I’m working on my year-end thoughts on all the books I
read in 2016 (warning: this it’s going to be a, uh, long post) and while I usually don’t do a year-end list of movies,
music or other media, two things I watched this year impacted me profoundly
enough that I really wanted to call them out.
The first of these is of little surprise to those who
know my taste. The
Witch has garnered much critical acclaim, all of it deserved. I don’t
really have anything new to say about it—there have been many thoughtful articles
on various aspects of the film, in fact this has been one of the pleasant
bonuses of The Witch’s success. I can’t remember the last time a horror film
inspired so much fascinating discussion, up to and including whether it’s
really a horror film at all (which seems to be a point of discussion for any
film that reaches a different audience than simply genre fans; see the other
fantastic horror film of the decade, It Follows.)
Two things stood out to me in the film: the incredible
attention to period detail, including language and a general lack of CGI (what
little is used is tastefully done) and the performance of the cast. The journey
of William, the father, from a man set in his beliefs to one utterly broken as
he is unable to provide for his family struck me deeply. As the movie started,
I was prepared to hate his character, assuming it would be another case of
extreme religious views leading to doom, and yet by even the midpoint of the movie
I felt empathy for him, even when his actions went against his own children. If
The Babadook (the
third in this trio of fantastic horror films from the last several years) spun
maternal (and single) parental fears into a darkly devastating story, The Witch
does the same with paternal fears. The look in William’s eyes when he knows he
has failed his family: that is every father’s nightmare. That scared me more
than anything in the movie because that is real, no matter the era. In a year
that has been very trying on a personal level, and has also left me largely
unable to indulge in purchasing non-essential material items, I bought The Witch
DVD. Even after multiple viewings, the movie still has gifts to offer.
The other great thing I watched this year was not
technically a movie (although I’d argue that the line between movies and TV has
become largely non-existent—perhaps we need a new term?) Two years ago I stumbled across the British
anthology series Black
Mirror on Netflix. A couple of friends had recommended it, so I gave it a
go and was blown away. Though only two seasons long for a total of six
episodes, it was fresh, thought-provoking and in the case of Be Right Back,
emotionally impactful on a level that no TV had been for me since the halcyon days
of Twin Peaks. Only Black Mirror was less fantastical and felt very close to
real life, glimpses of the future that were just around the corner.
So of course I was overjoyed that Netflix financed
another twelve episodes of the series, the first six of which were released in
October. The fourth of those episodes, San Junipero, is the most
moving and most beautifully done piece of speculative fiction I’ve seen in
decades. And that’s not hyperbole—it’s been almost a month since I watched it
and I still think about it almost every day. It’s a speculative fiction story
and a complex love story. Watching it only a few days after the election, it
helped me heal as only great art can do, reminding me of the beautiful
potential in us all.
A brief digression: One evening in the spring of 1992, a
friend and I drove through the graveyard to a lookout point where the small
rural community we lived in (or close to; both of us lived out of town on
farms) was visible. We got high, sat on the hood of the car, talked about
philosophy and spirituality and girls and all the things young men talk about
under clear night skies and under the influence. We looked out over the town,
its tiny lights like pinpricks in a black screen. A bit later we sat inside the
car and my friend pulled out an old Greenpeace compilation cassette. The first
song to play was Belinda
Carlisle’s Heaven on Earth. It was a song I already liked, but in that
magical moment under those magical skies it transcended its cheesy origins to
encompass all that was beautiful and truthful and hopeful about humanity. My
life was extremely tumultuous at that stage (less than two months later I’d be
in the hospital after a very bad drug trip) but for the length of that song
everything was possible. It’s an experience that has never left me, one of the
small moments that counteract the struggles and darkness.
So perhaps some of my emotional reaction to San Junipero
is due to how it utilizes Heaven on Earth in a way that mirrors my emotional
experience on screen: in a hard fought, uplifting way. But to suggest it’s only
this factor would be a lie. The whole episode is emotionally complex, and if I
have a compliant about some of the coverage I’ve subsequently read regarding
the episode it’s that too much of it talks about the pop cultural touchpoints.
I guess this is inevitable in any work of art that takes place in an earlier
era that many of the audience grew up in. But to suggest this episode merely
coasts by on nostalgia doesn’t only sell it short, it misses the entire thrust
of the show. At best, it’s an extremely shallow reading that cheats the complexity
of the characters and story.
I’ve intentionally avoided discussing the plot because
honestly, you can’t say much about it without giving too much of the impact
away. I can only say that if I could invent even more words to praise this
episode—which brought me to tears several times—I would. You need not be any
kind of genre fan to love this episode. And consider checking out the rest of
Black Mirror. Like any anthology series, not every episode hits, but the ones
that do hit hard. Be warned though: San Junipero is not representative in that
it’s an ultimately uplifting story. Most of the other episodes of Black Mirror
are not, and a few are bleak enough they may be hard to take (such as the second
best episode of the current season, Shut Up
and Dance.) Yet even the darkest episodes are thought-provoking
explorations of a future that is just around the corner…or already here.
No comments:
Post a Comment