoke. In her comprehensive study of Holocaust film, <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Indelible_Shadows/8B5a-1Ss8LwC?hl=en&gbpv=1">Indelible Shadows</a> (1983), historian Annette Insdorf describes these images as a kind of figurative shorthand: “the visual part representing the unimaginable whole”. </p>
<p>In The Zone of Interest, these recognisable images are disturbingly estranged. For example, from the perspective of the garden, a watchtower is visible in the background, partially obscured by pristine white sheets hanging on a washing line. </p>
<p>Instead of showing the operation of the crematoria as a closeup, the pulsating orange-red light from their chimneys illuminates Hedwig’s mother’s bedroom, disturbing her sleep. Children play in a pool in Hedwig’s cherished garden, atop of which is a shower, symbolically associated with the extermination of innocents in the camp.</p>
<h2>Representing gas chambers on film</h2>
<p>Mainstream cinema relies on narratives of conflict and resolution, and so tends towards a binary notion of “good” and “evil”. The Zone of Interest, however, in Friedel’s disquieting, cold portayal of Höss, shows that genocide is perpetrated not by “evil”, but by administrators – concerned with numbers, timetables and blueprints. </p>
<p>Höss is shown meeting with several men in suits, matter-of-factly explaining detailed plans for more efficient gas chambers immediately after a scene where Hedwig gossips with her friends. Such a contrast underlines that the ordinariness of perpetration.</p>
<p>Critics have praised or condemned films about the Holocaust such as <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/son-of-saul-and-the-ungraspable-horrors-of-auschwitz">Son of Saul (2015)</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/25/opinion/l-schindler-s-list-errs-on-gas-chambers-299499.html">Schindler’s List (1994)</a> or <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nVRdCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA161&ots=cp32GuH6AE&sig=1Yf-I3Aynq4m5RK-0gpd1xbhy_M&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008)</a> for the techniques they use to represent gas chambers. Claude Lanzmann, director of Shoah (1985), once said that if direct footage of the act of genocide in the gas chamber were to exist, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2930247?seq=18">he would destroy it</a>. Watching it would transgress the most profound moral taboo. </p>
<p>One of the starkest moments in The Zone of Interest is its representation of the gas chambers. Rudolf Höss is leaving a party for the Nazi leadership in Berlin. He looks at something off screen, down a dark corridor. The film cuts to a close-up of a small, white circle, surrounded by blackness – the spy hole on the door of a gas chamber. </p>
<p>This is followed by a disorienting jump to the present day. Cleaners dust the piles of victims’ suitcases, shoes and other personal belongings in the Auschwitz Memorial Museum. </p>
<p>Glazer was stunned to discover that one of the walls of the Höss family garden directly bordered the extermination camp. <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/making-the-zone-of-interest-holocaust-modern-retelling-1235766323/">He has said</a> that the concept of his film “became about that wall”. </p>
<p>Glazer’s film underscores how walls, borders or geographic distance “compartmentalise”, in <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/making-the-zone-of-interest-holocaust-modern-retelling-1235766323/">producer James Wilson’s words</a>, the suffering of others. Such visual barriers become the mechanism through which genocide has been – and continues to be – enabled. </p>
<p>The Zone of Interest is unsettling because of how it portrays perpetration of the Holocaust as normal, therefore leaving the viewer with the disquieting notion that anyone, in the right conditions, can be responsible for unspeakable things. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Archie Wolfman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The film depicts the everyday life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family – yet, industrialised, genocidal violence moves along, continuously, in the background.
Archie Wolfman, PhD Researcher, Queen Mary University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222102
2024-01-29T12:51:02Z
2024-01-29T12:51:02Z
The Color Purple is an emotional, joyful exploration of black womanhood in the deep south
<p><em>Warning: this article includes spoilers.</em> </p>
<p>Alice Walker’s novel, The Color Purple, tells the story of Celie, an African-American woman living in rural Georgia, over 40 years as she survives and heals following abuse.</p>
<p>I research black feminism in contemporary fiction, so I was intrigued by how director Blitz Bazawule would adapt Walker’s novel into a musical film while retaining the intimate exploration of black women’s agency the book is famed for.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wPwzBUui1GA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Color Purple.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Walker’s novel comprises personal and tender letters from Celie (played at different ages by Phylicia Pearl Mpasi and Fantasia Barrino) to God, and later to her sister Nettie (Halle Bailey/Ciara). The film moves away from this solely first-person perspective, creating space for the more spirited, strong-willed characters Nettie and Sofia (Danielle Brooks) to tell their story. This means that Celie’s story takes more of a backseat in the first part of the film. </p>
<p>But what the adaptation loses in its move away from a single protagonist, it makes up for with song. When Celie does find her voice, gradually taking up more space, we truly feel her pain, refusal and eventual joy.</p>
<p>There was a risk that contemporary viewers might interpret the rural, majority-black communities depicted in the film as living comfortable lives. Particularly through scenes that show Harpo’s (Corey Hawkins) affluent juke joint and the local lively jazz scene. But an opening song featuring domestic and field labourers shows how the characters found community despite the harsh realities surrounding them. </p>
<p>Racism rears its ugly head later on, in a brutal scene in which Sofia is beaten and jailed for refusing to become a maid to the mayor’s wife. This will strike a chord with viewers because it speaks to police brutality today.</p>
<p>Some might recognise Whoopi Goldberg’s cameo as Celie’s midwife (Goldberg played Celie in the 1985 film), a moment that shows the lineage between the adaptations and speaks to black women’s care practices, passed down through generations.</p>
<h2>Sisterhood and solidarity</h2>
<p>Celie suffers sexual abuse at the hands of her father and is married off at a young age to a violent husband known only as “Mister” (Colman Domingo). She doesn’t know her worth until she meets the glamorous, self-assured blues singer Shug Avery. </p>
<p>Shug, whose previous relationship with Celie’s husband ended because she refused to be tied down, forms a deep connection with Celie. While their intimate moments can be read more explicitly as queer in Walker’s novel, the tenderness between the women is clear. The moment they give in to desire is subtle, perhaps speaking to the clandestine way that same-sex love was expressed in this era. </p>
<p>Through Shug, Celie finds her own beauty and inner strength and regains her faith. This echoes the line from the book that gives the novel its title: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the colour purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” </p>
<p>Similarly to Walker’s novel, black female sisterhood and solidarity rings true in the film. What differs is the space Sofia is given. In Bazawule’s film, she takes centre stage as a flawed yet complex character, strong (physically) and prone to violence, but openly vulnerable, complicating the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Black-Feminist-Thought-Knowledge-Consciousness-and-the-Politics-of-Empowerment/Hill-Collins/p/book/9780415964722">“strong black woman”</a> trope.</p>
<p>However, less progressive is Shug’s casting as a light-skinned black woman, Taraji P. Henson. Though Henson’s performance is captivating, this casting decision contradicts Walker’s explicitly dark-skinned description of Shug and misses an opportunity to challenge colourism in the film industry. </p>
<h2>Black masculinity in The Color Purple</h2>
<p>The Color Purple centres black women’s voices and challenges patriarchy and abuse in black communities. Yet, according to <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/combahee-river-collective-statement-1977/">black feminist movements</a>, we can challenge abusive men and also understand that patriarchy harms them too. </p>
<p>Films and TV shows such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/with-moonlights-oscar-win-hollywood-begins-to-right-old-wrongs-73843">Moonlight</a> (2017) and Top Boy (2011-2023) have prompted questions about how both black and queer masculinity are represented on screen. I wondered how Bazawule would stay true to Walker’s story and also portray black men with complexity. </p>
<p>While Mister and Alfonso are indeed brutal characters, Mister tries to redeem himself at the end by selling his land to help Nettie return to the US following her time as a missionary in Africa. This differs from the book, where Nettie’s return is sudden.</p>
<p>Although Celie doesn’t openly forgive him, this is a moment of closure sealed with gospel-inspired music that echoes the self-belief, faith and community Celie finds at the end of Walker’s novel.</p>
<p>The dance sequences bring joy to the film. But they bring problems too. One scene depicts Nettie’s travels to Africa as a “return” to a place where “we were kings and queens”. This makes Africa, a diverse continent, seem like a homogeneous place, acting only as a backdrop for African-Americans to understand their blackness. </p>
<p>Nettie’s vague references to a “village in Africa” are problematic and paternalistic in a world in which the continent is increasingly the centre of black creative and cultural production. Perhaps Bazawule could have stayed less true to Walker’s novel here, which was critiqued by Nigerian feminist scholar <a href="https://africaworldpressbooks.com/african-women-and-feminism-reflecting-on-the-politics-of-sisterhood-edited-by-oyeronke-oyewumi-hardcover/">Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí</a> for its “western imperialist” perspective, which uses “stock images and ideas about Africa” to assume unrealistic commonality. </p>
<p>Ultimately, The Color Purple shows that black joy can be cultivated even through the most painful experiences. The film’s emotional depth centres black womanhood, and its continued universal appeal will connect deeply with many audiences – especially black women.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amber Lascelles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This adaption of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel is an emotional yet joyful exploration of black womanhood in the early 20th century South.
