If anything, I'd say that it wears the trope of 'horror film as something else' a little bit too proudly/loudly. It's superbly shot, has excellent sound design and all the FX are great, but the metaphor came across heavy-handed. Ultimately though, the performances of the actors as these three generations of women dealing with the closure of the circle of life (Emily Mortimer, Robyn Nevin and Bella Heathcote) is what makes this work.
There are nods and allusions abound, from Grams's candle making (to spend so much time intricately carving a thing only to have that thing slowly disintegrated back to nothing) to the lost cabin the woods (we are forever linked to the homes that we make), but the most interesting one is a stolen notion–perhaps as an homage: a quick Google showed countless mentions, but the connection to Mark Z. Danielewski's book House of Leaves–about a house whose interior is bigger than its exterior measurements1–are undeniable. In fact, the climax of the film is built entirely upon this idea. It's a wonderfully clever picture, one Danielewski might have tangentially borrowed from Alice in Wonderland (in a roundabout way), but how its employed by first-time filmmaker Natalie Erika James is impossible to ignore. She mentions the connection in an interview:
I actually found a notebook that I had taken on that trip when I first began writing Relic. I saw the first line that I had written on it was ‘a young woman tries to save her grandma in a house that appears bigger on the inside than it does on the outside.’ I think that must’ve been influenced by that amazing novel House of Leaves as well. So yeah, I think it’s just an accumulation of ideas. You just find the thematically drive that you really care about, and you find a way to uses the images to talk about that theme or that contention .... It’s a mix of things. Who even knows?
Personally, I FEEL like this has to be an understatement, but what's the point in splitting hairs. We see things; we use things. It's all air.
And when you're inspired to make something as lovely as these bodies, a mother and daughter, finally breaking through said "house that appears bigger on the inside," in what is clearly a lovely and/or horrifying representation of childbirth, then who cares...
FOOTNOTES:
1. I don't actually have a footnote here. I just thought it would be rude NOT to include at least one as a tip of the hat to ole MZD, a true master or the footnote. [BACK]
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 290A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 291A ⫸
⫷ EPISODE 290A - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 291A ⫸
0 comments:
Post a Comment