I don’t watch movies as often as I should, I know I’ve been missing out on a lot of new good films. I decided to turn this assignment into a family movie night because my father and I love military action and western films. Of course, I had to pick an action film! I remembered The Hateful Eight because Nick from class was very enthusiastic about it, and it’s a Tarantino (I Love Kill Bill), and, it’s western, and it’s on Netflix! We started 8:44pm, I fell asleep an hour into it, my father was glued to the TV. After several failed attempts, I gave up and went to bed. I was determined to finish this movie, so I attempted to finish the film the next day, I woke up with my laptop sliding off my lap.

Oh, my god! I never realized the beauty of 70mm film. I didn’t think Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk was all that. The opening shots were breathtaking, image as crisp as the fresh snow, and because of the wide aspect ratio, you get a sense of the vast west in late 1860s. I am trying to analyze each scene, especially that long shot of wood carved Christ statue. My mom comments on this shot too. So, I explained to her that the filmmaker is holding this shot and slowly backing up because he wants us to examine everything we can see in the shot, and that his choice in showing a Christ statue in the middle of nowhere will tie into the theme later. I found it so impressive how he is progressing the narrative as the stagecoach advances, and for me the story kind of halted when the stagecoach rested at Millie’s (this is also the part I keep falling asleep on). It was interesting to see how African Americans were treated shortly after the emancipation proclamation. Samuel Jackson’s character is a Major, an incredibly high military position, yet Jennifer Leigh’s character, a low life criminal, refuses to ride the stagecoach with the major simply because he is black. I want love this movie but my father’s review is that it is so slow and barely any fighting. Being a Tarantino film, I want to at least finish it.

Guillermo Del Toro’s latest film, The Shape of Water, has not officially been released, but I was fortunate enough to attend an advanced screening with a Q&A with Del Toro post-screening. In his Q&A Del Toro brought up great points about the antagonist of his film. He stated that in earlier film eras the rigid, alpha dog , Col. Richard Strickland, would not have only been the protagonist of the story, but the hero as well. In The Shape of Water it is the good looking commander in chief who is the real villain, terrorizing the monster & tugging at viewers’ heartstrings with every blow. Throughout film history, monsters have always been the big bad. From The Blob to Cloverfield, the humanity of the monster is disregarded because at the end of the day – it’s a monster. Colonel Strickland himself says while the monster of the story may look like the human characters, it is far from one.

Classical Hollywood films tended to follow the same formula. The films followed an innocent main character who finds a fairytale love with the innocent or sometimes rough around the edges next door neighbor. In film 212 we discussed what makes a character a “hero” or the “good guy” and the narrative shift from portraying innocent main characters to films starring anti heros. Anti-heros are the leads in many films of the films screened in Film 212 like Blow Up and In A Lonely Place. Both films star male leads that can be difficult to root for. To many viewers the men may not even qualify as anti-“heroes” and serve as the protagonist and antagonist of their own stories. Rather than swooping in and saving a love interest at the climax of the film, the men are their own sabotage-rs.

In The Shape of Water instead of being the villain, the monster is the love interest and ends up being one of the most sympathetic characters in the film. So much so that it is almost uncomfortable to refer to him as a “monster.” Del Toro created a character with such care and precision, even without words, viewers could understand “Sparkle’s” plight. To further distance Sparkle from the regular big bad monsters in film, Sparkle wasn’t created with fear in mind. Del Toro stated that it took years to put together the materials, bodywork and technology needed to give Sparkle his smooth, mosaic texture that never settles on one color the entire film. The artists wanted Sparkle to be beautiful, the type of thought that usually goes into casting pretty boy actors as the lead and not designing the monster of a film. The Shape of Water attempted to redefine the meaning of the word monster not only through metaphors, but through the visual creation of Sparkle. Teaching viewers to not only be wary of wolves in sheep’s clothing, but to never forget there can be beauty in a beast.

Bonus: I got Del Toro to take a snapchat video with me!

Over the Thanksgiving break I had the great pleasure of attending a screening of Yorgos Lanthimos’s most recent film, The Killing of Sacred Deer featuring Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman. This film quickly became one of my new favorites. Lanthimos never disappoints.