Amber Lascelles, Lecturer in Global Anglophone Literature, Royal Holloway University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221669
2024-01-23T14:00:20Z
2024-01-23T14:00:20Z
If Mean Girls was part of your teenage years, you might not like the new one
<p>The 2004 teen film Mean Girls has become part of the fabric of contemporary popular culture. Fans are able to enjoy quote-along screenings and take online quizzes to find out which member of the Plastics their personality most resembles, and 3 October is even now known as <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/mean-girls-day-movie-october-3-b2423249.html">Mean Girls day</a>.</p>
<p>The new musical version – an adaptation of the 2017 stage musical – aims to ensure that fans of the original are kept happy. It sticks closely to the same plot and retains the same iconic moments and quotable lines. </p>
<p>The film follows naive, formerly home-schooled new girl Cady (Angourie Rice) as she navigates the social hierarchies of high school. Encouraged by her new friends Janice (Auli‘I Cravalho) and Damian (Jaquel Spivey), Cady infiltrates the clique at the top of the social order, known as “the plastics”, as part of a scheme to sabotage “queen bee” Regina George (Renee Rapp).</p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/tiktoks-pomegranate-obsession-the-trendy-fruit-was-also-big-during-the-renaissance-to-talk-about-female-fertility-221440utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">TikTok’s pomegranate obsession: the trendy fruit was also big during the Renaissance to talk about female fertility</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/selling-on-vinted-etsy-or-ebay-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-paying-tax-220988utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Selling on Vinted, Etsy or eBay? Here’s what you need to know about paying tax</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/four-ways-men-and-women-can-improve-their-health-before-trying-to-conceive-220260utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Four ways men and women can improve their health before trying to conceive</a></em></p>
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<p>The Mean Girls musical isn’t the first teen film to follow the film-to-stage-musical-to-film-musical trajectory. Hairspray, for example, followed the same 20-year-ish route (with a film in 1988, stage musical in 2002 and film musical in 2007). </p>
<p>As someone who has been thinking, teaching, and writing about teen films – with Mean Girls (2004) <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/aesthetic-pleasures-of-girl-teen-film-9781501349010/">as a key text</a> – for the last 20 years, I really wanted to like this film. Unfortunately as a pastiche of a film that was already a pastiche, this musical is a copy too far.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fFtdbEgnUOk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the Mean Girls musical.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Why a pastiche of a pastiche doesn’t work</h2>
<p>From its opening moments, the original Mean Girls film is postmodern and reflexive, with lines like: “And on the third day God created the Remington Bolt Action Rifle so that man could fight the dinosaurs … and the homosexuals.” </p>
<p>The film’s excessive self-awareness signals a rejection of the sincerity and sentimentality often attributed to teen films. Especially clean teen films such as Gidget (1959) or John Hughes films like Sixteen Candles (1984).</p>
<p>Mean Girls is a pastiche, not a parody. Where parodies makes fun of the subjects they imitate as a means to undermine the original, pastiches make fun with imitation in ways that leave the original unquestioned. Pastiche is a hyper-imitation that signals itself as such, but enables an experience of the pleasures of the imitated work all the same. </p>
<p>In the 2004 Mean Girls, this imitation is highly self conscious and central to the film’s comedy. In the winter talent show scene, for example, the plastics perform a dance routine to Jingle Bell Rock. When the CD player is accidentally kicked off stage and the prerecorded music stops, they freeze mid-performance. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Jingle Bell Rock scene from the original Mean Girls film.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In a pastiche of traditional musical spontaneity, authenticity and musical contagion – in which bystanders in the world of the musical are overcome by the music and cannot help but tap their feet or sing along – the plastics finish the routine acapella. The audience in the film’s school auditorium seem almost possessed as they join in and sing along. </p>
<p>The fun of this type of pastiche is that we get to experience the pleasures of the thing that is being imitated, alongside the pleasures of self awareness. As I have argued in <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/aesthetic-pleasures-of-girl-teen-film-9781501349010/">my research</a>, while the scene self consciously winks with its knowingness of musical conventions, we get to enjoy a version of the sense of energy and togetherness that this kind of musical moment evokes nonetheless.</p>
<p>Because the new film itself is a traditional musical, the winter talent show scene in the 2024 musical film cannot have fun with those conventions in the same way. The film aims to utilise in earnest those techniques that the original uses to make fun with. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The creators of the Mean Girls musical talk about adapting the film.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Now danced to a song called Rocking around the Pole, the talent show number is no longer a pastiche of the musical genre, but an imitation of the scene in the original Mean Girls film. </p>
<p>As a double copy, the residual pleasures – the feelings of community and togetherness that the original offers – are lost. All we are left with is that knowing wink. On its own, this knowingness just isn’t that much fun.</p>
<p>The new film does involve some enjoyable nostalgia, including a fun unexpected cameo. There are excellent performances from the young cast and the fact that Renee Rapp <a href="https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/originals/mean-girls-renee-rapp-regina-george-queer/">plays Regina George as queer</a> adds its own fun. </p>
<p>But if you’re looking for a teen film that hits the fun and funny notes of the original Mean Girls film, as well as offering an authentically queer take on girlhood, I recommend watching Booksmart (2019) or Bottoms instead (2023).</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Colling does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The problem with the Mean Girls musical film is that it is a pastiche of a pastiche.
Samantha Colling, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media, Manchester Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/221043
2024-01-12T14:27:19Z
2024-01-12T14:27:19Z
Weird, twisted, powerful films – what you should watch this week
<p><em>This article was first published in our email newsletter Something Good, which every fortnight brings you a summary of the best things to watch, visit and read, as recommended and analysed by academic experts. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Click here</a> to receive the newsletter direct to your inbox</em></p>
<p>I love Yorgos Llanithmos’s films. They are wonderfully weird (Dogtooth) and have a unique visceral quality that leaves me feeling all odd (Killing of a Sacred Deer). He has this way of digging into the mire of the human psyche and showing us its ugliest (The Favourite) and most peculiar (The Lobster) parts. So, I was very excited when I heard he had a new film out called Poor Things.</p>
<p>Starring Emma Stone, the film follows Bella Baxter, a bold young woman who has been brought back to life by the scientist Godwin “God” Baxter. The pair embark on a journey during which Bella grows bolder in her desire to fight for freedom and equality. Little did I know that this story is based on a book by another creator I have a deep love for: Alisdair Gray.</p>
<p>I came across Gray one bleak winter many years ago on a trip to Glasgow. An exhibition of his bold graphic artworks was showing at the city’s Gallery of Modern Art to celebrate his 80th birthday. Poor Things is adapted from his book of the same name and is the perfect encapsulation of the sort of radical thinking Gray brought to his creative practice and life.</p>
<p>An experimental blend of visual and literary forms, Poor Things questions those in power and sets out a bold progressive vision of a free Scotland where all (even the English who live in it) are free and equal. Joe Jackson has written <a href="https://theconversation.com/poor-things-meet-the-radical-scottish-visionary-behind-the-new-hit-film-220080">a wonderful profile of this maverick thinker</a> and managed to make me even more excited to see this film.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/poor-things-meet-the-radical-scottish-visionary-behind-the-new-hit-film-220080">Poor Things: meet the radical Scottish visionary behind the new hit film</a>
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<h2>Abusive relationships</h2>
<p>Another filmmaker whose style I like is Sofia Coppola, whose films have a wonderful look and atmosphere about them. Her latest, sheds light on the relationships between the king of rock'n'roll, Elvis Presley, and his wife, Priscilla – who the film is named for. Adapted from her autobiography, the film <a href="https://theconversation.com/priscilla-a-bold-feminist-retelling-of-elvis-dark-fairytale-marriage-220597">exposes the dark side of what was seen by some as a fairytale</a>. The pair’s relationship began when Priscilla was only 14 and Elvis was 24. Audiences watch as she matures and undergoes abuse under the firm control of Elvis, whose own life is slowly being ruined by addiction.</p>
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<p>In true Coppola style, it is a gorgeously wrought film. Priscilla’s world is beautiful: deeply feminine, full of sumptuous colour, lush fabrics and beautiful rich interiors. But, also in true Coppola style, it is deeply claustrophobic. Like Charlotte in Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette and the Lisbon girls in Virgin Suicides, Priscilla is trapped in a gilded cage.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/priscilla-a-bold-feminist-retelling-of-elvis-dark-fairytale-marriage-220597">Priscilla: a bold feminist retelling of Elvis' dark fairytale marriage</a>
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<p>Priscilla is quite subtle, creating a feeling and showing rather than telling when it comes to depicting domestic abuse. The new season of Fargo is much more direct. The series follows Dot Lyon (Juno Temple), a seemingly normal housewife thrust back into a life she thought she had left behind when she lands in hot water with the authorities. One of the people to return from her past is her abusive ex-husband, North Dakota sheriff Roy Tillman (Jon Hamm).</p>
<p>Through Tillman, our writer has noted, Fargo has <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-fargo-season-five-gets-right-about-toxic-masculinity-and-domestic-violence-220889">boldly drawn connections between modern toxic masculinity and domestic abuse</a>. Many dramas tackling domestic abuse have not done so in such a forceful and direct way, she writes, and it’s refreshing to see a show that isn’t afraid to make it clear that violence against women isn’t a rare phenomenon, but an ever-present threat and a widespread cultural problem.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-fargo-season-five-gets-right-about-toxic-masculinity-and-domestic-violence-220889">What Fargo season five gets right about toxic masculinity and domestic violence</a>
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<h2>Exposing wrongdoing</h2>
<p>A must-watch for me this week is the BBC game show, The Traitors. If you don’t know the show, 22 strangers (or are they?) compete in tasks to grow a prize pot. Among them are a series of players who have been designated as “traitors” who secretly plot to kill the other players (known as “faithfuls”) to win all the prize money for themselves. The faithfuls have a chance each episode to out a traitor by voting someone out.</p>
<p>It’s a thrilling watch, where human nature and psychology come into sharp focus as players judge every word and action of their fellow contestants. Aspersions are cast on people for all sorts of wild reasons, from being too nerdy or reclusive to being too cool and outspoken. Humans are terrible lie detectors, according to research (and the show), and one of our experts has written a great piece on <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-traitors-why-context-is-key-when-it-comes-to-uncovering-liars-220630">why context is key when trying to catch someone out</a>.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-traitors-why-context-is-key-when-it-comes-to-uncovering-liars-220630">The Traitors: why context is key when it comes to uncovering liars</a>
