The end of The Piano, Part 2!

Following some interesting feedback on facebook, I thought I should comment on the shots of Ada under the sea right at the end of the film, too.

For me, this is one of (at least) three alternative endings - i.e., that she in fact died when she chose to follow her piano under the sea. However, in terms of my reading of the film, I see it as one of the (two) imagined - or fantasy - endings the film offers us, after Ada in fact dies at the hands of her angry husband. That is, this image offers us perhaps Ada's preferred ending, while the images of Ada, Baines and Flora happy together in a new city offer us an alternative ending that is perhaps what Baines, Flora and/or mainstream narrative film might prefer.

The Piano, d. Jane Campion, Australia/NZ/France, 1993

There's a huge amount to write about this film, from a feminist perspective as much as any other – although it does, of course, lend itself to feminist analysis precisely because of the way it (deliberately, if we're allowing the writer-director some agency!) deconstructs and plays overtly as well as more subtly with norms and conventions of mainstream narrative film (which, it turns out, is as patriarchal, phallocentric and objectifying of women as much of the rest of popular culture and society more generally).

Some of the most inventive and interesting examples of how The Piano (and/as Campion and her editor, Veronika Jenet, and cinematographer, Stuart Dryburgh) plays with and undermines the established norms of narrative cinema that serve to further what Laura Mulvey famously theorised as the “male gaze”.Jaime Bihlmyer sets out some of these in a great article that was I think published in Cinema Journal, and one of the neatest is the way in which the film frustrates the "male gaze" early on: when Ada McGrath (the film's protagonist, played by Holly Hunter) and Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill) pose for a wedding photo, he looks through the viewfinder to frame/capture Ada, but the film's not interested in eyeline matching or any such nonsense. Similarly, Ada stares at the viewer at least once, and there are other playful moments... and then there's the whole refusal of Ada to speak, that is to engage in language, which has itself been theorisied as a patriarchal form. (For those who know, this relates to the notion that language acquisition is related to the realm of the Symbolic, and is part of acculturation, while the pre-language stage is also associated with "the Mother" and with not (yet) being part of society... Ada's refusal to speak, then, is a crucial aspect of her refusal to comply with social norms, and of her defiance of patriarchy.)

One thing that's always interested me, especially in respect of whether Ada's resistance to patriarchy is in fact broken down (or, for that matter, partially given up voluntarily, due to her relationship with Baines [Harvey Keitel]), is the end of the film. Bihlmeyer among others has theorised that the last few short scenes are in fact in Ada's – and/or the film's – imagination; that in fact Ada does not “choose life,” but dies in the ocean where she throws herself along with her piano. On successive viewings of the film – and after discussing it several times with various groups of students, too – I thought this a very convincing reading. However, especially after considering the film's evident relationship with and to the fairy tale, or fable, of “Bluebeard,” my reading is actually that Ada does far earlier – in fact, as a result of Stewart's violent act against her with the axe (mirroring Bluebeard's violence against his wives who failed to do his bidding).

This first crossed my mind because when the boat leaves at the end, with Baines, Ada and her daughter, Flora (Anna Paquin) as well as the piano, it looks to me like a funeral boat, and the Maori song that accompanies it also seems funereal. I also felt that Ada looks ghostly, just not-of-this-world as we see her leave the house... I also found it odd that Ada would (a) be permitted to leave with Baines as she does, and (b) that she would want to (much as I like the character of Baines, and agree with readings of his character s being quite sympathetic to “feminism”). When I then read analyses that suggest the final few shots (of Ada and Baines in their new home, of Ada's new finger fashioned from metal, and of Flora doing cartwheels on the lawn) were fantasy rather than a “real” ending, and that Ada had died in the sea, I felt more sure that she in fact died earlier.

To me, her death at the hands of Alisdair makes sense (sadly), especially as the film is in many ways a re-write, an adaptation, or what-you-will, of the Bluebeard story. However, of course in Bluebeard, one young wife does manage to escape – so this too works if a viewer refuses the reading that Ada dies/is killed by Alisdair. The point is, The Piano is a film – and despite its Oscars success, a pretty non-traditional narrative one – so multiple readings and multiple possibilities for what “really” happened are entirely possible, and can work alongside each other, without disproving or proving one is “right” or “wrong”.

But for me, even though Baines is an attractive character, and even though Ada seems strong in her fight against social norms, I think that the ending the film nominally – or, superficially – offers, that is, of Ada and Baines living together “happily ever after” is a self-conscious fantasy, and not the “real” ending. I think that Ada would “choose life” were she allowed to make the choice, but for me the reality of the film is that she was not allowed that choice, because her resistance was too much for Alisdair to bear, and for that she died.

