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.
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.
This month’s blog will take the disaster in Japan for it’s theme. May those suffering the most find the strength to endure and may all of us join together for a solution.
I’m going to let a character named Billy Pritchard from my most recent finished feature film screen play make a statement on behalf of us all. Let’s just listen in without any preamble…
Billy steps forward and adjusts the microphone like he’s done it a hundred times.
BILLY-“Brothers and Sisters, let me have a quick word with you. I’m Billy Pritchard. Some of you may know who I am. It’s not important. I used to have a Sunday morning television show. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because, well, you’re not ready to go home yet are you? Happy Independence to all of you!”
The crowd answers with enthusiasm.
Billy looks off stage now. The crowd sounds intensify. He’s getting a nod from the stage manager, so he goes on. He looks down at Sallassa who is waving at him with a big smile. Donna is next to her beaming with pride.
Jules is at the foot of the stage with the camera tilted up at Billy shouting directions.
JULES-“We’re live. Go preacher.”
BILLY-“I’ve always believed in heaven and hell.”
He pauses, gathering courage. Some in the crowd murmur their encouragement.
BILLY-“You know, unbelievers liked to make fun, but I ask you, believers and unbelievers alike, what more literal proof of a bona-fide hell does anyone need? As we live and breathe, the flaming bowels of the under world swell with fires from, petroleum and nuclear origins, in which you, me and our dear Mother Nature are slowly roasting.”
The crowd makes a collective groan.
BILLY-“The very air and skies are burning which was predicted by the prophets. You say “But the Lord was supposed to come and take us first.” SORRY! That happened, some say sixty years ago. Everybody knows the atomic bomb was the Antichrist. Stop pretending that you didn’t know that. Do the math.”
Blacky has been standing about half way back from the stage and he’s heard enough. Woolman stands next to him.
BLACKY-“Prove it.”
On a screen in his mind, Billy hunkers down into his familiar crouch. His body remains standing though, stage struck, trembling before the sight of Blacky. Then Billy sees the camera and gazes in to the tunnel of Jules’ lens.
BILLY-“You say, ‘ Well If this is hell, why didn’t God take my God fearing grandma?’”
BLACKY(shouts above him)-“This man’s speech is unclean.”
JULES-No sir. He’s talking about Hell in the bible.
BILLY-“I’m saying we become captives of that place even before we die.”
BLACKY-“That’s foolishness from a fool.”
BILLY-“I beg your pardon sir, but, the Lord promised,’I am retuning very soon,’ did he not? It’s been a long, long time since somebody said the Lord said that. I’m here to tell you the Judgment Day is past and over with and we did not pass over with it. So get over it.”
Woolman makes his very first utterance.
WOOLMAN-“Boo.” A few others join in
Billy cocks his head at him, puzzled, but manages to keep momentum.
BILLY-“We’ll pass with the gas of the underworld now with a grievous longing for the artifacts of heaven, which we gave up far too easily here on earth.”
BLACKY-“Hold your tongue.”
WOOLMAN-‘Boo.”
BILLY-“I know it’s a shock. I’m sorry. It’s hard to believe, but we’re damned.”
WOOLMAN-“Boo.”
A few more in the crowd join in. Jules is rubbernecking now, capturing the confrontation ground zero.
BILLY-“What if it’s true? Think about it.”
BLACKY-“Stop now, Voice of Satan.”
More booing ensues. Suddenly there is a screech in the crowd nearby. It is Bo, the fiddle player, strafing his strings. All eyes go to the noise on which the fiddler capitalizes.
BO-“I’ve never heard anyone talk like this man. I’m curious. Isn’t everybody else? I say let him speak. It’s only his opinion.”
With that his bow strikes fiddle strings once more. The crowd generally goes with him, some even applaud and whistle. Blacky shouts over the noise.
BLACKY-“That one is bogus too. They’re working this crowd.”
BO-“Come on. Let him perform. Everybody else has. Free speech is what 4th of July’s about.”
BLACKY-“Devil speaks in him.”
Jules shouts.
JULES-“Hells bells. It’s show business. Shut up and let a devil work.”
WOOLMAN-“Boo.”
Billy waits. Now the crowd rally’s for him. Billy has their attention and so must speak. He fixes his eyes on Blacky.
BILLY-“What’s your argument with me, brother? I’m not defending opinions, dogmas, ideologies, gossip, none of that.”
Woolman starts making for the back of the crowd.