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<p>Another show everyone has been talking about has been ITV’s Mr Bates vs The Post Office. The four-part drama about the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has brought increased scrutiny on one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history that saw 746 sub-postmasters wrongly prosecuted. The show focuses on a few of these sub-postmasters who were central to bringing the scandal to light.</p>
<p>The show has been aired during a public inquiry into the scandal that began in 2022, bringing greater public awareness and an increased sense of urgency to the proceedings. In <a href="https://theconversation.com/mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-depicts-one-of-the-uks-worst-miscarriages-of-justice-heres-why-so-many-victims-didnt-speak-out-220513">this long read</a>, a group of researchers have identified the four main barriers that the victims of this scandal faced when trying to expose the injustice they had faced.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mr-bates-vs-the-post-office-depicts-one-of-the-uks-worst-miscarriages-of-justice-heres-why-so-many-victims-didnt-speak-out-220513">Mr Bates vs The Post Office depicts one of the UK's worst miscarriages of justice: here’s why so many victims didn’t speak out</a>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221043/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
A film adapted from a radical piece of Scottish Literature, powerful dramatisations of abuse and miscarriages of justice and a game show about deception
Naomi Joseph, Arts + Culture Editor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220597
2024-01-05T16:27:25Z
2024-01-05T16:27:25Z
Priscilla: a bold feminist retelling of Elvis’ dark fairytale marriage
<p>In director Sofia Coppola’s new biopic Priscilla, we meet the future Mrs Presley in 1959 when she is a typical 14-year-old all-American schoolgirl, hanging out at a diner and sipping a Coke. She meets the 24-year-old Elvis Presley <a href="https://history.army.mil/faq/elvis.htm#:%7E:text=Presley%20served%20as%20a%20member,basic%20and%20advanced%20military%20training.">during his military service</a> and the two begin a wholesome romance of cinema dates and hangouts, despite her parents’ concerns over the age difference.</p>
<p>Over the course of the relationship, we see Priscilla grow from girlhood to womanhood. She moves to <a href="https://www.graceland.com/">Graceland</a>. She graduates from high school. The two get married and have a child.</p>
<p>On the surface, the story of Elvis and his wife Priscilla has all the qualities of a modern fairy tale. The life of an ordinary girl is transformed by a chance encounter with a handsome stranger. She becomes queen to the “King of Rock and Roll” and they live happily ever after in their Memphis palace. </p>
<p>Look deeper, however, and their story wasn’t quite so picture perfect. Coppola’s biopic in fact exposes the dark heart of this fairytale. Graceland emerges as less of a palace and more of a gilded cage where the teenage Priscilla becomes the vulnerable Beauty to Elvis’ increasingly volatile Beast.</p>
<p>Priscilla is the perfect companion piece to Coppola’s 2006 biopic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0422720/">Marie Antoinette</a>. Both films explore the lives of young women who are thrust into the spotlight and must navigate the pressures of their newfound fame amid a suffocating relationship with a powerful man.</p>
<h2>The lens of #MeToo</h2>
<p>This is a coming-of-age story. The audience watches as Priscilla matures under the shadow of Elvis’ controlling influence. She is not allowed visitors. He picks her outfits. He tells her to wear makeup. He instructs her to dye her black hair, eerily mimicking his own signature look.</p>
<p>She endures this control while Elvis receives love letters from other women and rumours of his affairs with co-stars circulate in the tabloids, including actress <a href="http://www.elvis-history-blog.com/ann-margret.html">Anne-Margaret</a> and singer <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/music/1769795/elvis-presley-frank-sinatra-nancy-sinatra">Nancy Sinatra</a>. Priscilla is also caught in the throes of Elvis’ spiralling drug addiction and violent outbursts.</p>
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<p>The #MeToo feminist landscape has shaped the story Coppola tells about Elvis and Priscilla. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/metoo-a-year-on-media-troll-women-when-journalists-should-be-tackling-causes-of-sexual-abuse-104804">Twitter hashtag #MeToo</a> was popularised in 2017 to expose the widespread abuse of women in Hollywood by <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories">the film producer Harvey Weinstein</a>. Since then, #MeToo has inspired a broader shift in feminist thinking and art.</p>
<p>Priscilla is the latest in a cycle of post-#MeToo feminist retellings that offer a more sympathetic take on women in the spotlight. The Priscilla biopic is based on the star’s own <a href="https://time.com/6331185/priscilla-presley-true-story/">1985 memoir “Elvis and Me”</a>. </p>
<p>In an <a href="https://ew.com/movies/priscilla-presley-sofia-coppolas-priscilla-once-concerned-now-thinks-its-right-on/">interview in Entertainment Weekly</a>, Priscilla expresses her respect for Coppola as a feminist filmmaker and describes the film as “right on” in its portrayal of her turbulent marriage. She also supported Coppola’s film as an executive producer.</p>
<h2>Power and abuse</h2>
<p>Depicting a much-loved icon with anything other than reverence is bound to provoke criticism. Lisa Marie Presley, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/14/lisa-marie-presley-death-bariatric-weight-loss-surgery">late daughter of Elvis and Priscilla</a>, expressed outrage towards Coppola’s film for making her father out to be <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-67307792">“a predator and manipulative”</a>.</p>
<p>The film makes a comment about how powerful men are able to abuse their positions. It offers a valuable reinterpretation of the celebrated “King of Rock and Roll” that speaks to our contemporary moment in which popular entertainers are being held accountable for their actions.</p>
<p>Coppola’s script emphasises the unequal power dynamic between Elvis and Priscilla, including the age difference. The film forces the audience to confront this uncomfortable detail, with numerous references to Priscilla being “a kid” and “just a baby”. Cailee Spaeny convincingly embodies the essence of the young Priscilla, drawn in by Jacob Elordi’s enchanting but sinister Elvis.</p>
<p>This alludes to a wider issue: the lack of care towards women and girls in the entertainment industry. While protesting their teenage daughter’s relationship with an older man, Priscilla’s parents still drive her to parties at Elvis’ house and allow her to stay at Graceland without their supervision.</p>
<p>The film shows how a toxic blend of fame, wealth and status draws people into Elvis’ orbit and, in turn, how his star power allows him to behave in ways that are rarely challenged by those around him.</p>
<p>Priscilla is a brave and poignant biopic that peels back the glittering facade of Elvis and Priscilla’s fairytale. Through Coppola’s feminist storytelling, we see that even the brightest stars cast long shadows.</p>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Fletcher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Sofia Coppola’s biopic is adapted from Priscilla Presley’s memoir and exposes the dark side of her marriage to Elvis Presley.
Harriet Fletcher, Lecturer in Media and Communication, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216035
2023-12-28T09:17:33Z
2023-12-28T09:17:33Z
The Taste of Things review: this gastronomic French tale is a feast for the senses
<p>Trần Anh Hùng, the Vietnamese-born French director known for his Oscar-nominated film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2OfJYvjgQ8">The Scent of Green Papaya</a> (1993) and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYBgsyBwYso">Norwegian Wood</a> (2010), returns with another gorgeous work, <a href="https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2023/cooking-up-a-storm-with-the-pot-au-feu/">The Taste of Things</a>. Due for UK release in February 2024, the film is already out in France. </p>
<p>As its title indicates, the film is about gastronomy. The Taste of Things has already won the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp9b3lLJk6Q">best director award at Cannes</a>, and has now been chosen as the French entry for best international feature film (over Cannes Palme d’Or winner <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17009710/">Anatomy of a Fall</a>) at the 2024 Oscars.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for The Taste of Things.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Written by Hùng, The Taste of Things was inspired by a 1924 novel by gastronomic writer <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/158175/the-passionate-epicure-by-marcel-rouff/">Marcel Rouff</a>. It tells a simple romance-in-the-kitchen story set in late 19th-century France. </p>
<p>Dodin (Benoît Magimel) is a wealthy gourmet who claims that inventing a new delicious meal contributes more to the happiness of humanity than the discovery of a star. He leads a happy life as, every day, he gets to savour the marvellous work of his cook – an elegant woman named Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). </p>
<p>Although both are devotees of food, Dodin loves talking about it while Eugénie mostly focuses on cooking. When Dodin’s guests complain about Eugénie never joining them at the table after a lavish multi-course dinner, she gracefully responds that she has already communicated with them through her food.</p>
<p>There is one small obstacle to Dodin’s complete happiness. He is eager to make Eugénie his wife, but she seems to love her independence more than she desires his commitment. Dodin’s blissful life is threatened further still when Eugénie falls inexplicably ill.</p>
<h2>A feast for the senses</h2>
<p>The film opens with an almost 40-minute sequence of food being prepared inside a kitchen. In an <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/global/the-pot-au-feu-tran-anh-hung-interview-1235626950/">interview with Variety</a>, Hùng shared how they filmed this ritual of cooking carefully, like an elaborate choreography for a ballet. </p>
<p>The almost hypnotic sequence shows how Eugénie works her craft with ease, even though the work involves some physical labour as the cook and her assistants lift large hot pots around the kitchen. There is something artistic in the way Eugénie handles the ingredients, mixes them together and cooks them. Her cooking creates magic. </p>
<p>This is a movie that not only pleases the eyes but entertains the other senses. Audiences can take pleasure in following the rhythm of all that elaborate preparation, listening to the sounds of food being simmered or grilled, imagining the scent of the food being cooked or even the taste of it in the mouth.</p>
<p>With meticulous attention to food and how it is prepared, the film’s plot embraces simplicity. There is little conflict and drama. Former off-screen romantic partners Magimel and Binoche show great chemistry, their characters sometimes communicating through glances and smiles rather than words. </p>
<h2>A matter of taste</h2>
<p>The French title of the film is <em>La Passion de Dodin Bouffant</em>. I prefer the original UK title, The Pot-au-Feu, <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/awards/pot-au-feu-retitled-taste-of-things-juliette-binoche-1235698369/">which was changed</a> at the time of the US release. It refers to a <a href="https://www.myfrenchtable.com/pot-au-feu-or-french-beef-stew/">quintessential French dish</a> – making the film less about the male lead and more about the food, a character in its own right.</p>
<p>Whether The Taste of Things is the best French film of 2023 is a question of personal taste. But it well represents Frenchness in its celebration of <em>savour-vivre</em> – the ability to enjoy life. Here, the joy of cooking and enjoying good food is celebrated above all.</p>
<p>The message of living in the moment is made even more poignant as Eugénie grows increasingly fragile. It is a cliché but forever true: if life is so short, unpredictable and punctuated by dissatisfaction and loss, the best thing we can do is to enjoy the time we have.</p>
<p>As a mostly light, romantic movie with a predictable twist, The Taste of Things never touches on the uncomfortable issue of class division. This is despite the apparent difference in status between Dodin and both Eugénie and the maid Violette, played by Galatéa Bellugi, who is also their kitchen assistant. </p>
<p>The film may be a bit escapist, yet its beauty and humour remind us of the things that make our mundane lives worth living for.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216035/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thi Gammon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
With meticulous attention to food and how it is prepared, the film’s plot embraces simplicity.
