To celebrate Pride Month, MOVIES WITH MADELYN will spotlight a different LGBTQ+ film each week. Each film is a first-time viewing for me. I read Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt (later published as Carol) last summer. Though I enjoyed it enough, I didn’t understand why— aside from its social and historical significance, which is no small feat— people held it in such high regard. But a year has passed, I’m older, and I’ve finally gotten around to watching Carol, Todd Haynes’ film adaptation of Highsmith’s novel. I regret that it took an interpretation other than the original text to open my eyes to such a lovely story, but something must have happened in the translation from text to film that made me fall in love with it. Because, truly, Carol is a very visual film, heavily reliant on its quiet photography to express the longing the film almost bursts with. This is quite appropriate considering that our protagonist, Therese Belivet (a captivating Rooney Mara) is an aspiring photographer. We follow her as she begins a job at a department store, where she meets the entrancing Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett, in the role she was born for). Carol is buying a train-set for her daughter, Therese helps her with the order, and very soon young Therese realizes she is in love with Carol. What follows is a stunning love affair, one that must be hushed, reluctant to come out of hiding, full of painful yearning. In the middle of a messy divorce and custody battle, Carol takes much of the affair on the road, as a brief getaway, with Therese by her side. Even on the road there’s a quietness, but there’s a sort of excitement in this kind of clandestine love, especially before Carol and Therese explicitly make their feelings known to each other. Yes, Haynes perfectly bottles the startling potential energy which precedes a romance. Anyone who has ever been in love knows this feeling, and here it’s uncanny, it’s scintillating. We see this love and its buildup through Therese’s photographic perspective. Carol was shot with super 16 mm film, which gives the film a dreamy warmth. It also captures the perceptiveness one gains when they’re in the presence of someone they love very much—when Carol and Therese go out for the first time, the camera brilliantly lets go of its reins and focuses on Carol’s lips, the rush of a car moving, Carol’s hands. It’s a sort of blur that expresses love’s excitement and beauty in both the minutely detailed and abstractly conceptual, simultaneously. I adored it.
There’s a lot Therese and Carol have to figure out: will Carol gain custody of her daughter? Will Carol’s husband use Therese against her? And what about Therese and her correspondence with the men in her life— can that simply blow over? These are deftly executed driving points in the plot, but the thing that stuck with me most about this movie is love, love, love, in its excitement, its danger, and, ultimately, its uniquely human bliss.
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WONDER WOMAN reminds us why we need superhero movies now more than ever.When comic book superheroes were initially conceived, the entire draw behind them was that they were personifications of what humankind should be. Comic book authors recognized that humans were weak and susceptible to evil forces, and that’s why superheroes were around to save them. They were like us, only stronger. Their intentions were always virtuous and noble; and, with their true hearts and impossible powers, a superhero was what humans should be. And, for a time, this concept was alluring and attractive.
But I think something happened along the way as the superhero mythos began expanding—people noticed that their once-beloved heroes were simply idealized humans, and they didn’t like the idea so much. They couldn’t relate to their heroes. Humans are morally messy creatures, and we wanted figures who we could relate to. So superheroes became more complex, and we got to watch our superheroes fight internal darkness as well as external darkness. Often it’s incredibly successful (Logan is a fantastic recent example), but sometimes it’s not (Man of Steel). Undeniably, though, this approach has changed superhero franchises forever. So Wonder Woman, in this case, is a bit of a shock. I’d actually say it’s an incredibly refreshing one. With everything going on in the world, it’s very easy to make a cynical superhero movie. But that’s not what Wonder Woman does, because that’s not who Wonder Woman is. Wonder Woman (played by Gal Gadot), whose real name is Diana, is raised among Amazonian warrior women. They live on an island called Themyscira, which, in its peace, has been quietly waiting for the imminent attack of Ares, the god of war. These warrior women have been training for this dreaded day of combat, and Diana is the strongest of them all. When Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), a spy for the WWI British army accidentally finds Diana’s island, he tells her all about the horrors of the war. Diana is convinced the World War has to have been Ares’ doing, and she sees it as her duty as an Amazonian to travel back with Steve, find Ares and end the war. But Diana learns it isn’t so simple. Not only is the “real world” very The war has spread all across the world, and the spirit of Ares has seemed to manifest itself into the hearts of all humankind. On earth, it’s normal that men, women, and children are slain every day. Diana is a complete outsider to this knowledge, and when we hear it explained to her, it’s jarring. We’ve been so desensitized to war that it takes the reactions of someone like Diana, hearing of it for the first time, to remind us just how ridiculous war is, and Gadot’s reaction is devastating. Diana is only motivated to do good, to vanquish war and help others. She is distraught when she sees how many individual lives have been affected by war, and harrowed when she learns mortals don’t have enough time to help each person with their own personal needs. But the human beings around her aren’t so pure of heart. It isn’t because of Ares why humans are flawed; it’s simply because that is the human condition. Ultimately, Diana has to find out how to save the world, but first she has to figure out if human beings, in all their ugliness, are worth saving. And she doesn’t come across her answer in the easiest way. What’s interesting about Wonder Woman is, despite how refreshing it feels, just how archaic its theme is. The duality of what humans should be and what humans are is an enigma we’ve sought after since the beginning of time. Every major religion tries to rationalize the coexistence of innate sin and Godly goodness, and most of them promise salvation— a god covering the banality of sin by his love. So, when Wonder Woman wants to save the earth, how can she be so sure if a flawed race is worth saving? Humans are not driven by virtue and nobility the way Wonder Woman is. Humans are morally messy. And the acknowledgement of the complexity of the human condition is just why Wonder Woman is the movie 2017 needs. It goes without saying that we’ve desperately needed a serious female-led superhero film (why did it take so long?!), but in these dark times, we just need hope as we deal with both good and evil. It doesn’t mean the journey to hope is perfect— Diana’s naïveté regarding earth c. 1919 gets her into some trouble, but she is always motivated to do the right thing. The friends she meets aren’t perfect, but they’re endearingly human. This isn’t a straight-arrow superhero fable like its early predecessors, nor is it a bleak look at the world. We are left instead with that conflict of what humankind is and what it ought to be. We may never attain perfection, and we may never deserve it. But we can believe in it. And if we all watch Wonder Woman and feel a little of her power to do good, the world could surely become a bit more wondrous indeed. ALICE is the stuff of dreams and nightmares-- just as Lewis Carroll intended. |
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