Spirited Warrior (d. Panna Rittikrai, Thailand 2001).

Just a short comment on this weird Thai action film!

I rented it because it "introduces" Tony Jaa as an actor, and he is amazing... anyway, it's one of the strangest martial arts films I've ever seen (and I've seen very many!)... it's pretty cool, but displays a peculiarly horrifying mix of racial and gender stereotypes alongside some seemingly far less offesnive images! I guess it's a case of trying to get away with stereotypes simply by also having non (or at least less, or less negatively)-stereotypical characters?

Interesting, though, as it has a female Japanese character who's great at fighting... well, until the final scene, of course. Then she's a bit less good, and conveniently saved by a man who#s handily suddenly better at fighting than she is. *rolls eyes*

Anyway, the most disturbing thing about it is the character named "Mute", who is - you guessed it - unable to speak (although not actually mute, somewhat bewilderingly). Anyone out there writing on terrible representations of the "disabled"? This is a film you have to see!!!

Skeletons (d. Nick Whitfield, UK 2010).

This is the film that Christopher Nolan nicked the idea for Inception from, it seems!* The difference is, it is utterly intelligent, doesn't treat its viewers like dimwits, and has a sharp comedic edge that belies its generous spirit and thought-provoking nature.

The "skeletons" of the title are those found in closets, and the film does a neat job of unpacking human desires and relationships without losing sight of narrative coherence and the fact that it's a film. The writer-director, Nick Whitfield, along with the editor, Rachel Tunnard, appeared at a Q&A session after tonight's screening of the film at Sheffield's Showroom, and it was clear why the film is such a success: more interested in the complexities of everyday human life than showing how clever they are, and with a desire to work with the camera rather than with SFX, the pair answered questions in a genuine, often entertainingly deadpan manner, and revealed much of the thoughtfulness that's gone into making this film.

The film's central duo are blokes - the comedy double act, Andrew Buckley and Ed Gaughan - and the women in the film play roles of wives and daughters. But they are real people - all of them - and Jane (played by the remarkable Paprika Steen, of Festen "fame") is a "crazy lady" who for me is a fabulous antithesis of (and antidote to) female characters like that of Mal in Inception. Her eccentricity is real, but also understandable, as is her response to it - not melodramatic, and not sexualised. The relationships between the characters, too, show much more depth and variety than those displayed in so many films - never reverting to boy-meets-girl shmultz or even typical, uninteresting patterns. This is all the more remarkable given that the film does, as the director freely admits, have a "neat ending" and ties things up in a way that even Hollywood might allow. (Indeed, the film's been a hit with US film festival audiences.) But what is so refreshing is its avoidance of cliche and stereotypically lazy ploys to achieve that almost happy ending. Instead, despite the fantastic premise and sense of other-worldliness that pervades the film, it achieves an eerily realistic portrayal of a bunch of vaguely surreal but weirdly engaging people, and manages to avoid stereotyping or typically problematic representations of gender (as well as class, among other things), while not being blind to gender issues such as being a wife, and how defining that can - but does not have to - be.

And as I read through what I've written, I realise that not only is Steen's Jane something of an antodote to the femme fatale of Inception and elsewhere, but so is the younger female protagonist of Skeletons - Jane's daughter, Rebecca - something of an antidote to the tiny, very-young-looking Ariadne in Inception. (Rebecca's played by Tuppence Middleton, and yes that's really her name). A young adult who looks her age - pretty and sexy without being infantalised and over-sexualised - Rebecca's role is one of the most interesting for a young woman in film I've seen in a long time. Again, it doesn't deny the social realities of what shapes women-as-daughters and their place in/relationship to the world around them (especially men), but it problematises it and ends at a quite positive place - again, without recourse to romance or melodrama, thank goodness!

It's hard to write too much more about this film without using spoilers affecting both it and Inception, so they might be best revisited after more people've had a chance to see them. And I really would recommend you see Skeletons. It's brilliantly made, highly enjoyable, really very funny as well as with its own degree of pathos, and has some excellent acting, too - with Jason Isaacs in a great role, too, that I'd not previously mentioned. (Interesting, too, is the way his role as "the Colonel" has a similar aspect to it - but less harsh - as that of West and his men in 28 Days Later, as it happens..!). Anyway, go see it. It's just lovely!