Thi Gammon, Research Associate in Culture, Media and Creative Industries Education, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220095
2023-12-19T14:48:31Z
2023-12-19T14:48:31Z
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a fast-paced slapstick extravaganza
<p>Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget combines the distinctive charm of the Great Escape-esque story that characterised the original Chicken Run (2000), with an action-packed plot, staged in a futuristic setting fit for the 21st century. </p>
<p>Picking the story up from where the original Chicken Run ended, this time the plot is inspired by Mission Impossible (1996) and James Bond – a caper film that sees the chicken protagonists breaking in, rather than breaking out.</p>
<p>Protagonists Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi) are now parents to the runaway teenage chick Molly (Bella Ramsey), who ends up in the clutches of her parents’ arch nemesis, Mrs Tweedy (Miranda Richardson). </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_-Kz67kea8Q?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Chicken Run 2: Dawn of the Nugget trailer.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Tweedy has received a “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nD_xcLLmM08">glamorous make-over</a>” for the sequel, while her chicken farm has been replaced with a futuristic chicken fun land – a compound that serves the meat-hungry food industry an assembly line of poultry. </p>
<p>Trying to save their daughter from becoming a chicken nugget, Rocky, Ginger and their fellow chickens venture to break into this high-tech bastion. With appealing new characters, emotional depth and distinctly British humour, this fast-paced slapstick extravaganza is both a technical and artistic achievement.</p>
<h2>Changes since Chicken Run</h2>
<p>Since being founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton in 1972, Bristol-based studio Aardman Animation has been a global player in stop motion animation. From its Oscar-winning films Creature Comforts (1990), The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995) to its first ever feature film, Chicken Run, Aardman’s story is one of unrivalled success. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wrong-trousers-why-the-wallace-and-gromit-animation-is-still-a-family-favourite-30-years-later-219283">The Wrong Trousers: why the Wallace and Gromit animation is still a family favourite 30 years later</a>
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<p>The first Chicken Run set new standards, not only breaking records for audience reach, and global box-office profit, but also for its technical prowess. <a href="https://vimeo.com/263325572">During production</a>, 30 sets were used with 18 animators. This sequel is no less ambitious in its technical scope.</p>
<p>The original Chicken Run was shot with mounted film cameras, which meant that the Aardman team did not know the final look before the development process had completed. Since 2005, stop-motion features have <a href="https://www.dragonframe.com/introduction-stop-motion-animation/">predominantly adopted digital cameras</a>.</p>
<p>In this sense, Chicken Run was a historic milestone, as there is no evidence of any cleanup work in post-production. This means practically everything that the audience sees happened right in front of the camera.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AEOfT7hUcDs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for the original Chicken Run (2000).</span></figcaption>
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<p>Today, many stop motion animation productions, both big and small, are using visual effects to tidy up mistakes, make the scope and breadth of sets larger and clean up puppet rigs. This became a huge benefit to the new production in terms of keeping the consistency and coherence of the physical scale difference between chickens and human. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://youtu.be/nD_xcLLmM08?si=tBo82GMAo5RBD30o">Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget</a>, a team of 30 animators and 45 units – led by lead animator Will Becher and director Sam Fell – paid particular attention to facial expressions, eye movement and newly adapted mouth features to augment the original character designs.</p>
<p>Due to the many diverse measures of unit within the film, the set designers, supervised by art director Matt Perry, focused on scaling, proportions and dimensions. These presented the team with <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81743939">unprecedented technical challenges</a> (architectural, human, and chicken) which had a direct impact on lighting and compositions.</p>
<h2>Challenges for the animators</h2>
<p>Whereas the original Chicken Run was set on a farm, Dawn of the Nugget takes place in a quintessentially human environment – the James Bond-inspired Fun-Land compound. </p>
<p>Part of this fortress-come-factory consists of a playground for chickens, with its own distinctive psychedelic colour palette. This environment is created at chicken-scale, while the control station and factory environment remain human-scaled. Consolidating and integrating these different dimensions into a coherent and consistent aesthetic, with sophisticated lighting and art direction, involved advanced hand-animation skills, as well as a degree of post-production to ensure lighting consistency. </p>
<p>Visual effects production for Dawn of the Nugget had to strike a balance between cleaning up and maintaining a characteristic hand-crafted, tactile style. Kirstie Deane, VFX producer, <a href="https://www.netflix.com/title/81743939">explains</a> in the behind the scenes film that their team “cleaned-up elements” that are a bit distracting, but for the most part, all of those thumb prints and the hand-touched nature of the stop-frame remained untouched. </p>
<p>The fine balance between the physical and human nature of Aardman animation, and the need for rudimentary post-production to further film consistency and continuity, contributes to Dawn of the Nugget’s unique charm.</p>
<p>With its thinly veiled capitalist critique, the film manages to successfully lift the storyline into the 21st century, while maintaining a fluid, organic, yet tactile feel. Animated on every second frame, the film presents audiences with a dynamic visual rollercoaster of hand-animation, that never feels over-produced, but manages to instil its dialogue, characters and actions with an endearing comedy.</p>
<p>While the original Chicken Run was both critically acclaimed for its <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10509200601091433">lead female role</a>, it was also criticised for its stereotyped depiction of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220819214023/https://filmschoolrejects.com/revolutionary-spirit-of-chicken-run">gendered activities</a>, such as knitting and sewing.</p>
<p>The sequel has learned from the past. It centres around another strong-willed female protagonist – teenage chick Molly – and her strong relationship with the gender-fluid Frizzel reaches beyond gender stereotypes.</p>
<p>Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is a visually captivating firework of handcraft and skill in stop motion. It’s a labour of love, that points as much to the past as to the future of the animation industry. The film builds on the core strengths of Aardman Animations. It features appealing character design, world-leading stop motion clay animation and a masterclass in British wit and humour.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oliver Gingrich receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council for the research project p_ART_icipate led by the University of Greenwich</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Min Young Oh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Dawn of the Nugget has appealing new characters, emotional depth and distinctly British humour.
Oliver Gingrich, Programme Lead BA (Hons) Animation, University of Greenwich
Min Young Oh, Lecturer in Animation, University of Greenwich
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219283
2023-12-14T10:44:38Z
2023-12-14T10:44:38Z
The Wrong Trousers: why the Wallace and Gromit animation is still a family favourite 30 years later
<p>It has been 30 years since “It’s the wrong trousers Gromit! And they’ve gone wrong!” blared out for the first time in the Aardman Animations short film, The Wrong Trousers (1993). </p>
<p>Wallace and Gromit’s first outing in A Grand Day Out (1989) put Aardman firmly on the map for creating original, compelling and engaging animation productions. And almost four years later, The Wrong Trousers introduced viewers to the endeavours of Feathers McGraw, a silent criminal mastermind penguin. This animated short creates a particular joy and comfort in the viewer through the discipline of stop-motion animation.</p>
<p>For many fans, The Wrong Trousers is the ultimate comfort movie. Here are the elements of stop-motion animation that bring about this comforting feeling when watching this cherished animated classic.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The breakfast scene from The Wrong Trousers is a firm fan favourite.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The direction</h2>
<p>A large part of The Wrong Trousers familiarity and comfort comes from its direction and how shots are framed. The inspiration that director Nick Park drew from British weekly comics such as The Beano and The Dandy can be seen in the style of The Wrong Trousers.</p>
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<img alt="Nick Park" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564301/original/file-20231207-19-nlo7dm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1006&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Nick Park was the director and writer of The Wrong Trousers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nick_Park,_BBC_Radio_2_Folk_Awards_2007.jpg">Bryan Ledgard/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Many shots are kept low to the ground, evoking scenes from The Bash Street Kids in The Beano, or The Dandy’s Banana Man. When Wallace is absconded by the Techno Trousers, a pair of robot trousers with suction abilities, the streets in these shots bend and curve away from the camera in dramatic effect, replicating framing that mirrors these comics.</p>
<p>Early in the film, Gromit uses the Techno Trousers to paint a ceiling by standing on it. This demonstrates the trousers’ ability to walk up walls via air suction. This clever directorial decision makes the role of the trousers in the diamond heist easy to understand, as well as the faults with the trousers during the heist, as they fail to grip to ceiling tiles in the museum.</p>
<p>Modelling clay – the material used to create most of the characters such as Gromit and Feathers McGraw – is a tactile and familiar material that many viewers grew up playing with. Despite best efforts by the animator, the clay will usually carry a thumbprint or a scratch mark from the hand of the animator as the puppets are manipulated, helping us to “feel” that tactile material on screen.</p>
<p>Other familiar materials or items are used throughout the film to evoke a similar feeling, such as transparent plastic wrap to simulate tea coming out of Gromit’s teapot and the brush strokes still visible on Wallace’s teacup. </p>
<p>These details alert us to the fact that what we are seeing is small and handmade – their imperfections are left intact as a subliminal reminder that they are real in their visual aesthetic, yet unreal in how they move.</p>
<h2>The physics</h2>
<p>In the real world we can identify a limping walk compared to a normal walk without necessarily being able to explain the difference in movement. Helping the audience to believe what they are seeing in animation relies on how things move.</p>
<p>With animation, all movement is created by the animator who uses many principles or rules of movement that slightly exaggerate real world physics. Exaggerated too much, the movement can stop the audience from engaging with what they are being shown.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h0Tjq4FiDXo?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The museum scene from The Wrong Trousers.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Wallace’s entry into the museum while wearing the trousers (which are being controlled by Feathers McGraw) is a good example. His movements are exaggerated just enough to be understandable. Wallace walks along the outside of a vent on the roof of the museum, rotating a full 180 degrees when he reaches the end, letting him walk down the inside of the vent.</p>
<p>Later, we see Wallace walking on the inside of a window with his weight rotating the window, bringing him from the inside to the outside. Replicated in the real world, it is doubtful either of these manoeuvres would work, however the rules of physics are bent just enough through the animation to make us feel that what we are seeing might actually work.</p>
<p>The finale train chase sequence pushes the limits of the use of materials, direction and physics to dizzying heights, guaranteeing to silence a room as it plays. The house of Wallace and Gromit takes on the appearance of being unfeasibly large, as the duo chase Feathers McGraw, who has hopped aboard Wallace’s model train set. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jrmZIgVoQw4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The train chase scene from The Wrong Trousers.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Running out of track, Gromit starts laying track ahead of his train to continue the chase. We see and know that there isn’t enough track in the box he grabs, but we want him to catch Feathers – physics be damned! Rhythm and pacing tighten to heighten the anticipation of whether Feathers will be successfully captured, which of course he is.</p>
<p>Stop-motion animation can bend the reality of physics, while utilising familiar materials and direction styles. The Wrong Trousers acknowledges these characteristics and uses them to great effect. The audience is encouraged to suspend belief while having the comfort and subconscious familiarity of what they are seeing.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The BA Animation course at Sheffield Hallam University which I, Melvyn F Ternan am employed as a Senior Lecturer on, is in Partnership with Aardman Animations through their Aardman Academy partnership scheme.
