What I Watched this Week: When is Confusion Enjoyable?
Hello hello friends. It’s taking me some time to finish the video portion for the Children’s Film essay so I though I would write down some thoughts about the films I have watched this week while I work on the video. Hopefully I can make this a weekly series, but we’ll see if I’m organized enough for that.
This week I watched three feature films— Official Secrets, Blancanieves, and Mother!— and all three of them got me thinking about what it is to enjoy a film. Out of three of the films I watched, I would say that I enjoyed two of them— Official Secrets and Blancanieves. However, I would say that I liked all three of the films (to a certain extent). Blancanieves presents the most straightforward enjoyment of the three films. I loved it and can tell you exactly what I loved about it— the story’s cultural signifiers, the inviting and clever visual transitions, and the gorgeous acting and costume design. It was a surprising and beautiful film and my enjoyment of itlies squarely within what I would usually define as enjoyment. The other two films; however, do not present as simple an emotional reaction.
Let’s start with Official Secrets as it’s definitely the more straightforward film.
I hadn’t heard about Official Secrets until a couple weeks ago; and only ended up hearing about it because it’s playing at the theater I work at. After seeing the first and last minute or so during my shifts (and, if I’m being honest, noticing that Matt Smith was in it), I decided that it might be worth the watch. The film tells the true story of Katherine Gun (played by Keira Knightly), an intelligence specialist at the the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), during the months leading up to the Iraq war. After receiving an email memo asking the GCHQ to gather intelligence on UN diplomats in order to sway votes in favor of the war, Katherine decides to leak the memo to a former GCHQ employee and friend in the anti-war movement. The film follows the consequences of that decision.
On the surface, I really enjoyed this film. However, something interesting happens when I think about what I liked about the film. Was the cinematography particularly stunning? Not really. Was the directing good? Well, it must have been if I liked it, right? The only thing I can say for sure is that when I walked out of the theater, I realized that I had been properly engaged throughout the movie and concluded that, yes, I guess I did like it. However, when I turned to my friend to talk about it, I found that my feelings towards what I just experienced were more tied to the story than any cinematic characteristics. In the car home, as I thought more about the film, I also began to acknowledge the great performances; however, after five days, not much more has emerged when thinking about the film. It would be easy to conclude that it was simply not a standout film… but I did genuinely enjoy it and though I haven’t thought much about it as a cinematic work, I have continued to think about liking it which makes me think that the film was successful. Does every good film have to have stunning cinematography, exceptional directing and distinctive editing? I have seen plenty of films where I simply don’t notice those things and that can often be a good thing— especially with editing. However, what makes this movie distinguish itself from other movies is that I did think about the cinematography and the editing— I just couldn’t say anything about them. They were neither bad nor good— but I still noticed them and honestly can’t figure out quite why.
🎥 Short Film Side Note 🎥
This week I also watched Agnes Varda’s short, Black Panthers, for the first time and the way the film puts authorial voice on the back burner got me thinking again about my experience watching Official Secrets. While watching Black Panthers, I often thought about how detached Varda appeared in the presentation of this film (especially in comparison to some of her other documentary work). We never see Varda, she never expresses a clear opinion of what she is capturing, and (in the English version, at least) we never even hear her voice in the narration. Rather, we simply watch as the Black Panthers rally in 1968 to free Huey Newton. It is clearly the voice of the Panthers that matters in this film— even if the presentation of that voice is aimed towards an ignorant (but at least partially open) white audience. The film does not attempt to interpret or reframe the goals and beliefs of the Black Panthers, it simply allows them to speak, and clarifies when necessary. Because this film is a documentary— and one directed by a filmmaker I am familiar with— it is much easier to make sense of the detachment of directorial presence and focus on story (though I will say, in terms of cinematography, there were definitely some interesting shots in the film). However, my ability to distinguish this detachment as a positive force in the film again brought questions of why I was unable to make that distinction with Official Secrets. In Black Panthers, nothing feels missing— even if something (or someone) purposefully is.
My experience with Mother! seems almost the exact opposite of my experience with Official Secrets. I’ll first point out that I did not watch this movie in a theater, but in my bed on my computer after starting two different movies and not being in the mood for either. That’s not to say that I was in the mood for Mother!; but I had been talking about it with a coworker the day before and was curious about all of the commotion around when it came out. This may be the result of watching on my computer, or possibly because I had high expectations for crazy; however, I didn’t feel much emotion surrounding Mother!. My primary feeling was confusion and, until the end, I couldn’t really say what the film was about. About three quarters of the way into the film, I decided didn’t think I liked it very much. But something about the ending felt both complete and open, changing my outlook of the film to an eventual positive. But that positivity comes from a distinct place than that of Official Secrets because I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed this film. I didn’t feel particularly engaged with the story and more just wanted it to be over so I could know what was going on. I think what shifted my attitude towards the end was not anything to do with it actually being a good ending (especially in the context of the mother nature allegory). Rather, the ending made me wonder about the process of making the film. What was on the writer’s mind when they was writing the end? What was on their mind when shooting the scene? What about their viewpoints (especially about women) caused them to tell this story in the way it was told? I think the confusion surrounding the rest of the film ended up supporting the intrigue around my final questions, ultimately making my experience of the film more compelling and leading to the last-minute decision that I liked it.
Immediately after watching Mother!, I went to the internet to decipher what exactly I had just watched. I think this was a mistake. In the context of the various allegories set out by both Aronofsky and critics, the story and its suggestions seemed to lose much of its intrigue. As the confusion faded, so did the pleasure. Suddenly, the story seemed a bit flatter— a bit more obvious. Mother Nature and God as wife and husband allowing (or being disturbed by) people in their home seems a quite domestic interpretation for a film that claims such complexity. However, what still remains is those questions I had about the thought processes behind the film— which seem to hold my delayed (and now fluctuating) enjoyment of the film. For example, the portrayal of Mother being so wary of having people in her home— and the juxtaposition to the overly welcoming attitude of Him— appeared as more loaded an implication than the film seemed to intend. The suggestion lies alongside the analogy of humanity as an unwelcome houseguest in its underlying— but not entirely formulated— message about the human race and our place in (or outside of) nature and climate change. In the context of Genesis, how are humans unwelcome guests on Earth if God created us for earth? In the context of Climate Change, is humanity not part of the natural world we are destroying? Why is Mother Nature not a loving and trusting (if not sometimes stern) parental figure? How do domestic gender roles play a role in how this narrative constructs Mother Nature as an almost helpless witness to her own demise? With these questions unanswered—but the initial confusion of watching mitigated by my research— my positive interest in the film has evolved into a much more neutral interest. Unlike Official Secrets, of which my opinion lies mostly in the enjoyment and experience of the film, Mother! lies on the opposite side of the spectrum— devoid of enjoyment but full of interest.
See you soon,
Sofia
