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Oct. 16th, 2019 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maplemoodHad a couple picture-perfect fall days and now it's all November weather in October: gray and drippy. Which, hey--I'll take what I can get. Also! There's been progress on the list of horror-ish movies.
I planned on starting with The Witch, since it's the only one still available on Netflix. Of course then I decided that I didn't really want to watch it that much, since I'd already rewatched it some time back in August or September and also it's the kind of movie you need to be in just the right mood for. Anyway, I poked around on Netflix and decided to try The Ravenous, which is a French-language Canadian zombie movie that's kind of one part artsy Walking Dead and one part the single Catherynne M. Valenete short story I've ever clicked with, The Days of Flaming Motorcycles. People get chomped up and strange, maybe-altars of random household objects get built, and it was all very good and very, very understated, to the point that you wish it weren't quite so understated. (I especially would've liked more elaboration on the found-family dynamic that develops between the two main characters and the little girl they rescue from an abandoned farmhouse--it's supposed to be the heart of the movie [I think?], and it's great for what it is, but still. So. Understated.)
And then I finally checked Midsommar off my list of movies-everyone-keeps-telling-me-to-watch-and-I-really-should-watch. It was very long (I think I might have rented the extended cut by accident)! It could've been shorter! It was also gorgeous, and brutal and nasty in a way that got under my skin and that I'm still thinking about, which was all I wanted out of it to begin with. Dani was fantastic. Christian was pitiable in the end even though honestly I had zero interest in him otherwise. Pelle was pretty much your ideal romance-novel boyfriend, if your ideal romance-novel boyfriend was also part of a trippy Swedish death cult. I don't quite buy that the ending leaves Dani any more empowered than she was to begin with (because, well, trippy Swedish death cults), but it does leave her free of Christian, and even though the movie's not not saying anything about her empowerment, I don't think, I also don't think it's especially interested in boiling itself down into one easy theme or interpretation. (I also think that I just got through midterms week and even if there is One True Theme, I'm way too much of a wreck to find it.)
I planned on starting with The Witch, since it's the only one still available on Netflix. Of course then I decided that I didn't really want to watch it that much, since I'd already rewatched it some time back in August or September and also it's the kind of movie you need to be in just the right mood for. Anyway, I poked around on Netflix and decided to try The Ravenous, which is a French-language Canadian zombie movie that's kind of one part artsy Walking Dead and one part the single Catherynne M. Valenete short story I've ever clicked with, The Days of Flaming Motorcycles. People get chomped up and strange, maybe-altars of random household objects get built, and it was all very good and very, very understated, to the point that you wish it weren't quite so understated. (I especially would've liked more elaboration on the found-family dynamic that develops between the two main characters and the little girl they rescue from an abandoned farmhouse--it's supposed to be the heart of the movie [I think?], and it's great for what it is, but still. So. Understated.)
And then I finally checked Midsommar off my list of movies-everyone-keeps-telling-me-to-watch-and-I-really-should-watch. It was very long (I think I might have rented the extended cut by accident)! It could've been shorter! It was also gorgeous, and brutal and nasty in a way that got under my skin and that I'm still thinking about, which was all I wanted out of it to begin with. Dani was fantastic. Christian was pitiable in the end even though honestly I had zero interest in him otherwise. Pelle was pretty much your ideal romance-novel boyfriend, if your ideal romance-novel boyfriend was also part of a trippy Swedish death cult. I don't quite buy that the ending leaves Dani any more empowered than she was to begin with (because, well, trippy Swedish death cults), but it does leave her free of Christian, and even though the movie's not not saying anything about her empowerment, I don't think, I also don't think it's especially interested in boiling itself down into one easy theme or interpretation. (I also think that I just got through midterms week and even if there is One True Theme, I'm way too much of a wreck to find it.)
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Date: 2019-10-17 03:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-17 03:23 am (UTC)even though the movie's not not saying anything about her empowerment, I don't think, I also don't think it's especially interested in boiling itself down into one easy theme or interpretation YES, gods, the number of surface-level readings of the ending that hinge on 'she's smiling, therefore she's free' drive me nutsss, and while I think the movie would've been poorer if it explained that that wasn't what was going on, I do wish that reading was less uhhh prevalent. It's making some really interesting freedom from/freedom to distinctions, I think - freedom to live, but no freedom from the cycle of life, which Christian had removed her from. It's a very inward sort of empowerment, that a lot of the discussion of it I've seen doesn't really click with.
One of the things I've been thinking about a lot re: Midsommar is how it transforms the pastoral idyll - something that's inherently static - into something centred around growth and change and potentially horror, while transforming the modern ideal - something usually quick-paced - into the site of suffocating and standing still and definitely horror. (See also - the feeling of crazed safety of ionnalee's JOY, which is all I could think of at the end, and also where I stole my first fic title from.) It's a very specific meditation on pacing and fluidity and creation and the conditions under which creation can flourish (and for how long).
Ugh I love it a lottttttttttt and I'm delighted by your thoughts <3
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Date: 2019-10-17 04:09 pm (UTC)It's definitely an inward kind of empowerment, and an empowerment that I didn't see as automatically leading to an interpretation of the ending that makes it a stealth happy ending or something, which is why I'm really skeptical of the whole "smile = she's happy" interpretation. Also, I really don't think happiness and joy are the same thing, really, especially in that context.
But yeah, feel free to come at me with all your Midsommar thoughts! It was one of those movies that I didn't necessarily enjoy, but I just can't stop thinking about it now. (Plus, I'm weak for horror movies with a good aesthetic.)
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Date: 2019-10-17 01:22 pm (UTC)What all is on this horror list? Sounds like it's both new stuff and rewatches?
(Also, hi! I saw you followed me a few days ago and were into horror, so I followed back. :))
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Date: 2019-10-17 04:17 pm (UTC)It's a short list of movies I'm trying to watch before Halloween in order to get into the spooky spirit. I tried to divide it up equally between new stuff and rewatches (and also horror-horror and like, Tim Burton horror), so aside from Midsommar and The Witch I've also got Beetlejuice and Little Shop of Horrors and the Suspiria remake on there. Midosmmar was one of the big ones; I've been curious about it pretty much since the trailers.
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Date: 2019-10-17 05:30 pm (UTC)