I also manage the BA Animation course side of the "Nick Park, Aardman Award".</span></em></p>
The Wrong Trousers introduced viewers to the endeavours of Feathers McGraw, a silent criminal mastermind penguin.
Melvyn F Ternan, Senior lecturer in animation and digital media production, Sheffield Hallam University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219456
2023-12-08T17:11:26Z
2023-12-08T17:11:26Z
This hand-painted film is a ‘must see’ – what you should watch this week
<p>The mark of a good film, for me, is the way I feel when it’s over. If I jump up to brush off the popcorn and pull on my coat, it’s forgettable fare. If I’m still glued to my seat as the final credits roll, it will probably stick with me for quite some time.</p>
<p>Such was the case with <a href="https://theconversation.com/old-school-painting-meets-cutting-edge-animation-loving-vincent-is-a-rich-visual-feast-86419">Loving Vincent</a> in 2017, a beautiful film about the life and death of Vincent van Gogh. The story, about a man attempting to deliver the artist’s final letter and, in the process, unravelling the mystery around his death, wasn’t what hooked me. </p>
<p>It was the stunning look of the film, which made you feel as though you had tumbled headfirst through the frame of one of Van Gogh’s paintings. First filmed in live action, 125 artists then created oil paintings of each frame of the film (62,000 in total) in Van Gogh’s distinctive style. </p>
<p>Now, the film’s creators (husband and wife team Dorota Kobiela-Welchman and Hugh Welchman) have released The Peasants, another oil-painted masterpiece, this time adapting the Nobel-prize winning novel by Polish writer, Władysław Reymont. Our reviewer, an expert in Polish literature and culture, was pleased to find that the film stayed faithful to its source material – while also bringing fresh readings to a novel that is nearly 120 years old. </p>
<p>This time the visuals are inspired by famous Polish and European painters, including Ferdynand Ruszczyc, Jean-François Millet and Józef Chełmoński. Part of the fun is recognising the moments the action mirrors a famous painting, like when the main character, Jagna, turns her head in the perfect image of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring. It’s an instant cult classic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-peasants-this-oil-painted-film-of-wladyslaw-reymonts-novel-is-a-visual-masterpiece-219156">The Peasants: this oil-painted film of Władysław Reymont's novel is a visual masterpiece</a>
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<p>Another cult classic worth watching this weekend is The Wicker Man, which turned 50 on Wednesday. The film has been described as “the Citizen Kane of horror films”, and anyone who has watched it has their own unique relationship to its unnerving story. </p>
<p>The Wicker Man follows a devout Christian police officer (Edward Woodward) as he arrives on a remote island community, in search of a missing girl. As his investigation progresses, it soon becomes clear that the isolated people live by the rules of a thoroughly alternative belief system. </p>
<p>As our writer explains, the film’s director Robin Hardy thought of the film as a game. With clues at every turn to help the audience solve the puzzle, The Wicker Man rewards repeated viewings. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-wicker-man-at-50-how-the-strange-1970s-british-film-became-a-cult-classic-204632">The Wicker Man at 50: how the strange 1970s British film became a cult classic</a>
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<h2>A Japanese history</h2>
<p>Blue Eye Samurai is the best TV show I’ve watched this year. The Netflix anime series tells the story of a master samurai – a young woman of mixed Japanese and English heritage, living disguised as a boy – as she carves her path to revenge on her white father in Edo-period Japan. The story’s depiction of women and characters with disabilities is refreshing, and the animation stunning. </p>
<p>But I finished the series wondering just how realistic these depictions were, as well as its constant – and increasingly horrifying – displays of violence. This piece from historian of Japan Ruth Starr brilliantly sorts the real history of the show from moments of creative licence. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blue-eye-samurai-historian-explains-what-the-netflix-series-gets-right-and-wrong-about-real-edo-period-japan-218635">Blue Eye Samurai: historian explains what the Netflix series gets right and wrong about real Edo-period Japan</a>
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<p>There’s more Japanese history to be learned at Japan: Myths to Manga, on at London’s Young V&A museum. Aimed at families – but with plenty to offer to solo adult visitors, too – the exhibition promises an atmospheric trip through the ways landscape and folklore have influenced Japan’s culture, technology and design. Our reviewer, a leading expert in Japanese translation, was impressed – particularly by the inclusion of clothes made by the 12-year-old artist Coco Pink, which explore themes of waste reduction. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/japan-myths-to-manga-young-vanda-exhibition-celebrates-natures-influence-on-japanese-culture-217315">Japan: Myths to Manga – Young V&A exhibition celebrates nature's influence on Japanese culture</a>
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<h2>And the winner is…</h2>
<p>I’ve never been much of a gamer. In years gone by, I – wrongly – thought of them as timewasters. But my younger brother, an avid gamer, has taught me to see the high artistry at work in some of his favourite titles. </p>
<p>He plays Xenoblade because each game tells a grand narrative that players can participate in. Fire Emblem: Three Houses feels different each time he plays, with hundreds of character and plot combinations offering hours of enjoyment. </p>
<p>So, I was really interested to read about the six titles nominated for this year’s Game Awards – the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars. And a diverse bunch they are. We asked six experts to review the contenders: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was dubbed “balletic”, Super Mario Bros. Wonder “brilliant”, Baldur’s Gate 3 “hugely enjoyable”, Resident Evil 4 “unforgettable”, Alan Wake 2 “haunting”, and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom “spellbinding”. </p>
<p>The best one? The judges have now declared Baldur’s Gate 3 <a href="https://theconversation.com/baldurs-gate-3-wins-game-of-the-year-at-2023s-game-awards-219519">game of the year</a> 2023.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/all-the-video-games-shortlisted-for-the-2023-game-awards-reviewed-by-experts-217843">All the video games shortlisted for the 2023 Game Awards – reviewed by experts</a>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/baldurs-gate-3-wins-game-of-the-year-at-2023s-game-awards-an-expert-review-219519">Baldurs Gate 3 wins game of the year at 2023's Game Awards – an expert review</a>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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An oil-painted instant cult classic, the Game Awards nominees and more.
Anna Walker, Senior Arts + Culture Editor
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219156
2023-12-07T16:19:29Z
2023-12-07T16:19:29Z
The Peasants: this oil-painted film of Władysław Reymont’s novel is a visual masterpiece
<p>The Peasants tells the story of a beautiful young Polish girl, Jagna (Kamila Urzędowska), who was sold into a marriage to the richest man in the village – an older widower named Boryna (Mirosław Baka). The price is high – six acres of Boryna’s best land – but then, as Jagna’s mother knows: “Love comes and goes but land stays.” The girl herself, of course, does not matter and has no say. </p>
<p>Jagna’s story is based on Polish author <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wladyslaw-Reymont">Władysław Reymont’s</a> novel, The Peasants, published in four volumes between 1904 and 1909. The Peasants focuses on the arduous life of the Polish peasant, but the story it tells is universally familiar. In 1924, Reymont received the Nobel prize in literature for his “<a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1924/reymont/facts/">great national epic</a>”, which has been a classic of Polish literature ever since.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QTHuOgQMVN4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Peasants trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The inherent ugliness and cruelty of such marital transactions, typical of rigid patriarchal rural communities, do not clash with the film’s visual beauty and its picturesque character. In fact, they accentuate the beauty of the landscape and the colours of changing seasons, following the way Reymont’s novel is divided into four books: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. </p>
<p>But what makes the film even more visually stunning is that each scene has been painstakingly recreated by a team of oil painters and brought together through special effects – giving it a unique quality somewhere between animation and live action. Six frames for every second of live footage <a href="https://variety.com/2023/film/asia/the-peasants-review-the-hand-painted-polish-oscar-entry-is-pretty-but-inert-1235750215/">were painted by hand</a>. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1H9j2YZqNQc?wmode=transparent&start=4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The process that created The Peasants.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just like in the novel, where the seasons govern every aspect of the peasants’ lives, the colours of the film are governed by the seasons, with the gold of autumn transforming to the white of winter. </p>
<p>However, the beauty of nature is systematically contrasted with human mercilessness towards each other, and also to animals. This brutality is emphasised from the first scene, when Boryna calmly slaughters his best cow because it is sick. </p>
<h2>Behind the scenes</h2>
<p>Creating The Peasants was a laborious process for the filmmakers. It took five years in all, partially slowed down by the COVID pandemic. This labour has resulted in a stunning and convincing visual masterpiece. </p>
<p>All the actors were carefully filmed to catch their facial expressions, sometimes with cameras attached to their shoulders. This is essential in the multiple dance scenes in which the background and the light change every second. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ogq85DmIDwc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A dance sequence from The Peasants.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then, each scene was painted by over 100 painters from Poland, Serbia, Lithuania and Ukraine. Together, they created more than 42,000 oil paintings. </p>
<p>These paintings were used to create each frame of the film. The film’s directors – <a href="https://lovingvincent.com/the-crew,50,pl.html">Dorota Kobiela-Welchman</a> and her husband, <a href="https://lovingvincent.com/the-crew,50,pl.html">Hugh Welchman</a> – are the creators of this method of oil-painted films. Their previous work, <a href="https://theconversation.com/old-school-painting-meets-cutting-edge-animation-loving-vincent-is-a-rich-visual-feast-86419">Loving Vincent</a> (2017), was a highly successful experimental animated drama about Vincent van Gogh. It took six years and over 62,000 oil paintings in the style of Van Gogh, which were created by 125 artists. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/old-school-painting-meets-cutting-edge-animation-loving-vincent-is-a-rich-visual-feast-86419">Old-school painting meets cutting-edge animation: Loving Vincent is a rich visual feast</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The powerful beauty of The Peasants comes from the setting of the film against famous Polish and European paintings, many of which have become so intimately known that we subconsciously see the world and its colours through them. Jagna’s beauty and her budding sexuality are highlighted, for example, by presenting her turned face with half-open lips in the same pose and palette as Vermeer’s <a href="https://www.mauritshuis.nl/en/our-collection/artworks/670-girl-with-a-pearl-earring/">Girl with a Pearl Earring</a> (1665).</p>
<p>The Welchmans have used paintings by Polish painters who mixed realism with symbolism, such as <a href="https://culture.pl/en/artist/jozef-chelmonski">Józef Chełmoński</a>, <a href="https://culture.pl/en/artist/leon-wyczolkowski">Leon Wyczółkowski</a> and <a href="https://culture.pl/en/artist/ferdynand-ruszczyc">Ferdynand Ruszczyc</a> – along with other famous works including <a href="https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/jean-francois-millet">Jean-François Millet’s</a>
<a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/gleaners/GgHsT2RumWxbtw?hl=en">The Gleaners</a> (1857) and Van Gogh’s <a href="https://www.vincentvangogh.org/noon-rest-from-work-after-millet.jsp">Noon-Rest from Work</a> (1890). </p>
<p>Jagna is presented as a young girl with artistic flair and – compared with the villagers who believe her to be a dangerous and immoral seductress – unusual kindness. </p>
<p>She takes care of a stork with a broken wing, makes jewellery, and constantly creates delicate paper cutouts of animals, especially birds. Yet, unlike these birds she creates, she does not have any freedom herself. </p>
<p>Fans of Reymont’s novel will be pleased to find the film is highly faithful to its source material. But The Peasants also offers fresh readings of the 100-year-old Polish classic, exploring its themes of power and resistance in ways that will give even his most ardent readers new food for thought. </p>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katarzyna Zechenter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The powerful beauty of The Peasants comes from the setting of the film against famous Polish and European paintings.