BILLY-“Whichever way we’ve disagreed about how things ought to be done, there are really only five simple needs: clean air, food, water, shelter, and security. That’s all it takes to make this earth a paradise, for everyone. This is the meaning of the cross. That’s all there is. Don’t you keep asking yourself, how hard can it be? I do. Why are we waiting? Have we abandoned ourselves and fallen so far back that we could not even see the Lord when he came and divided His winners from The Enemy’s losers?”
Billy claps his hands for emphasis.
BILLY-“Boom! The righteous, just, off they went without notice. Nobody bothered to tell the losers. Is that it?”
Crowd answers a resounding “no”.
BILLY-“I hope not either. But, friends and strangers, believers and non-believers, we don’t have to live like this. Heaven exists for us now if we want it. This earth can be a paradise. We could provide the necessities for ourselves, and each other. The command, to love one another, grants us total freedom to achieve that dream. That awful smog in the air is the burning consequence of our refusal to do so thus far.’
WOOLMAN-‘Hypocrite.”
Billy’s look into Jules’ lens lets us know he knows is a close up.
BILLY-“Ladies and gentlemen. That man has followed me for days pretending he did not have the gift of speech. That he is choosing to reveal his voice now, I find startlingly suspicious.”
Blacky-“You are a disgraced preacher.”
To cut it off, Billy quickly folds hands and bows head.
BILLY-“Thank you for your time and attention ladies and gentlemen. From the bottom of my heart, I ask your blessing and forgiveness. May the Lord bless and forgive us all.”
He surrenders the microphone and plunges into the crowd after Woolman.
A new psychedelic movie I watched last week thrust me back to bardos I had not wandered since the 70’s. “Enter the Void” concerns the “Tibetan Book of the Dead”. The movie is shocking and heavy-handed. The acting isn’t really very good, but the film is relentless once it hooks you. You’re glad they’re not better actors or it might leave a deeper scar. At more than one point I had to take my eyes off the screen. It was too long. So is hell. I looked around at the audience. No one was breathing. The movie theater felt like a Petri dish. Images and sound suspended us in a synthesis of color/shadow, movement, noise/music, editing, “high” art and blood red drama.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKRxDP–e-Y
For an entirely different example of psychedelic cinema, have a look at another recent popular film, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.” This hilarious and prolonged derangement of the senses comes courtesy of the video game that is teenager Scott Pilgrim’s life. Hallucinogenic stories like these are able to sell their hyper-realities thanks to a firmly established psychedelic appetite in the modern audience. Like acid tests, the lens tracks themes of Pilgrim’s progress from random to ego shaking. Scott racks up more and more multidimensional payoffs as he learns new rules and adapts to shifting circumstances.
It is good to see the psychedelic experience imaginatively presented in popular movies because of how much that can help us think outside the box.
Drugs get all the credit for psychedelic culture but motion pictures have always probed those possibilities. As far back as the 1929 silent classic “Man With A Movie Camera,” pioneer filmmakers undertook experiments to alter perceptions. They ingeniously employed superimposition, speeding up or slowing down, bending, blending, splintering, splicing; wielding light and shadow to peck away surface appearance and reveal essence. The current reach toward perfecting 3D and digital FX are the continuation of that tradition.
Before film came along altered states were cataloged by anthropologists, but early hallucinogenic accounts turn up everywhere from the Book of Revelation to the Rig Veda. Who can say which visions were drug influenced and which were not? The “Tibetan Book of the Dead” catalogs elevator stops, or “bardo’s,” of a soul’s journey back to reincarnation after death without mention of drugs. Timothy Leary re-published the same text as a tripping manual.
Drug experimentation became a fad in the 1960’s. Hallucinogens inoculate culture with what medicine societies and shaman of many traditions have known for millennia. Plant medicines provided an alternative perspective, a glimpse outside the box. Sound familiar? The digital revolution carries this potential now.
These days “outside the box” is a commonplace term for innovative thinking and drugs are by no means the only way to achieve it. Movie makers keep on paving the way in popular culture. Whether or not you ever ingested hallucinogens, we all experience them through their influence in music, movies, fashion, advertising, games and so on. For half a century now, psychedelic culture has branched upward into mass consciousness.
The digital revolution, it was said by drug guru Timothy Leary shortly before his death, is the new LSD. It allows for an increase of information to pass between ourselves and the larger living, breathing organism of which we are all part. Psychedelics work to inhibit the brain filter that prevents overload. Take that filter off and senses, emotions, memories expand, awareness roots and blooms. With psychedelics then, and cyberspace now, heaven and hell are states of mind.