Here's a link to the trailer: http://www.skeletonsthemovie.com/videos/  (at the film's official site: http://www.skeletonsthemovie.com/)

*The core idea of Skeletons - very similar to that of Inception - was contained in two of Whitfield's short films, also starring Buckley and Gaughan...

Inception (d. Christopher Nolan, USA 2010)

Oh dear. So much potential in this film, but so veeeeery looooooong!!! 

It brought up an interesting point, though. Very many films - especially those made in the US while the Hayes Production Code was in its heyday - operate to set up quite radically anti-establishment narratives that are then supposedly undone by an ending that shows the bad guy or gal getting his or her just desserts. So, for instance, sluts die, and men drawn into criminal behaviour by avarice or lust, also tend to die (or at least go to prison) - despite having a grand old time of it for the first 90 minutes of the film... The received wisdom is, of course, that the imagery and idea that stays with viewers is of the "bad" stuff (which is usally fun and sexy and alluring), rather than of the tacked-on ending involving jail or death.

What's my point? Read on. (But don't, in fact, read on unless you've either already watched Inception, don't mind spoilers, or had someone else ruin it for you before now, lol.)

My point is that Inception does this sort of thing, but in reverse. In particular, it spends most of its 148 minutes (count 'em!) setting up the protagonist's dead wife as a Bad Evil Crazy Woman, but then at the end does a speedy turnaround twist thingy that reveals that it was All His Fault, and that the crazy lady wasn't in control of her own mind, because it was HIM who placed the crazy idea in it in the first place.

Hmmmm. 

On some level, I was relieved: at least the film wasn't too trite and unthinking in its representation of a femme fatale as a crazy woman who was causing awful suffering for her still-alive husband and many others. But then again, the overwhelming representation the film leaves you with is of just that - and not, sadly, of a woman horribly fucked over and lead to suicide by her idiot husband planting thoughts in her mind.

Also, while the film has its good points, do we ever actually care whether Leo's character gets back to his kids? More importantly, since they appear to have by all of a week since he last saw them, why's he so angst-ridden anyway?

28 Days Later (d. Danny Boyle, UK 2002).

I saw this film when it came out, and also just last week on late night Channel 4. This time I found it a bit more interesting, as I wondered whether the look on Jim (Cillian Murphy)'s face when he realises what the army personnel have in mind for Selena (Naomie Harris) and Hannah (Megan Burns) after their perilous trip to meet up with their fellow "survivors".

From a feminist perspective, this film is confusing, to say the least. On a superficial level - that may not be so superficial! - it's arguably quite reactionary, given that Selena starts out aggressive and effective, able to do what Jim cannot (kill the infected, and be physically as well as mentally strong), but after taking on a "mother" role to Hannah, seems to almost entirely lose her edge, capitualting to the men's advances, donning an evening dress, and not fighting back once she thinks Jim is lost to her and Hannah. 

Obviously, on a practical level, Selena's not wrong: she simply can't fight back effectively against armed men - however weak their command and their minds at this point - at least, not without the likely result of death or even worse treatment for her and Hannah, her charge. And of course she doesn't capitulate entirely - as she cunningly gets the men to leave her alone with Hannah so she can at least give the young girl drugs to make her at that point inevitable rape be less traumatising. Still, this is not reality, it's a film - and the choices made, the images shown, do undermine Selena's initially strong role, whether or not the film manages to offer a reading whereby these changes do not undermine the positive way in which it's represented Selena earlier in the film.

Of course on many levels, Selena does not lose her edge. She is simpyl doing what she can to stay alive - and her desire to help Hannah (and Jim) rather than only herself can be read not (simply) as a capitulation to patriarchy's imposition of the role of mother/partner, but as her own personal development away from total individuality towards the realisation that she needs other people, and to care about other people, if she is to truly survive the unnamed virus and its affects. And of course this is interesting because her realisation that she needs other people is not based on the same warped version of that same realisation that Major Henry West (Eccleston) and his ragtag group of men have. They, of course, use the "excuse" of the virus to legitimise rape (as a necessity to reproduction, as well as to their own desires in a world that's been devoid of women to them for all of a month or two). This is the true horror of the film - far worse, because of the way it's focused upon, personalised and foregrounded, than the virus itself.