Katarzyna Zechenter, Associate Professor in Polish Literature and Culture, UCL
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219117
2023-12-06T19:07:17Z
2023-12-06T19:07:17Z
The Boy and the Heron is an autobiographical reflection by Hayao Miyazaki in the twilight of his life
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563242/original/file-20231204-17-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C2%2C1908%2C1031&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2023 Studio Ghibli</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much about Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS5thwpUzQ8">The Boy and the Heron</a>, remained a mystery until its premiere in Japanese theatres on July 14. </p>
<p>The title <em>Kimi tachi wa do ikiruka</em>, or How do you live?, was revealed in 2017. (The Boy and the Heron is the English title.) No trailer was produced for a Japanese audience and there were no announcements regarding the film’s plot, voice actors or production team. The involvement of <a href="https://www.joehisaishi.com/">Joe Hisaishi</a>, who has been composing music for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jZNKV5ROBM">Miyazaki’s films</a> since Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), was confirmed on July 4, a mere 10 days prior to the film release.</p>
<p>Mystery served as a strategic promotional tool for the film. After the release on July 14, Studio Ghibli discouraged the public from making any comments about the film’s contents on social media. No pamphlet – a popular publication typically available at Japanese movie theatres – was produced for this film. An <a href="https://australia.kinokuniya.com/bw/9784198657482">official guidebook</a> was only made available for sale at the start of November. </p>
<p>Miyazaki wanted the audience to see his film with no preconceived expectations. </p>
<h2>A coming-of-age story</h2>
<p>Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/441639/how-do-you-live-by-yoshino-genzaburo/9781846046452">How do you live?</a> was published in 1937, four years before Japan joined the second world war. The book follows a teenage boy as he navigates the big questions about how to live your life through interactions with his friends, housekeepers and family, particularly an uncle who acts as a guide. It was originally intended to be an ethics book for young adults, rather than a work of literature, and Miyazaki held a deep fondness for the book during his childhood.</p>
<p>While the film is an original story and not a remake of the novel, it shares numerous similarities. Both narratives feature a teenage boy on a coming-of-age journey, seeking the meaning of life, and are set in a similar historical era. </p>
<p>The novel unfolds in the 1930s, a period when Japan was increasingly embracing militarism. The animation film is set during the second world war, likely in 1944 or 1945, following the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saipan">Fall of Saipan</a> when American military aircraft began civilian-targeted firebombing. The film’s main character, Mahito, experiences the tragic loss of his mother in a fire, presumably caused by firebombing, early in the story.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/t5khm-VjEu4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suzume-builds-on-a-long-line-of-japanese-art-exploring-the-impacts-of-trauma-on-the-individual-and-the-collective-203920">Suzume builds on a long line of Japanese art exploring the impacts of trauma on the individual and the collective</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While the historical background of the film is obvious to a domestic audience in Japan, it may not be immediately apparent to many foreign viewers. There is no guiding narrative to explain the historical background in the film. Miyazaki’s use of the title from the novel reflects on Yoshino’s anti-war stance, but this connection is not clear in the English title.</p>
<p>The new title, The Boy and the Heron, is unrelated to the Japanese original. It was possibly crafted to appeal to an international audience unfamiliar with the novel. Here, the boy symbolises Miyazaki himself, a child who, having lost his mother and been compelled to leave Tokyo during <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/23/t-magazine/hayao-miyazaki-studio-ghibli.html">wartime evacuations</a>, continues to yearn for motherly comfort.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The boy." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563244/original/file-20231204-27-cbsiyt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The boy is compelled to leave Tokyo during wartime evacuations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2023 Studio Ghibli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The boy embarks on a journey into an alternate world. A talking heron disrupts his journey, yet is crucial for the journey to reach completion. The encounter with the heron poignantly depicts how we can simultaneously embody friendship and opposition, mirroring the complexities of the real world.</p>
<p>The story serves as both a life lesson and an autobiographical reflection constructed by Miyazaki in the twilight of his life. It is a journey through time, an endeavour where he traverses decades to delve into his memories. For fervent Miyazaki enthusiasts, it offers a treasure trove that unveils the roots of his upbringing.</p>
<p>But the raw portrayal of Miyazaki’s past emotions might evoke discomfort. Some may feel reluctant to witness Miyazaki in such a vulnerable state, exposing aspects of himself they may not have anticipated encountering. </p>
<p>Born in 1941, the year when Japan entered the second world war, Miyazaki might have felt compelled to document his memories. Only a small fraction of today’s generations lived through the war; even fewer retain personal memories of that time. The opportunity to learn firsthand from direct experiences and oral histories is rapidly dwindling.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A scary bird." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563245/original/file-20231204-21-tdmlj9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The boy meets various people and creatures in his quest to answer life’s big questions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© 2023 Studio Ghibli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Awaiting another film</h2>
<p>After 2013’s The Wind Rises, Miyazaki spent ten years creating The Boy and the Heron. During this time, speculations this might be his final film circulated in Japanese media. </p>
<p>Now 82 years old, Miyazaki has surprised many by already confirming his motivation to embark on his next cinematic endeavour. Despite his age, he has made clear <a href="https://jp.reuters.com/life/entertainment/O62OT3PEEJM6HNDH6HRMEOWVHE-2023-09-10/">his intent</a> to create another film. </p>
<p>But The Boy and the Heron feels like the concluding work of his long journey, packed with messages to younger generations. His unusual request to not share any details of the film on social media suggests he wants his audience to individually consider the important issue of how to live your own life. While it is nice to feel connected, there should also be time to be on your own, and think. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-studio-ghibli-films-can-help-us-rediscover-the-childlike-wonder-of-our-connection-with-nature-176612">How Studio Ghibli films can help us rediscover the childlike wonder of our connection with nature</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219117/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tets Kimura does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
After 2013’s The Wind Rises, Miyazaki spent ten years creating The Boy and the Heron, speculated to be his final film.
