Year 4: 1 year 52 Movies challenge

Drop by and talk about anything you want. This is where all cheese-related discussions should go
Silverfish
Posts: 240
Joined: 22 Jan 2011, 17:14
First Video: The Gay Chicken

Re: Year 4: 1 year 52 Movies challenge

Postby Silverfish » 24 Sep 2019, 13:22

27: American Animals (2018) - A crime drama-documentary film directed by Bart Layton

I found this a compelling and unsettling documentary.

The film is an account of a real-life attempted heist of rare books from a University, told mainly through dramatization, but also supported by accounts from the real culprits and others.

The dramatization is important, as one of the key themes is the way the culprits see the heist as like a movie, and we see it this way during the planning stages, but as the day of the heist itself approaches, the tone gradually shifts, as it becomes clear what is actually involved. The dramatization is also played with, as at times the real people dispute parts of the narrative. I think the way the film plays with the narrative like this is a powerful illustration of the limits of testimony. It also helps to get inside the heads of the culprits in a way that pure interviews wouldn't be able to.

What I found unsettling is how tantalising the justification for the crime was presented to be, that you could somehow leave your mark on the world. It also talks about crossing the line and never being able to uncross it.
Silverfish
Posts: 240
Joined: 22 Jan 2011, 17:14
First Video: The Gay Chicken

Re: Year 4: 1 year 52 Movies challenge

Postby Silverfish » 24 Sep 2019, 14:49

28: Hereditary (2018) - A supernatural psychological horror drama film directed by Ari Aster

While I found this film occasionally unsettling, as there is some fairly creepy imagery, I thought this film failed as both a horror film and as a family drama.

I think the key to this is the family drama element. The film begins with the funeral of Ellen, the matriach of the Graham family. The way this sort of plot should work is that as the family come to terms with the loss, and this exposes faultlines in the family, and the supernatural elements would build on the unlying tensions, or act as a mirror to them. However for this to work you need to build up an understanding of the family members, whereas in this case I found them more or less unreadable. The father is deadpan and quiet, the son doesn't talk much at all, as is the daugther for different reasons, while Toni Collete's performance as the mother seems to move at random from quiet, to irritable to hysterical. Part of the problem is with the performances, but another is that the film gives little bits of backstory seemingly at random, that do little to give context to the family dynamics.

This is not to say that a family drama has to give you a full backstory: There is room for suspense, and in fact it would have been interesting for there to be things that the family pointed don't talk about (but perhaps we can pick up on by subtext). But for this to work, we have to have a good understanding of what the family is like, and of what they do talk about. It doesn't help that the film seems to imply that the mother (and the family as a whole) suffer from mental problems, which compounds the problem of her being unreadable.

The supernatural element itself seems to have very little to do with the family drama, and mainly seems to tie into the matriarch of the family, who we learn very little about. I also felt that my lack of engagement in the family drama kicked the legs out from under this side of the film.

Return to “General Discussion”



Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 39 guests