The Box - (film review)

            During the onset of the marketing campaign for this film, a friend and I were returning home on the subway (from a shopping extravaganza, no less!) where a movie poster came upon us.  This sparked my friend to remark:  “That looks so stupid!  Someone brings them a box and tells them if they push it, they’ll get a million dollars and someone in the world will die.  How ridiculous!”  I answered: “Well, there’s more to it than that.  You can reduce any film to a singularity.  The Descent is about five girls going spelunking and encounter horrible freakish mutants.”  (He loves The Descent).
            In the first twenty minutes of the film, I knew I was right—there is more to this film than just the proposition of pushing a button, which kills someone (you don’t know) and rewards you with a million dollars.  However, at times it seems like there is needlessly more.  The premise itself is an intriguing one, however filmmaker Richard Kelly (of Donnie Darko and Southland Tales) is not satiated with the simplicity of the thematic elements and the complexities through which it can stir great debate.  There is definitely more to it.  The first hour of the film is seamless, menacingly ominous, and suspenseful.  Frank Langella is perfectly eerie as the stranger who entices the couple with this wonderful narrative contemplation—push the button, kill someone, and make a million dollars.  Even the explanation of the button device itself, and the metaphorical trappings through which its construction and structure manage to litter itself upon the social world (we live our entire lives in some kind of box) is compelling.  James Marsden and Cameron Diaz are a perfect Virginian 1976 couple who seem to be ‘targeted’ by this person in a manner that suggests if they don’t push the button there are some other serious consequences.
            However, upon the inception of the second hour, the slow paced, needlessly convoluted storyline allows the audience to pick away at the film in a way that was probably never intended.  Brad Miska at  Bloody-Disgusting claims that one should not be distracted at the films unintentional plot holes instead urges the viewer to not “ask questions and don’t try and put two and two together; just accept it for what it is” (Miska 2009).  Unfortunately Miska, the very essence of your request would lead practically every movie to be a brilliant one—it is the very ability of the viewer to ‘put two and two together’ that pressures the filmmaker(s) to circumspect the narrative devices he/she is inculcating the audience with.  I managed to put two and two together and ultimately the result is not as satisfying as the anticipation of the film, for I (and my partner) had very high hopes for this film—we opted to see it instead of The Fourth Kind this afternoon based simply on its engaging storyline.
            The most disturbing thematic element of the film comes from the fact that the ‘test subjects’ are always a heterosexual couple with one child, and the wife is always the one to press the button while the husband looks on suspiciously.  The very notion of Pandora’s Box being opened by the female spouse harkens back to historical biblical sexism and the original sin.  The period of the film is 1976, so perhaps this temporal location instills some dire significance to the destruction of the nuclear family and the emergence of the female head of household.  It does not.  There is no mention of the significance of the wife to push the button, in fact, it almost suggests that the experiment is only viable if the wife pushes the button, for the ramifications of this action subsequent to the pushing of the button imply that certain marital dynamics be in place for the drama to unfold as it does.  Gender, and the Eve-complex, are conveniently ignored in this film, an aspect that (if you’ve read previous reviews of films) I cannot abide by.
            The Box instead focuses on the obvious theme: the consequential actions of succumbing to one’s own personal wants and desires over the well-being of the social cohesive whole.  It is an interesting theme, however laced in the 70s and reeking of heterosexist anti-feminist elements, it loses some of its appeal.  If for instance, Mr. Steward relished in the destruction of marital bliss by infusing his own warped chaotic sense of ironic justice into the fold, this glaring flaw would be overlooked.  In that instance, the destruction and implosion of the marital nuclear bliss would be the point of the film—exposing the structure and institution for what it is and can be and the boxed in confinements it upholds.  However, in The Box what propels the film forward is the clinical callousness of the experiments and the how these kinds of qualitative analyses can misinterpret or completely ignore the personal factors involved, and clearly not properly elucidated, in the decision and subsequent regret of one’s actions.  Norma (Diaz) is truly regretful for what she’s done, and surprises Mr. Steward with empathetic compassion where he expected pity.  This is a truly remarkable current in the film, it is unfortunate that it is muddled by a stylistic technique that purports to be more complex and profound then it needs to be.
            Once The Box settles into the viewer, two or three hours after the films ending, it becomes clear all the various elemental fragments inter-dispersed throughout and its linearity.  If only the story were told in this manner (and a half-hour were cut from it), The Box would be monumentally more successful than it supposes it is.  Its intriguing subject manner and superb pace and cinematography are subsequently undercut by its demand for self-importance pretentiousness.  Ultimately The Box is not a bad film by any means.  Instead it suffers from its own refusal of gripping simplicity in favour of gratuitous convolution.  Its own inept ignorance over the implications of a 70s setting with a central heterosexual couple is too staggering to be ignored, and its subtle grace over the presented ‘horrid’ deformities, is troubling when considering the advances in disability studies.  In all fairness, the film does address this deformation in a rather unexpected and well-intentioned manner.
            I really want to like The Box more than I do, and perhaps upon repeated viewings I may serendipitously bask in undiscovered subtlety and significance where I did not find it before.  Or my friend may be right—there isn’t much more to this film than I first thought.
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Grade: 79% (B+)

