Julia Leigh’s “Sleeping Beauty”, which played in a discreet 9:30 slot on Saturday night at the 12th Annual Santa Fe Film Festival, has already gained a reputation for being erotic, insipid, brave, disappointing, groundbreaking, regressive and a host of other contradictions. It’s no wonder. A young woman consents to being drugged for the purpose of complete submission to the sexual whims of an ultra-rich clientele. At first glance, this plot might appear an invitation to take part in some tawdry voyeurism.
For me, the film was an expose about what infantile fantasies secretly motivate the wealthy, power-obsessed male psyche and how nature, the feminine and all that is beautiful is shamelessly sacrificed to his insatiable appetite.
To my knowledge, the nocturnal Beauty that slumbers in the nucleus of this movie never reveals her motivation for why she is making herself available to the host of parasitic vermin that covet her porcelain complexion and exquisite figure, but there is an important moment near the mid-point of the story that assures us it is not for the money, as we would assume, and that single episode supercharged my interest the character of Lucy.
The scene takes place after a high-end rendezvous when she returns home with an impressive stack of cash which she lays on the coffee table and pauses to gaze at luxuriantly. While hardly taking her eyes off the loot, she opens a small wooden box and takes out what is, presumably, a partially smoked joint, lights it, takes a hit and uses the lighter to burn one of the bills from the top of the stack. This did not come off, for me, as some kind of absurd irony. It takes place at the midpoint of the story precisely because it is meant to upturn all our presumptions about the heroine. It fascinated me and made me want to stick around to see where the story was going.
Lucy works at two dead end jobs, one as a waitress where she is always seen cleaning up at closing time, one as an office temp where she is sequestered in a room full of duplicating machines. She also attends classes at college in which she seems to take absolutely zero interest. On top of this, Lucy regularly submits herself to a perplexing lab experiment where she is required to swallow a latex bladder attached to a hose that makes her wretch and gag while the researcher inflates it in her throat. For this she is paid all of thirty bucks and she continues to show up for this clinical ritual even after she has broken into big time sex games with the super-rich. In addition to all this she persists in soliciting flagrantly licentious liaisons with any vulture that happens to circle her bar stool.
“My vagina is not a temple”, Lucy replies in direct contradiction to the enigmatic Clara, the exquisitely groomed, garbed and gracious pimp, played by Rachael Blake, who pairs Lucy with her prosperous predators. Contrary to what predators in the audience may conclude, this does not make Lucy complicit in her violation. It implies that the dominant male paradigm has perverted the culture and this young woman is so utterly steeped in its brazen sexism that she has never developed the slightest sense of her sexual self-worth.
I’m fairly certain that our disgust at the end of the film was intended by the filmmaker, and possibly some of the negative reviews of “Sleeping Beauty” derive from the inability of those reviewers to separate the harsh emotional resonances at the film’s conclusion from their own conclusions about the film. In saying this I do not mean to criticize the critics. One cannot argue with one’s feelings. Their response is natural and, on one hand, completely understandable, but I kept asking myself during the movie, why is this filmmaker wading into these murky metaphors? She must have anticipated being rewarded by many viewers with resentment and ridicule.
I presume the filmmaker is deliberately courting controversy but if I suspected that she was doing so for her own glory, or simply for the sake of pushing buttons, I would go right along with the skeptics. If I am correct about her intentions, the director’s position is reactionary–calculated to tweak her audience’s moral equilibrium for sure–but it is done so neither as a tease or a joke, so it did not invalidate the movie’s importance for me.
The most telling event in the story is repeated three times so that we really have a chance to catch on. Every time a date with the latest rich old fart has been set-up, Clara brings him into the room where Lucy slumbers, unconsciousness in bed. “It’s safe here.” Clara assures him. “No one can see you and there is no shame.”
Viola! The power hungry male fantasy is exposed in all its impotent, puerile ingenuity. What is being laid bare in Julia Leigh’s “Sleeping Beauty” is not the divine body of Emily Browning. It is what all those aging rich dudes reach for as their precious power begins fading. It drives them to claw their way to the top and stoop so low to plunder nature, the dreams of humankind and all things precious and beautiful. They do it for this measly, pathetic, artificial gratification–to claim for their over-nourished egos the privilege of possessing, enslaving, and violating the most cherished things on earth in a place where they imagine no one can see them, punish them or interfere in anyway.