Many factors went into making this film the work of art that it is: the colors, camera angles, and most crucial in my opinion, the sound. Almost every single one of our senses are stimulated when watching The Killing of Sacred Deer. There were many low angle shots filmed in the hospital. These shots created a strong feeling of surveillance, which effortlessly ties in with the narrative. Non diegetic sound plays such an important role in this film. One scene in particular displays Martin (Barry Keoghan’s character) as he is tied to a chair and held hostage by Steven (Colin Farrell). His face is beaten up and he momentarily appears tame and calm. Martin continues to talk to Steven, his words picking up speed and taking on more anger he suddenly grabs Steven’s arm and bites down hard. The non-diegetic sound comes in strong and fast. Right after this, Martin takes a big bite into his own arm digging deep into his flesh. At this very moment a piercing high pitch instrumental sound plays. Because I was in a theater with other people, I genuinely thought this sound was someone screaming. This whole scene made me anxious, uncomfortable, and overwhelmed but I loved every second of it. I did not realize until the scene ended that I was actually holding my breath with shock and anticipation.

While watching The Killing of Sacred Deer I picked up on numerous influences from both Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Red Desert. Besides Nicole Kidman’s similar role as the sort of cold, distant wife of a doctor, there was also a similarity in the pacing of both the dialogue and the film as a whole. The most obvious correlation to Antonioni’s Red Desert is the concept of the son losing feeling in his legs. In both films, we learn there is nothing else physically or neurologically wrong with the children except the fact that they cannot walk. Lanthimos takes this idea much farther by making it the first stage in the multiple stages of ailments Steven’s children will experience if he does not follow through and play by Martin’s rules. Another strong influence was color. Of course this film is shot with modern cameras and uses editing to achieve the desired look. Lanthimos did not however, need to spray paint the grass green for extra impact much like Antonioni.  Color was so impactful on the film’s narrative. The hospital was the brightest of white and the blood was the purest of red.

Conclusively, The Killing of Sacred Deer is such a creatively inspiring film. In my opinion, it deserves its own notch on the timeline of film history because of it’s incredibly unique genre bridging presentation. When typed into Google, The Killing of Sacred Deer is labeled as a thriller/mystery but I would say it is so much more than that. Lanthimos blurred the lines of horror, drama, sci-fi, and I would even argue romance.

I am genuinely looking forward to whatever Lanthimos creates next because I have faith that it will be yet another game changer.

From the first trailer of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets I was excited for the film and felt like it would be good.  Over the summer I never was able to attend the film and the negative critiques did not add to my willingness to try and see it.  So finally when I had the chance to watch it at home I prepared myself for what I felt would be a misread film.  How could something so unique and artistic looking in a wild cinematic world turn out bad?  I was very disappointed.   What came up for me, perhaps because of our recent discussions about women in film, was the very apparent sexism and misogyny placed throughout.

Valerian and Laureline are supposed to be equal partners; it seems at first that the film gives Laureline some power and independence but that quickly disappears.  She is quickly thrown into the damsel in distress trope.  Either needing assistance from Valerian or sitting back on missions while “the men” take care of all the action.  Not to mention it’s somehow far off in the future and when in uniform Laureline is put in a military mini skirt compared to her male counterparts.

This lead me into thinking about how a lot of Sci Fi films get away with having dated ideas about not only women’s roles but heterosexual love and all white casts.  These films take place in the far off future and wow the audience with out of this world experiences and settings.  By doing so directors and writers are able to get away with having over used and ignorant storylines and movie tropes.  It’s 1000 years into the future and humans live with however many species of other aliens and have evolved themselves over that time supposedly.  And yet the plot and characters could be pulled right out of the realities of today.  The cast is majority white, Laureline is given very little power past her sexuality and looks, a very poorly done heterosexual romance is forced down the viewers throats.  The film is pretty to look at but past that not even going into the lack of a good plotline, or even a genuine villain; the film might well have been made in the 20’s with such outdated ideas about women, sexuality and race.