Drag Me to Hell - (film review)

            I first saw Drag Me to Hell in theatres, but I purposefully waited to re-watch it on DVD before committing to write this review.  I was never a major fan of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead Trilogy—for me the films felt a little too silly and annoying to be properly enjoyed, but upon reading initial reviews of Drag Me to Hell I became well aware of the kind of relentless, borderline frenetic film I was in store for.  Fortunately, unlike the Evil Dead films, which seem to me to be more of a fun practically nonsensical romp through preternatural realms, Drag Me to Hell is littered with socioeconomic and political significance, especially given these times of capitalist complacency.

            The most significant aspect of this film is that we follow the happenings of the antagonist in the film, Christine Brown, as she struggles against the curse she has been inflicted with due to her callous decision to refuse a third mortgage extension to the aptly disguised ‘hero’ Sylvia.  The film relies on Occidental commonplace stereotypes concerning foreign ‘othered’ relations.  It feeds on how ‘we’ come to see Romani (ie. Gypsy) ‘others’ and the imagined threat they impose on ‘our’ way of living.  The film’s paradigmatic view is the most accessible to its audience—the white, doe-eyed, likeable heterosexual female, who comes from modest rural origins, and (like all of us) yearns to prove herself and get ahead in her job.  It strategically positions Sylvia Ganush as the characteristic foreign threat that imposes herself on our likeable ‘heroine’ audaciously begging for an expansion to her late mortgage payments.

            What the film deftly provides us with is a look into the agential subject position within the overarching bureaucratic, and consequently Capitalist, economic structure, and how this agency relates to the severity of poverty and joblessness.   Up until the last three minutes of the film, the audience is led to believe that there is no other option for Christine but to refuse a third mortgage extension to Ms. Ganush—not unless she wants to upstage that creepy Stuart who is her direct competition for the new promotion.  Her boss, taking advantage of female workplace anxiety around confidence and the inability to keep up with their male counterparts, makes it very clear that Stuart has the ability to make the ‘tough decisions’, implying that she is not.  Christine becomes enraptured by the mass-market fed ‘dream’ of economic expansion to return to Ms. Ganush and refuse her another extension—an extension she so desperately needs to keep her residence of 30 years.

            Drag Me to Hell exposes the individuation of the bureaucratic system and the personal agency of those subjects who comprise it.  The rules of bureaucracy are determined and enforced by people who have every ability to make exceptions and special circumstantial decisions.  Instead, the invisible and omnipresent watchful eye of economic growth lingers over each individual within the bureaucratic system, causing them to self-internalize their own governance—disallowing room for exception or ethical decisions that may slightly inconvenience one for massive benefits to others.  These theories of self-governance are all too familiar to Focault and his work on sexual regulation and economic power.

            Christine in this instance has let herself get swept up in personal perseverance within the Capitalist system (in which we all reside) in such a way as to overlook the immediate needs of someone else—it’s a “dog-eat-dog” world out there and if you don’t look after yourself, no one will.  We all side with her because she’s right…right?  Her rich boyfriend’s parents disapprove of her rural farm upbringing and her menial bank position, deeming her unworthy of their son’s love and affection; her slimy co-worker is actively attempting to weasel his way into her well-deserved promotion; her boss is constantly on alert of her unworthiness to fill the assistant manager position she so desperately wants.  What else was she to do?  The old-woman’s living situation and potential homelessness would not immediately (if at all) affect her, so there is no danger in refusing a third mortgage extension, so why grant her one and risk further economic stasis?  This reasoning becomes incredibly logical to Christine (as I’m sure it does to much of the audience of this film) that she begins to lie to herself throughout the film—“my boss made me do it”, a line which very much echoes “the devil made me do it.”