I recognize the value of this wake up call, which allows the audience to catch them with their pants down and expose them for what they have really been up to while we sleep.
If my assumptions about this film are correct, Sr. Louis Buñeul would be Ms. Julia Leigh’s patron saint. In these critical times, in which a doctrine of greed and manipulation of the masses has been cooped from the Popes and retro-fitted into the agendas of the corporate elites, perhaps we should all be more open-minded to transgressive cinema like this.
One seemingly petty, little, foolish choice is all it takes for an ideal life to turn into a nightmare. This seems to be the message as we watch publishing magnate David Aames, played by Tom Cruise, loose his million dollar good looks in a shocking car crash staged by his kamikaze lover..
This act one turning point In Cameron Crowe’s 1997 “Vanilla Sky” is especially resonant to the culture that the character David Aames was created to comment on. He’s a billionaire playboy; handsome, smart, riding high in corporate splendor, and full of himself. Just prior to the crash, Aames falls head over heels with, and blatantly steals his best friend’s girl, the enchanting Sophia played by Penelope Cruz. Next morning he is confronted outside Sophia’s apartment by the psychotic former girlfriend Julie, played by Cameron Diaz. He submits to a joy ride with her that ensnares him in a suicide pact.
As his new fate would have it, Julie dies, David does not. He survives, but his face is destroyed. It becomes a scary cross to bear. Watch in dismay as the charismatic wunderkind reverts to awkward, juvenile social traits he once outgrew
The masterful make-up of Aames post-crash face makes Cruise look alternately tragic, comic, frightful and pathetic, but all in sympathetic measure. Unable to abide this, Aames adopts a facial prosthetic that makes him look embarrassed, guilty, resentful and maudlin. Its haunted, plastic pout seems to plead, “how could this be happening to me?”
Good friends try to help Aames with his pride as he slides into identity crisis. An effortlessly hip self-image was Aames’ brand. The winning smile was his logo. Where did it all suddenly go? He’s supposed to be the ace of a magazine empire, where cheated images pervade the pages. How very, very thin are a few layers of skin.
To solve the dilemma of living life with either a deformed or a synthetic face, David Ames has his brain wired to some kind of pre-programmed dream that plays in his head while his body sleeps in cryogenic peace, presumably waiting for a technical breakthrough in reconstructive surgery.
To ensure his dream on ice is nice and hot, Aames contracts with a shady tech company for a digital lover. It is, of course, Sophia, the wise, whimsical dancer he fell in love with before the accident. If the first crucial turning point was when Aames got in Julie’s car, the next one is his choice to go to sleep and dream of love with Sophia rather than face the problem that stopped him in his tracks.
What is the metaphor in that deep freeze we never get a look at in the center of this movie? How often lately have we seen our real life corporate and government leaders behave like leading men; on-screen pushing some fantasy romance with the voter/consumer, off-screen praying secret deals and science will make-up their bets.
This expertly tailored film scenario proceeds with Aames attaining what he never could in real life, true love. Achieving increasingly lucid states, he tries to take over the fantasy and make it real. It only brings more pain as Aames mistakes Sophia for Julie and his embrace tightens like a chain around her in bed, not loving but smothering her to death instead. It’s a dreadful scene to watch and lands the masked Aames into a shadowy prison cell where he pleads his case to a corduroy shrink with perfect pitch played by Kurt Russell.
This dose of therapy enables Aames to open a connection with the corporation that provides his dreams and confirm that the memory of Sophia’s murder is complete artifice. It’s just a technical glitch in the program caused by Aames efforts to gain control of the illusion.
The mask eventually becomes a burden greater than the flaw he is trying to conceal, and it does come off eventually, but not without a piece of his hide. The mask has no power of it’s own. It is a simple law of nature that a hiding place becomes a prison, the consequences of putting off an appointment with destiny. To attempt to live above, or be immune to, or cheat one’s way through always ends up working against you.
With the assistance of a tech support angel our hero eventually thaws out 130 years later. He can feel the weight of his real problems again and the consequences of going to sleep. Forsaking his privileged mindset he’s grateful to leave the fantasy behind for “real life.”
Why did I like this story? Most of us are just as prone to this same character defect. I learned a lot from watching an ego, a mask and a shattered face all try to occupy the same space.
In what ways am I sleepwalking in some illusion? We all seem to keep having to learn the same lesson about this. What else could explain how unbalanced our world feels? And how long will we let business and government leaders play make-believe with the future? Eventually they have to come out from behind their masks of company and committee and face the consequences too. Because, as this film makes so abundantly clear, we’re just putting off the inevitable.