And this is confusing - as well as confused. Is rape worse than death? No (as Selena seems to acknowledge by the choices she makes... but I'm not sure what the film's view is.) Is the horrific and unnecesarily violent way in which West's men behave more horrific than millions dying violent deaths as a result of a virus? No. So what is the film saying? Well, lots of things, I think. It's saying that people often react in unpleasant, violent ways to disaster and the fear of death: Selena responds, initially, by killing any threat - even people she cares for - "in a heartbeat", and by avoiding emtotional attachment. West and his men react by being violent towards the victims of the virus (as displayed in the sequence where they blow up the Infected who try to get into their compound on a nightly basis), and towards those who have escaped the virus - including to the two men not convinced that raping a woman and girl is the answer to the problem. There are parallels here, of course, but also vast differences. The most obvious being that Selena realises her error, and develops feelings for people - while West and his men are agents of their own demise by failing to treat not just Selena and Hannah, but also Jim and many others, as human and deserving of respect.

Still the problem remains, does Selena's status as a woman over-define her response to the situation the group fid themself in, and is this unsatisying from a feminist point of view? Why, in simple terms, is it Jim who manages to kill soldiers with his bare hands and facilitate Selena and Hannah's escape? Why doesn't Selena manage it, as she's previously been the killing machine, while Jim's balked at the prospect of killing even the Infected, and is haunted by having killed just one Infected boy? Why, too, is Jim able to not only find the strength to kill the Infected, but also people who're still free from the virus? Again, I'm not asking this in some psychological sense, as if the characters in the film are "real" - because we all know why that might be: Jim is horrified at what has become of West and his men, and even more horrified at what they're planning to do to Selena and Hannah. He has little choice, in the narrative trajectory of the film, but to work to prevent it. And he does. Similarly, Selena's hands are tied, the narrative argues, as she has to look after Hannah as well as herself, and do the best she can in a situation where she's faced with armed men and has no weapon of her own. Fine. But the choice is still the filmmakers' - and does it have to be Selena who cares for Hannah, while Jim finds himself to be something of a Rambo figure, when push comes to shove?

I'm undecided. And while the imagery of the patriarchal family offered by this film's ending (Jim as father, Selena as mother, Hannah as child) is not attractive to me, this doesn't mean that the feelings it evokes - and an audience's appreciation of how and why Selena and Jim act as they do - aren't both understandable and engaging. The fact, too, that the film offers an alternative ending, shows perhaps that the film itself (the filmmakers, whatever) is not sure of its own ideological ground, and how happy it is to show this nuclear family as the "happy ending"?

Another way to look at the film more positively in feminist terms, too, is to think of Jim as a quite feminist figure. For a start, he's not prone to violence, and does tend towards wanting to help people and be with them, rather than accepting Selena's somewhat "masculine" (if understandable!) approach of killing everything and rejecting human closeness. He's not aggresive, but is active - and respects Selena's desire to keep to herself, as well as Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah's close parent-child relationship. He is only, in fact, driven to violence first when his life is directly in danger from the Infected boy at the garage, and then when he sees the threat that Selena and Hannah are under. And what is interesting is that his interest in protecting Selena and Hannah does not seem (to me) to be proprietary in nature: his interest is not in keeping Selena for himself, that is, but in stopping the horrific behaviour of the other men because it is horrific. He cannot stand to see the autonomy of others violated - and is willing to do anything to stop it. He cannot believe that men would stoop so low - and in stopping it, is willing to reject his less agressive nature, and to take on the men at their own aggressive game.

None of these points have simple answers, and many raise further questions. This film is not "feminist" in any clear way, but it does have elements that make it more feminist - or, at least, open to feminist readings - than very many others, and does appear not to confuse being feminist with simply not wanting women to be raped! For these reasons I think it's an interesting film from a feminist perspective. Its sense that some men's behaviour in the face of human disaster - where those men are soldiers, and thereby obvious representatives of patriarchy - is worse than or as bad as the disaster itself (in that it's morally reprehensible, which a virus is not), is worth considering, and it's not insignificant that the soldiers' worst crimes are planned against women. The pervasiveness and horror of patriarchy is displayed in 28 Days Later, whether or not this is its goal, and whether or not you read it as a feminist film, or as very far from it.

 

feminist films, or feminist reviews?

Well, since there aren't nearly enough feminist films out there to support a blog, the emphasis is on the reviewing, I'm afraid! A writer by trade, and a film sholar too, my aim is to try to write down some thoughts about films I see - old or new, fab or faux - with an eye to their gender politics and whether or not they might be considered feminist, misogynist, or somewhere in between! It may not sound so thrilling, but really it might be. Especially if there's the odd debate, and the odd oddity.

First I'm going to ponder on what I think about 28 Days Later - a film I re-watched for the first time the other night, and which go me thinking. And isn't that what blogs work with? Thoughts.