            The only character in this film who is suspect of Christine’s innocence is Sylvia Ganush’s granddaughter, who calls Christine out on her attempted lies.  The audience is, once again, directed to dislike the granddaughter, because she speaks with a foreign Romani accent, is shadowed upon reveal, and is not kind to our troubled doe-eyed ‘heroine’.

            As the film continues, Christine struggles to undo what Ms. Ganush has done, upon her instigation—séance, exorcism, animal sacrifice (from a vegetarian no-less).  The animal sacrifice is of some saliency here, for Christine attempts to prove her niceness and innocence throughout the course of the film, explaining that she’s a vegetarian and volunteers at the puppy shelter (for Christ’s sake!).  However, these ethical principles become obsolete once she is faced with the responsibility of her actions.  Responsibility she so desperately wishes to be free.
            Ms. Ganush becomes our struggle against callous inhuman bureaucracies that would rather kick us out of our homes then inconvenience themselves.  She is the struggling ‘other’ who audaciously fights against spineless administrative pawns and their complacency to work within the system so long as they benefit from it.  In the last three minutes of the film the audience becomes aware of Christine’s decision and the personal agency involved in sending Sylvia from her home.  She apologizes for her actions spurring her boyfriend to call attention to her big heart—but is this the case?  Her apology only comes once the reality of threat is extricated—extricated into the soul of the harbinger of such devilish mayhem.  Prior to this extrication, she actively sought to fight against her own agency and responsibility in the decision she made.  She wanted forgiveness early on in the film, but not forgiveness for her selfishness—she was not willing to divulge that just yet.  Instead, she fought, only relenting to accept her responsibility for the actions that have taken place once she believed that she had won.  It is in this instance where Christine gets precisely what she deserves—in the metaphorical and cathartic dialectic world of horror.

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Grade: 89% (A)

The Children - (film review); Grace - (film review)

            When I was a wee lad I got spanked for misbehaving—never hard enough to really hurt, but enough to sting, and never more than three times at once.  My acts of misbehaving ranged anywhere from throwing a fit in public or in front of company, to talking back and disrespecting my elders.  In recent years this form of child discipline has been greatly frowned upon and slowly pushed out of practice—anyone now who practices spanking is shamed into believing that they are committing a form of child abuse.  In many cases, this spanking as child abuse may be true.  However, I have grown to maintain a constant love for my parents, while learning to respect and consider the rights of those around me.

            Not being a parent myself, but an uncle of four nephews and one niece (and counting) and an avid observer of family dynamics, I’ve noticed a rather disturbing trend in the approach of child rearing and their lack of discipline (not to say this is entirely the case with my niece and nephews).  I regard this as the ‘my-child-is-the-most-important-thing-in-my-world-and-yours’ syndrome.  It implies rather obviously that parents excuse child behaviours as being acceptable at all times, in all contexts, no matter what the repercussions or ramifications.  Children are granted free range of everything, and everyone else is expected to adjust their actions to accommodate the standards parents have set (“Won’t someone please think of the children?”). 

The protection of ‘innocent’ and easily impressionable child minds is the justification for right wing (and many liberalist) organizations to argue against the exposure or representation of queers in media, educational institutions, and families, or the backbone of the censorship movement.

            These themes are all too prevalent in both films The Children and Grace.  Years ago I watched Isaac Webb’s First Born (starring Elizabeth Shue), a zealous film that turned the dissonance and disconnect of a mother and her child (which is expected to occur from the moment of conception) into a taught terror film.  Although the movie had it’s problems I was fascinated at how it represented the diverse relationship of parent and child in a manner that works against the social gender roles that have been indoctrinated by patriarchal regulations.  This belief that there is a natural connection to nurture their child in women is a socially constructed fallacy.  This connection generally only exists if there is proper social support to help nourish this fabrication.  As good as I think First Born is, I admit that both Tom Shankland’s The Children and Paul Solet’s Grace are far superior (the former more so than the latter).