Last month I wrote about an Italian film that was a huge international success. This month I choose one by another Italian that I admire. This film was considered a total disaster critically and financially. It’s about American youth in the 60’s in rebellion against the establishment. At the time, Michaelangelo Antonioni’s ninth film was one of the worst money losers in history. Since then, “Zebriski Point” has been almost universally put down.
The worst part of “Zabrisiki” is its performances, but I think I have seen acting like this one other time, when it was being praised. It was in a performance of “Iphigenia at Aulis” by Euripides; a play that portrays a father ritually sacrificing his daughter to the gods to boost his standing in the Trojan War. Those in the audience who were gushing over the performances were aware the acting technique was antique, but it gave us a pleasure, similar to hearing music played on period instruments.
When I first watched it, I thought Antonioni was sacrificing the darling daughter of America, namely consumerism, to the gods of youth and beauty whom the Greeks called Aphrodite and Adonis. Likewise, I thought Antonioni’s decision to make the actor’s performance seem wooden was a classy homage to the Greek origins of western drama.
I have since read that Antonioni gambled on his lead actors, choosing pretty looking revolutionaries that were amateur actors and he found them very difficult to work with, especially the boy.
Before reading much about it though, I thought Antonioni was also poking fun at American porn films from that time period.
By the 1960’s adult films had evolved from crude roll playing in one reel stag movies, into feature scenarios with badly acted narratives quickly leading to expertly conducted sex scenes. Those brightly lit, fuzzy-edged frames were later labeled “soft-core” after hard-core went mainstream.
The big orgy at “Zebriski Point” was a feast for Antonioni’s detractors. Again, I found the choreography so campy, and put-on that it was a turn off instead of a turn on. Which is exactly what I would expect from Antonioni. He regularly plays against expectations in his films, so I didn’t question it. I presumed it had sprung from the filmmaker’s genius and I laughed with him and enjoyed myself. My laughter turned to awe while the cinematography at the end of the scene made the episode seem, by turns, sublime and transcendental.
In my untutored state, I thought the decision to make the final “Point” of his movie with multi-camera documentary footage of the demolition of an opulent resort home reason enough to make his feature in the first place. It might help you to understand that the story begins in a crowded room where American university students are plotting a revolution.
Symbolically, this finale could be read as Antonioni strapping consumerist society to a bomb and detonating it. He was in America for the first time, shooting in legendary California, the movie Mecca of the world. Here was a deep-thinking outsider making the authorities nervous with his portrayal of alienated American youth. I read that the Feds grew so paranoid and suspicious they tried to run the production into the ground. Would the critics rescue him? Nope.
As a consequence, many people will never see this superbly controlled and photographed event, invented in the late sixties before big explosions in movies had come into vogue. You used to have to watch a two-hour, playfully stylish, and mythical love tragedy to get to these closing fireworks. This scene can be watched as a stand-alone event now. It lasts about five minutes. Watch it full-screen, if possible. Tell me what you think the director had in mind.
What if the corporate orgy of greed that stains human history was worth it just for putting a few vital tools in the hands of the masses?
Here is proof that the political stage is not being managed by a secret cadre of money-grubbing fascists. If such a group existed, they would never have given us all these cameras. It’s their downfall because the camera equals freedom. It’s development is revolutionary to the evolution of humanity. I’m not even talking about the content of the image in the camera yet. Just use a camera and feel your mind’s eye snap open. The mere act of using it frees you from linear time.
Examine now, what the content in the camera is capable of doing for accelerating evolution. Unlimited cameras in the hands of the masses become a tool for comprehending the deep range of human potential in our global village. I’m talking about information that no one can get a head start on. We’re all looking at ourselves in the multidimensional global mirror now and the image is in a state of continuous development.
Why only talk about the commercial potential of this phenomenon? While government and environment go bankrupt from rapid technological and population growth, the neurological and spiritual dimensions of humankind are experiencing exploding growth. Never has the individual been so free to make so many connections guided by personal choice. The opportunities for the free and fast exchange of knowledge among individuals is highly encouraging to our evolutionary advancement. We need to use this to bring the environment and economy along for this rennaissance. The more connections the better. How much more do we need for these connections to grow into the ultimate connection? Until they outnumber the disconnections
While this new phenomenon is happening to us our understanding is growing so fast that no one can tell us what it all means, or where we are going. It will continue taking us there at the speed of light for the next many generations. This event is historically equal in significance to the evolutionary milestone of when our early predecessor first recognized himself in a pool of water. He finally quit thrashing the thing and realized, “the face in the pond is my reflection.”