Tets Kimura, Adjunct Lecturer, Creative Arts, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219249
2023-12-06T10:07:37Z
2023-12-06T10:07:37Z
Wonka: Timothée Chalamet shines in an otherwise pedestrian prequel
<p>How do you bring a film from more than half a century ago up to date for a society more tuned into the politics of representation? You won’t find out in Wonka.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.slashfilm.com/1336323/timothee-chalamet-wonka-prequel-canon-with-gene-wilder-film/">new prequel</a> to the classic <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000698/">Gene Wilder</a> film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067992/">Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory</a> (1971) aims to tell the backstory of the magical chocolatier long before he encountered Charlie Bucket. But in setting the dial at 1971, Wonka carries all the problematic cultural trappings of a film made for a different time.</p>
<p>At the start of the new movie, orphaned young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) disembarks from a ship with 12 sovereigns in his pocket. He soon loses or gives it all away and ends up locked into a contract, working to pay off his debt to a Dickensian hostel owner (Olivia Colman). There he encounters others in the same position, including Noodle (Calah Lane) and Abacus Crunch (Jim Carter).</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/otNh9bTjXWg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Wonka trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He’s determined to open his own chocolate shop, but is thwarted by a cabal of three chocolatiers who have bribed the local police and clergy. Such a straightforward struggle of good versus evil doesn’t make for much of a story, and the results often seem like a montage of cliches rather than a meaningful addition to the Roald Dahl original.</p>
<h2>Shortsighted choices</h2>
<p>Hugh Grant plays an irascible Oompa Loompa. It’s a characterful performance, but it seemed unnecessary to bring back the idea of the Oompa Loompas, little people who in Dahl’s original 1964 book were black, then white in a new edition in 1973 and orange in the 1971 movie. </p>
<p>Since they were making up the new story from scratch, why bring back a character with <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-pygmies-to-puppets-what-to-do-with-roald-dahls-enslaved-oompa-loompas-in-modern-adaptations-166967#:%7E:text=In%20the%20first%20edition%20of,and%20enslaves%20in%20his%20factory.">such a fraught history</a> at all?</p>
<p>It’s especially odd because the filmmakers do seem keen to comment on serious topics, such as the corruption of the church and police, and the punitive enslavement of debtors. There is acknowledgement of how capitalism makes the system unfair. </p>
<p>But there is seemingly no thought given to why it might be problematic to depict Loompaland as a generic exotic island where Wonka’s cocoa beans grow. It doesn’t grapple at all with the relationship of all of this to enslavement in the history of chocolate production in the real world.</p>
<p>I know that Wonka is family entertainment rather than a history documentary, but the stories and images we grow up with influence our understanding of the world. Wonka does some finger-pointing (a delicious cameo from Rowan Atkinson as a chocoholic cleric) but hasn’t worked through its own complicity in the system.</p>
<p>The film’s saving grace is a charismatic performance from Chalamet in the title role. Still in his twenties, this impressive actor has an old-school lightness that makes his movement elegant and he brings a wistful quality to some of the film’s more poignant moments. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5012254/">Christopher Gattelli’s</a> lively choreography further makes Chalamet look like a Broadway pro.</p>
<p>The film is also easy on the eye. It’s beautifully designed and the location filming (including famous sights in Oxford) could hardly have set the whole thing up better.</p>
<p>Yet writer-director <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1653753/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Paul King</a> of <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1109624/">Paddington</a> (2014) fame hasn’t served up the goods this time (the screenplay is co-written by <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1375030/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1">Simon Farnaby</a>). </p>
<p>It’s a little too dark for small children (Wonka being threatened by a corrupt policeman who submerges his head into a fountain was a particularly disturbing image for the very young). And it’s not funny enough. You know you’re in trouble when the most exciting sequence involves a CGI giraffe called Abigail – a clear sign that this was an underwritten screenplay for an excellent cast.</p>
<p>Nor is the score up to scratch. Songwriter <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0973252/">Neil Hannon</a> of <a href="https://thedivinecomedy.com/">The Divine Comedy</a> seems most at home in a terrific 1990s-style pop ballad called A World of Your Own, but it doesn’t have the poignancy of the stunning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVi3-PrQ0pY">Pure Imagination</a>, which returns from the 1971 Willy Wonka in the underscore of the opening and in full at the close of the film.</p>
<p>Its reuse at key moments, along with the old <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkC8wPSmcPg">Oompa Loompa song</a>, causes not only a stylistic clash with Hannon’s new efforts, but also draws attention to the lack of magic and originality in most of the new songs. There are tired cliches (“cherry trees from Japan”, “a jungle in Mumbai”) and creaky attempts at made-up rhymes (“consonants” matched with “nonsen-ants”).</p>
<p>I imagine Wonka will be a hit over the holiday period, but when the central messaging doesn’t have enough clarity and the fun is in short supply, it’s not clear who this film is for. It’s decent distraction for the kids over the Christmas break – but don’t expect the intergenerational magic of Paddington 2.</p>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219249/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Broomfield-McHugh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It’s a little too dark for small children and not funny enough.
Dominic Broomfield-McHugh, Professor of Musicology, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218435
2023-11-29T19:17:37Z
2023-11-29T19:17:37Z
Christmess is undoubtedly one of the best Christmas films to emerge – from anywhere – in recent years
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562286/original/file-20231128-23-rszejm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C0%2C6679%2C3933&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bonsai Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Bona fide</em> Christmas films usually fit into one of the following categories. </p>
<p>There are the sardonic comedies poking fun at the consumerist undertones of the holiday (National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Gremlins). There are the cheesy, schmaltzy Christmas fantasy films (The Christmas Star, Prancer) that strain to impart some of that good ol’ Christmas miracle to the viewer. There are the camp, deliberately kitsch bodgy romps like the Hulk Hogan vehicle Santa with Muscles. And there are the social realist dramas about people just trying to make it through the stress of the period (Almost Christmas). </p>
<p>This is not to mention the numerous Christmas horror films – anti-Christmas films? – that skewer the joy of the holidays with things like axe-wielding Santas (Silent Night, Deadly Night), deranged, obscene phone-calling maniacs (Black Christmas) and evil Krampuses looking to punish the naughty of every stripe (Rare Exports). </p>
<p>Christmess, the latest film from writer-director Heath Davis, fits firmly in the social realist mode. </p>
<p>Alcoholic ex-film star Chris (Steve Le Marquand) leaves rehab and moves into a halfway house with just over a week until Christmas. Living with his sponsor, Nick (Darren Gilshenan), a self-professed Yulephile, and musician and recovering addict Joy (Hannah Joy), he works hard to get his life on track and secures a job as a Santa at a suburban mall. But various obstacles – like bumping into his daughter Noelle, estranged for 20 years – impede his efforts. </p>
<p>As he attempts to develop a relationship with his daughter, he discovers, alas, that despite the optimism of people like his sponsor Nick, simply apologising isn’t always (or even often) enough, even if, as Nick is fond of saying, “Christmas is the time for forgivin’.” </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tNrCTxcwTvM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>There’s no glorious overcoming or transcendence at the end of the film, and anything that could be interpreted as a “Christmas miracle” is minor to say the least. But there is a definite sense of the development of genuine friendship between the characters, and a sense that the grey world Chris inhabits is at least a few shades warmer by the end of the film (even if, as is so often the case with addicts, macro-level patterns repeat). </p>
<p>Rather than dampening the film, the minor stakes make it a more touching experience – and it is an emotionally engrossing film, satisfying in its combination of melancholy tinged with the vague outlines of hope.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christmas-films-there-might-be-some-truth-to-stories-about-hometown-romances-according-to-research-196607">Christmas films: there might be some truth to stories about hometown romances, according to research</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Carefully observed details</h2>
<p>For a low-budget independent film to be successful – and this is a true independent film, which in Australia means no investment from any of the major screen bodies – it needs to be as close to flawless as possible across three fronts. </p>
<p>It needs to look good by embracing a suitable (and usually low-key) aesthetic, it needs to feature excellent actors, and the writing needs to be razor sharp. Christmess succeeds in each area. </p>
<p>The performances, particularly by seasoned veterans Le Marquand and Gilshenan, are exceptional. </p>
<p>Le Marquand has long been one of Australia’s most underrated stars of stage and screen – watch him in Two Hands or Last Train to Freo and it’s hard to understand why he hasn’t developed a longer Hollywood resume – and he effortlessly commands the attention of the viewer here. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Le Marquand dressed as Santa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562287/original/file-20231128-27-rqwa7i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Le Marquand effortlessly commands the attention of the viewer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bonsai Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gilshenan, best known for television comedies like The Moodys and Full Frontal, is superb as the kind (if a touch sanctimonious) AA sponsor. Hannah Joy, lead singer and guitarist of Middle Kids, breaks up the drama with some beautifully performed songs. </p>
<p>The dialogue is naturalistic, fitting the minor tenor of the film, with some subtle bursts of wry humour punctuating the drama. </p>
<p>“Most Santas aren’t NIDA graduates,” Chris says to his employer. “You’d be surprised,” she barks in reply. </p>
<p>“I lied,” Chris says to Nick at one point, “I’m an actor and an addict, what’d you expect?” </p>
<p>The cinematography by Chris Bland is excellent – it looks like it’s been shot for cinemas and not streaming, making the most of the wide aspect ratio and long lenses, with the handheld style recalling the imagery of more savage suburban movies like Snowtown. </p>
<p>The film is full of carefully observed details that situate it within a Sydney milieu, capturing the sad banality of so much of suburban life. Unkempt, rubbish-strewn canals, ugly and depressingly empty shopping malls, carefully manicured weatherboard houses – all the stuff they tried to make us forget about during the Sydney Olympics. </p>
<p>At the same time, there are details anyone who’s spent a Christmas in Sydney would immediately recognise: the glorious but slightly unhinged light displays that seem out of place without snow peppering them; a dying Christmas tree, rescued from a fruit shop; much complaining about the heat, as an ancient air conditioner fruitlessly struggles to do its work. There are the ubiquitous Christmas warehouse stores, a barbecue, yellow brick houses, small, carefully mowed lawns, and lots of sweat. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men and a woman at the Christmas table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=289&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562288/original/file-20231128-19-c172t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Christmess is full of carefully observed details.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bonsai Films</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film’s only weakness – and it’s minor – is the score, which seems a little uninspired but, thankfully, is used minimally.</p>
<p>Christmess is an exceptionally well-crafted independent film punching well above its weight in terms of budget. It lingers in the imagination far longer than most Hollywood-scale productions. </p>
<p>There’s a subtlety to it unusual for contemporary cinema, which tends to browbeat viewers in an insufferably didactic register. It wouldn’t surprise me if this were at the top of lists of Australian Christmas movies. It’s undoubtedly one of the best Christmas films to emerge – from anywhere – in recent years. </p>
<p><em>Christmess is in cinemas from today.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christmas-ransom-i-quite-enjoyed-watching-this-terrible-new-aussie-christmas-film-194515">Christmas Ransom: I quite enjoyed watching this (terrible) new Aussie Christmas film</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New independent Aussie film Christmess is emotionally engrossing and satisfying in its combination of melancholy tinged with the vague outlines of hope.
