Luca Guadagnino has a habit of changing my entire fucking worldview with each new film of his I watch and review. Call Me By Your Name, in the years since I first looked at, has become a rather important moment in my personal history as a Queer person, and I genuinely think I wouldn’t be in my current relationship had I not watched it (just one of many experiences that make me love this job). Suspiria, along with being that rare remake that (in my opinion) eclipses the original, is a fascinating example of filmmaking as actual witchcraft, a perspective that I’ve since added to my frequently flowery ideas about the potential of cinema. Whatever he has lined up next has big shoes to fill, clearly, but he has once again delivered an absolute winner.
For a start, the story is an Edgar Wright-level genre mash-up. It’s a road trip drama set and shot in the Midwestern United States, captured in all its rustic and isolating beauty by Arseni Khachaturan’s cinematography and backed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ gently plucked guitar strings. It’s a romance between two bisexual young adults, with Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet showing immaculately tender chemistry throughout. It’s a period piece set in the Reagan ‘80s, all about outsiders trying to exist in a world that consistently just wants to be rid of them. And just to add that little extra spice, it’s a casually gory horror flick about cannibals, and it gets quite graphic when it comes round to meal time.
And much like the eclectic mix of cultural influences in CMBYN, as well as the heaped layers of theme in Suspiria, Guadagnino manages to strike an easy balance between all of them. His and writer David Kajganich’s understanding of horror as a source of empowerment leads to some Julia Ducournau-esque developments, particularly stuff like Raw which also took the idea of consumption to literal extremes. And through that, as we watch Russell’s Maren and Chalamet’s Lee as they go cross-country, the depiction of social and even familial isolation combined with this blood-splattered kind of self-affirmation makes for remarkably pliable viewing material. There is a lot to pulled out of the guts of this film’s use of cannibalism.
For a start, there’s the consumption of blood and flesh in the context of addiction, with our leads (along with a number of other ‘eaters’) they run into being compelled to consume as a means of survival. There’s a quiet tragedy in that existence, especially as compounded by some of the colourful characters they run into on their journey. Mark Rylance’s Sully, as immediately and emphatically creepy as he is, has an odd childish innocence to him, like his own social isolation has led to him regressing in his own mind. Then there’s Michael Stuhlberg in arguably his most ‘character’ performance yet, giving the film its title about the true extent of that addiction, along with David Gordon Green (yes, the same guy who’s been following Michael Myers around for the last few years) as his protege.
Then there’s the subtext that most leapt out at me while watching this, that being the metaphor of mental illness. At one point, Lee sums up the existence of an eater as either eating others to survive, killing themselves so they don’t have to, or getting themselves locked up for the same reason. Find a way to live by your specific means, die, or get to the sanatorium; a recurring Hobson’s choice for those with mental health issues, especially at this time in American history. It adds a lot to the notions of these people needing to hide away and exist outside of ‘normal’ society, and while some of them may try to live as ‘normal’, these things have a way of catching back up with us. As an autistic, learning how (or, to be more blunt about it, being forced to learn how) to mask is also a survival tactic, but it can also lead to a genuine disconnect with the self. Our normal is abnormal to damn-near everyone else, and we clearly can’t have any of that.
And not for nothing, but reading this film through that lens adds another layer to the revulsion Maren shows when we learn that DGD’s character wasn’t born a cannibal, but behaves as if he is. I have mentioned my disdain for cripface before, right?
But of course, there’s the main context for the imagery here, and it ties into the film’s main focus: Romantic love. At the risk of sounding callous, this film’s existence feels like a bone being thrown to those who watched CMBYN, later learnt about Armie Hammer’s own cannibalistic tendencies… and then went full thirst and unironically wanted him to do that to them. Given my own history with that film, and his performance in it, I can’t say I’m in a position to judge that kind of mentality, but in my own defence, that kind of reaction does admittedly make for some interesting precedent for a film like this. A film that takes that kind of morbid infatuation and proceeds to take it in as earnest a way as possible.
Like with CMBYN, the idea of being able to love someone else is tied into one’s ability to love themselves, only we get a much bigger eyeful of what happens when both are lacking. Love isn’t a matter of being with someone despite their flaws, but because of them. Being in the throes of love can be a consuming process, and the only real way to reciprocate it is to… well, consume in kind. To love the entirety, bones and all, which itself is something of a gruesome idea because we are all flawed as human beings. Darkness takes root deep in the heart, right where love lives, and the only way we can be happy is by finding someone who we can share that darkness with. Unconditionally and totally, like sucking the marrow out of your partner’s woes and swallowing it whole.
Luca Guadagnino has delivered another winner of a bisexual romance flick, and if he keeps making them with this many juicy brains behind them, I want him to keep going. This hits me in quite a few places I live, speaking emotional and psychological truth about living while Queer, neurodivergent, and just generally being a weirdo. It’s a love story about the strange, for the strange, and with how much I’ve gotten into my enjoyment for darker stories with idealistic and possibly corny ideas (or ‘edgelord optimism’, as I’ve taken to calling it), it should come as no surprise that I highly recommend this experience.
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