At the movies, while we look outward at our reflection, we gaze inward with imagination, to fill in the implied off screen context. The data our imagination chooses to supply is our individual reaction to what is shown onscreen. Our reaction is filtered through our experience. A filmmaker must master his lenses and we, the audience, are his last filter. If we see a baseball player crouching with a bat, a catcher and umpire lined up behind him, the filmmaker must make sure our imagination fills in the ball field with all the players in place and a pitch racing toward home plate.
A movie is a spool of time, literally. Its a rolled up miniature record of exactly what action was taking place in front of a lens in a certain light and speed at a particular place and time. By the time we see it, the action is consigned to the past. When we talk about going to the movie, we refer to the place where the past is rewound and waiting in the future. When we get there, since it will be the first time we’ve watched it, it will belong to our present.
Let’s watch a motion picture of a particular period in the past, a famous event in history, one that we all know about, or not. For instance, Bertolucci’s “The Last Emperor,” an international success. We follow the life of the last emperor of China from privileged birth, to child king, to his overthrow, exile, and repatriation in Mau’s revolutionary republic. The past present and future of these unique characters unroll for us in all their complexity and irony. The story brings the past into high relief, the last emperor’s past as well as our own. Where are you and I off screen, in that historical movie? The audience watching the film, in this case, become representatives of the emperor’s future. The dynasty to come.
Our brains are having such a great time with all this time travel. Lately they’ve figured out a way to become even more involved. Where movies were once the viewpoints of writers, filmmakers, actors and producers, now they are the frontier of common folk. We may just be watching a home movie of someone’s dog saying “ I love you” on You Tube, but whether we are conscious of it or not, our brain goes to work with that lens to delve deeper into big issues. The direction of the lens, the size and shape of its field of view, the sharpness, distance of its focus, the quality of light it refracts, all impact the story but our brain can make use of any lens, professional or amateur.
Anything that can be made with a camera supplies part of the bigger picture for the brain. Films illuminate the most important keys to our survival. They connect us with knowledge we need to bring along with us into the future.
Thirty years ago, the China Syndrome (1979) and Silkwood (1983), both Academy award nominated films, educated us on one of the most urgent issues currently threatening human survival. It took a mere two and a half weeks for the events in “The China Syndrome” to come to pass in the near meltdown of Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, but we did not stand up then like we should have. Now, toxic nuclear byproducts have fouled the ocean and even come blowing to your hometown a result of negligence and corruption by the energy companies and the governments whom we have invested with the responsibility to watch over them.
Motion pictures engaged the debate on the nuclear agenda with a vote of no confidence, but we seem to have ignored them. They cautioned us not to trust nuclear industry “experts” whose careers depend on strong demand for their electricity and bombs. Soothing statements on the nightly news are calculated to make us feel at ease living in a toilet. Both films point a huge, blinking red arrow up at those energy giants who are currently squatting over us, excreting their dung and assuring us that this is what’s best for everyone.
Pay no more attention to their experts. The unfolding of recent events in Japan are playing out precisely as predicted by filmmakers. Both implicitly and explicitly, those filmmakers were inviting us to assume personal responsibility to prevent this. There must be a limit to the crap we will take. It is well within our power to stop them.
The massage is clear. We have denied the power of movies to instruct us. Will we finally learn by listening to the people of Fukushima, and surrounding prefectures, recently forced to abandon their dreams, livelihoods and property to escape nuclear chaos? They are the real nuclear experts.
If nuclear power provides 20% of this country’s energy needs, we could rid ourselves of it instantly by voluntarily reducing our energy consumption by an equal percentage. If that seems impossible, maybe you’ve been watching too much nightly news. You could begin immediately reducing your energy needs by turning it off.
Good people formerly living in and around Fukushima are now adrift as a consequence of trusting the nightly news and denying the truth in the movies. The Japanese are also presently consuming a great deal less energy then they were before this nightmare overwhelmed them. Why wait until we are forced from our homes by a similar disaster before we undertake drastic reduction? Unless we do, the change we are all bound for is what they’re all waking up to now in Fukushima. With foresight and determination we might still preserve here at home, what they have lost there forever.