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213645
2023-10-25T19:10:40Z
2023-10-25T19:10:40Z
Monolith considers the cultural and social implications of new technology, without overdoing it
<p><em>This review may contain spoilers.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>One of the socially redeeming features of mass media has always been its communal aspect, the fact people are drawn together into a shared experience based on network programming. Of course, this, in the English-speaking world at least, has been driven by the desire for profit through selling advertising space to corporations. </p>
<p>In the era of narrowcasting, smaller and smaller audiences can now be targeted online, on various social media sites and channels, on podcast and other apps, and on streaming services, so we feel like we are now able to consume what we want, when we want, even as megacorporations still control the content, and it’s still produced for profit. The result of this is greater social atomisation.</p>
<p>Monolith, the new Australian film from first-time feature director Matt Vesely and writer Lucy Campbell, is one of the first Australian films to critically navigate the ramifications of narrowcasting technology. </p>
<p>The film follows a podcast journalist, brilliantly played by Lily Sullivan, as she investigates a lead from an anonymous email for her latest show, “Beyond Believable: A Show that Unmasks the Mysteries.” </p>
<p>People around the world have been receiving mysterious black bricks – from Germany to the US to Australia – and this seems suitable fodder for an episode.</p>
<p>Her investigation takes her across the globe and back through time to the 1980s and the Cold War. We watch as she interviews people, often using ethically dubious practices, and assembles the material entirely from inside her home. </p>
<p>The show becomes rapidly successful – we, as well as the main character, recognise its ridiculousness, and this seems to be a dig at new media culture: the idea that this kind of sensationalist, alien-hunting garbage would capture the hearts and minds of the world is preposterous.</p>
<p>Her life, mirroring the investigation, becomes increasingly strange as her own repressed history begins to surface. The dark, moody interiors of her house begin to suggest the inside of a black brick. She starts looking sick, she smokes obsessively, she trembles with anxiety.</p>
<h2>What is the monolith?</h2>
<p>What is the brick, the monolith of the film’s title? We never definitively find out (which some viewers will surely find annoying). The bricks communicate with each recipient in a personal language related to their memory and history, reflecting their hopes, prejudices and – most pronouncedly – paranoid nightmares. </p>
<p>They may be some kind of alien artefacts that communicate with the recipient “from far, far away,” as Klaus, a German art collector and brick recipient says to the journalist. Or as a recipient from Ohio says, “It’s trying to tell me something and I’ve got to listen […] Something awful is coming.” </p>
<p>Maybe the bricks are an allegory for the contemporary world and the disappearance of social bonds, representing the alienation structured into personal (or narrowcast) communication systems. The obscurity with which the film represents the bricks seems to call for this kind of allegorical reading. </p>
<p>The portrayal of a single character’s descent into a living nightmare could easily become hammy, but Sullivan manages to keep the viewer entranced with her controlled, brilliantly understated performance. Joining Sullivan are the voices of some well-known Australian actors including Damon Herriman, Kate Box and Erik Thomson.</p>
<h2>The strange solitude of interpersonal communication</h2>
<p>The strange solitude of interpersonal communication in the global information economy underpins the whole thing, and the screen is replete with a plethora of different technologies reflecting this – talking head videos online, audio recording, editing and streaming, mobile phones, smart houses, close-ups of digital text. </p>
<p>We see, first hand, the sadness (and terror) of the journalist’s solitude and alienation – all she seems to do (alarmingly, perhaps, like many people in a post-COVID world) is talk to people on the phone and look stuff up on the internet. At the same time, we watch her go about the day-to-day business of living – making food in the kitchen, eating, showering at night – her deep solitude foregrounded throughout. </p>
<p>The final section of the film is a touch underwhelming, with the whole thing resolving too neatly in a personal register (whereas what had driven the enigma of the bricks was their social aspect – the fact people all over the world had also received a brick). </p>
<p>Rather than developing into a full-on surreal nightmare (which would have made a better film, one suspects, in the vein of media horror thrillers like Lost Highway or The Ring, the ripples of which radiate throughout this) everything comes together in a way that seems a bit too neat.</p>
<p>There are carefully dispensed echoes of class critique thrown in, fitting the current strain of fantastic cinema that seems to think a film needs an explicitly polemical dimension to speak to the zeitgeist. </p>
<p>Similarly, the doomed, portentous tone becomes a little annoying in the final third – it feels like a space film, but without the necessary existential dread that space elicits – and there is a fair quotient of nonsense underpinning the narrative. </p>
<p>Despite this, Monolith remains an effective fantasy-thriller, remarkably engaging given its limitations – one location, one actor (well, two, including pet turtle Ian). </p>
<p>It’s also refreshing to see a high concept Australian film, as opposed to the usual social realist and period dramas. </p>
<p>Like an episode of Black Mirror - but without the heavy-handedness of many episodes of that show - Monolith thinks through the cultural and social implications of new technologies. It considers how we both reflect and are shaped by technology. </p>
<p>Monolith is a decidedly low-key film, but this should not be mistaken for dull. It is an arresting chiller, extremely tightly performed and made, low budget and, thankfully - and unlike virtually everything else playing in cinemas today - not overlong. Given its interest in contemporary audio-visual technologies, it will probably play best in the cinema, one of the last communal bastions against the blissful and anonymously smooth technological hell of narrowcasting.</p>
<p><em>Monolith is in cinemas from October 26.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Mattes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
New Australian film Monolith is a refreshingly high concept film, as opposed to the usual social realist and period dramas.
Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/215455
2023-10-24T19:17:33Z
2023-10-24T19:17:33Z
Scarygirl: the richly built world of this new Aussie film tells a story of human-nature connection
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553638/original/file-20231013-15-vm411r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C2048%2C858&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman Entertainment</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Arkie was created by illustrator Nathan Jurevicius 21 years ago. She has evolved into <a href="https://g.co/kgs/2KyCTC">graphic novels</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarygirl">console</a> and <a href="https://darkslope.com/productions/scary-girl/">virtual reality</a> games, collectable vinyl toys – and now an animated feature film.</p>
<p>Arkie (Jillian Nguyen) lives on a vibrant peninsula with her dad Blister (Rob Collins).</p>
<p>Blister has the ability to regenerate life, and uses this gift to tend to the organic life of the peninsula. When he is captured by Chihoohoo (Tim Minchin) and taken to the dazzling city of lights ruled by the notorious Dr Maybee (Sam Neill), Arkie is forced to leave the safety of the peninsula to save her father.</p>
<p>In 2020, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54281171">David Attenborough said</a> “saving our planet is now a communications challenge”. </p>
<p>Watching Scarygirl, I was struck by the way rich visual metaphors and ecological backdrop in animated films can be part of this communication solution.</p>
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<h2>An expanding and visual scary-verse</h2>
<p>With growing streaming demand for original content, Australia has been going through an <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/media-centre/news/2023/03-22-screen-industry-skills-programs">animation and VFX industry boom</a>. Scarygirl marks a 3D animated feature film release that incorporates Australian accents, colloquialisms and sensibilities for a global audience.</p>
<p>Animation and visual ways of expressing ideas about the world have <a href="https://g.co/kgs/aS6AXD">long been used to share messages</a> with a new generation.</p>
<p>Filled with fantastical world-building, character and creature design, the Scarygirl universe mimics our concern for the natural world and the need for human-nature connection.</p>
<p>With some darker themes in the story around biodiversity loss, the film introduces a healthy level of cynicism concerning capitalism, technological innovation and progress. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Arkie, a rabbit and an egg." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553814/original/file-20231015-27-zs3x63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We follow Arkie’s journey as she discovers the world is not exactly as it seems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A feast for the eyes, Scarygirl emulates a toy aesthetic and feels like stop-motion. A visually communicated story has an immense power and influence over the way society is formed. </p>
<p>In my <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1387903">research</a> on how illustration practice works within society, Jurevicius told me illustration is</p>
<blockquote>
<p>like reinventing folk tales and fairy tales of cultures that aren’t necessarily real, or they are real, but they are a reimagining of tales that perpetuate the idea of storytelling.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Personal experience is fundamental device in the way Jurevicius’ illustration, and now animation, shares metaphors and mythologies of the natural world and family life through <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropomorphism">anthropomorphism</a> of the human condition.</p>
<p>In Scarygirl we follow Arkie’s journey as she discovers the world is not exactly as it seems. Jurevicius created Scarygirl out of “a deep love for a new daughter”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one of the biggest themes for me in this ever-expanding folktale is what it means to be part of a family in all its shapes and forms.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jurevicius draws on Baltic heritage and traditions of storytelling in his work: we must keep telling stories of our own lives to shape history. Through animation, he articulates his particular experience of the world, capturing a version of reality.</p>
<p>As Arkie starts to explore beyond her peninsula, she comes to realise family can be built from the friends and allies you meet on your journey.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-ads-to-oscar-winners-a-century-of-australian-animation-43697">From ads to Oscar winners: a century of Australian animation</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Storytelling is a powerful tool</h2>
<p>At the heart of Scarygirl is the complex relationship between a father and daughter: how we resonate with and find a way through to connect with our parents’ views of us, find responsibility within ourselves, and develop confidence in our own identity and choices.</p>
<p>The film has an authenticity and earnestness built into the plight of Arkie as she seeks to make the best choices with the information provided.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A scary character." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/553815/original/file-20231015-21-b28ohq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Animation has the ability to circumvent time, space and gravity and physical decay.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Madman Entertainment</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Animation has the ability to circumvent time, space and gravity and physical decay or bodily change. Characters in animation become the masked version of ourselves. In Scarygirl, we explore the human experience through the eyes of an octopus, rabbit and hybrid Chihuahua. </p>
<p>Scarygirl is built within a deep visual universe which relies on physics, a toy-like texture and a strong use of light and colour to communicate the mood.</p>
<p>Animators have to make the fantastical world feel as real as possible so Arkie moves like a human. As we move through the acts of the story, colour indicates place and the stages of the story, like the darkness when she meets the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey">threshold guardian</a> Tweedweller (Deborah Mailman) and the tree of knowledge.</p>
<p>The magic of animation means creators can play with time and space and the narrative structure. There is a wonderful sequence in the middle of the film that utilises a 2D style to shift back in time when Arkie was too young to remember. </p>
<p>Illustration, animation and visual storytelling sit across all parts of our lives. Stories like this one can help us realise our connection to place, culture, the environment around us and the stewardship and responsibility we have to the natural world. </p>
<p><em>Scarygirl is in Australian cinemas from Thursday.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/21st-century-character-designs-reflect-our-concerns-as-always-40382">21st-century character designs reflect our concerns, as always</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215455/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ari Chand does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Arkie was created by illustrator Nathan Jurevicius 21 years ago. She has evolved into graphic novels, games, toys – and now an animated feature.
Ari Chand, Lecturer in Illustration and Animation, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.