            In Grace, a mother/child relationship sees the desire to provide the child with absolutely everything it needs for nourishment and sustenance, at the cost of devouring the very life-blood of the mother.  Madeline insists on carrying her stillborn child to term and shortly thereafter manages to resuscitate it back to life through feeding it her blood.  It takes some time for Madeline to realize precisely what is happening here, but once it is clear, she becomes eerily disturbed at what she is required to do to provide her child with the means to live.  This disturbance however does not stop Madeline from actually following through with murder in order to obtain blood for her child to feed on.  The symbolic strength of the need for blood is a potent device that Solet uses to startling effect here.  Grace not only requires her mother to provide her own life for hers, but at times necessitates the need for others to offer their lives.  Grace is the monster in this film and an interesting monster at that.  Instead of tormenting her victims and killing them by force, she remains perfectly still and by the sheer fact of being a child and the social implications that surround how a child is to be loved and cared for, manages to reek havoc and mayhem through the actions of those who love her most.  Grace is easily defeatable, however the socially ingrained desire to conceive of and raise children in order to obtain the picture-perfect family dynamic is so potent and strong that Grace becomes the most dangerous and effective monster to date.  Everyone around her dies in effort to vie for who will take care of her most (even at the expense of their lives), while she remains perfectly still.

            Shankland’s The Children, is similar in ways, but imagines a scenario where a newborn like Grace is three or four years older and is capable of her/his own violence.  The perceived happiness that comes along with raising a family is the main focus of the first act of this film, until young Pauly becomes weirdly unsettled.  Needless to say, this plot device is hinted at but never expressly explained—it is some type of viral disease that affects the children in disturbing ways.  Subsequent reviews of this film hinge on the surface of its core.  Brad Miska (http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/film/2197/review) of Bloody Disgusting, and Michael Gingold (http://fangoria.com/reviews/2-film/3412-fantasia-09-the-children-film-review.html) of Fangoria, both discuss the difficulty of the parents’ decision to harm their children for their own perseverance.  For Miska and Gingold, the most complicated aspect of the film is how those who are the life and joy of these parents soon becomes their worst nightmares.  What is lacking in this (albeit correct, but ultimately pedantic) interpretation is the actions of the parents once the hardcore violence becomes evident.  The children are sensed to be nearby the violent acts but cerebrally intuited to have no part in the macabre at hand.  The parents know who is responsible for these acts and yet they refuse to believe it, instead prefer to point fingers at the less ‘innocent’ teenager, or suspect adult—for there could be no possibility of the involvement of the children in these violent actions, could there?  This denial becomes so strong that a husband prefers to believe the accusation that his wife (with help from her teenaged daughter) maliciously intended to kill their own four-year-old son without any prior precedence to lend plausibility to this scenario—even though they both appear visibly hurt (the daughter with blood dripping down her face, and the mother with her knee protruding from her leg).  Why would his wife kill her own child without some kind of provocation?  Would he really believe that she harmed Pauly for some fleeting reason, unless it was absolutely necessary?  Does he think so little of her? Ironically, it is the husband who would be suspected of harming his child as he is seen moments earlier spanking him—of course this is met with communal disapproval, spurring one parent to superiorly utter: “We don’t hit kids here.”

            They sure don’t hit kids—even if they’ve become menacing terrors bent on manipulative terror and torture.  It seems to me that Shankland decided to pen a scenario whereby the “my-child-is-the-most-important-thing-in-my-world-and-yours” syndrome is tested and exploited.  The only character willing to believe the violent manipulation and severity of the children’s behaviours is the teenage daughter.  She does not have children of her own and she has matured enough to comprehend the internalizing manipulation of children in ways that objectively discerns proper bratty behaviour—and so, she becomes the film’s heroine.  Although it may be difficult for the mother Elaine, to harm a child and give them much needed discipline (as Miska argues in his review), she later manages to decipher the difference between ill-intended violent childlike behaviour over the life and consideration of her teenage daughter, Casey (who may not be as socially ‘innocent’ but still deserving of respect).  She drives over her younger daughter to save Casey—so ultimately Elaine has learned to step outside of the socially accepted role of ‘child-comes-first’ to manage the situation properly, giving every party involved consideration and respect.

            These two films, The Children more so than Grace, manage to forcefully address common social misconceptions over the rearing and care for children in ways that require us to examine our own implications in this disturbing, albeit well-intentioned, trend.  I’m not trying to argue that nurturing or caring for children is an innately wrong thing to desire, only the need to place this care above and beyond the consideration and respect for others and yourself.  I argue that these films are less about the difficulty in raising children, and more about commenting on the social trends of over-protected and overly privileged child rearing.  These ideas are even more interesting if you consider that Tom Shankland, Paul Solet, and Isaac Webb, are all men.
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The Children grade: 86% (A)
Grace grade: 80% (A-)