The Sleeping Beauty (Catherine Breillat, 2010)

Sleeping beautifully, too

Catherine Breillat's The Sleeping Beauty is her version of the Charles Perrault fairy tale, a radically different but no less fascinating take from Julia Leigh's 2011 debut feature of the same name.

Her tale begins literally at the beginning, with the child Anastasia's umbilical cord cut by the evil fairy. The three good fairies come running after; “we lost track of time,” they offer by way of explanation. “You're scatterbrained,” the evil fairy informs them. By way of amends, the good fairies attempt to offset the evil fairy's curse with their own spells. “The princess won't die--she'll just fall asleep for a hundred years,” offers one; “I can make the princess wander in her sleep,” offers another; “I can make her pierce her hand when she's six and wake up a hundred years later age sixteen.” When they look at her like she's an idiot, she explains thusly: “childhood takes too long.” Julia Leigh's version isn't straightforward funny like this one--its humor is more deadpan surreal--but Breillat's wears its fizziness on its sleeve, saving the fangs and poisoned thorns for later.

The resulting child is not, to put it mildly, quite that normal. Anastasia (the enchantingly willful Carla Besnainou) calls herself 'Vladimir' and declares herself a tomboy; one wonders at the Slavic names, the tree-climbing, the language (mother speaks to grandmother in subtitled Russian)--are they alluding to Tchaikovsky's ballet? The Romanovs' mysterious daughter, who also had a penchant for tree-climbing? When her hand is wounded at age six she is transported (past a giant covered with boils) from the early 19^th century to what looks like modern day, complete with contemporary trains and houses. She stays with kind-hearted Peter (Kerian Mayan) and his mother, and for a time lives a fairly happy life--when Peter shows her a queen bee too fat with royal jelly to move, she cries, afraid to be (like the bee) a prisoner of her own weight; Peter hugs and promises to protect her.

As with any fairy tale, matters can only remain happy at tale's end, not its middle; A splinter of ice presumably from the Snow Queen (Romane Portail, imperious in her furs and gemstone-encrusted breast) lands on Peter's eye, causing him to see all things as ugly, all people as grotesque; he insults his mother, and drives Anastasia to tears, repeatedly. Peter's mother has a different explanation for what's happening, though no less truthful: “You're at that awkward age (We later see Anastasia reading from a textbook the definition of puberty)!" From Perrault's tale Breillat has shifted gears to tell a more modern, more nakedly emotional one--Hans Christian Andersen's “The Snow Queen.” Peter climbs into the Queen's sled, which takes him away; Anastasia leaves home (she seems to have largely forgotten her royal origins) to look for him.

Additional adventures, each more picaresque and colorful than the last--a train station managed by a dwarf and a mannequin; an albino prince and princess, eating rainbow meringue; a trip across snowy wastelands on a sled pulled by a reindeer, the sky lit by curtains of green light; a robber princess (Luna Charpentier), about the same age as Anastasia, as eager to slit her throat as play with her. Anastasia's adventures, we come to realize, have been defined by the women at the film's beginning--the evil fairy with her curse; the first good fairy with her sleep spell; the second with her qualification that the sleep be filled with dreams (and what dreams!). You can pretty much define a fairy tale from all the conditions imposed: conflict (the curse), contrivance (sleep instead of death, dreams instead of just sleep). As for the third--

The third's spell reveals to us the final element of a bona-fide fairy tale--it must have an end. Anastasia (the awkwardly beautiful Julia Artamonov), now sixteen, comes crashing down in the twenty-first century. Doesn't seem like one at first (like a crash, I mean); first she meets Johan (David Chausse), Peter's great-grandson, and with the castle she has slept in for a hundred years as backdrop they flirt. He makes for a wonderful partner, playful and patient and gentle; she in turn is an ardent student, hungry to learn. Later, she has a reunion with her robber-princess friend (now played by Rhizlaine El Cohen), and the robber-princess is the first (not Johan) to initiate Anastasia into the mysteries of carnal pleasure.

Then--listless orgies, violent quarrels, ennui, nihilism, despair. The film pretty much ends up like a--well, like a regular Breillat film, complete with torn fishnet stockings. Breillat's cheerfully vigorous fairy-tale of a film wakes up to the grim reality of modern-day France, magic wands and pixie dust all gone.

How does this compare with Leigh's later version? Emily Browning is breathtakingly beautiful, but Artamonov has a firmer hold on your sympathies, as you've followed her adventures since childhood. Aside from the humor, which this film wears more nakedly on its sleeve, and the eroticism, which has a lovely fairy-tale aura, Breillat's take is more forthright with its ideas, more openly playful with them; Leigh's version is an exquisitely carved cameo that you gaze at, fascinated, trying to winkle out its mysteries. Leigh's take on men is equally ambivalent, if not a little sympathetic; Breillat, like a child, sets you straight about them--they're not to be trusted. Seek the arms of another woman first, if you must seek knowledge and experience.

No wonder audiences for this film were so angry, critics especially: Breillat for the umpteenth time has refused to play by anyone's rules, meet anyone's expectations, kneel down or bend over for anyone's viewing pleasure. Talk about a Grimm fairy tale, this one captures the brothers' unflinchingly violent, folksily humorous, casually fabulist tone. 

First published in Businessworld, 5.17.12 

Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh, 2011)

Sleeping beautifully

Australian Julia Leigh's debut feature Sleeping Beauty (2011) is the furthest possible take one can imagine on the classic 1697 French fairy tale "La Belle au bois dormant" by Charles Perrault, and on the magnificent 1959 animated version of said tale by Walt Disney (easily one of the handful of features the studio made whose visual grandeur--it was shot in Super Technirama 70, took eight years to produce, six years to animate in a distinctly elongated Gothic style--mostly overwhelms the standard Disney house tone of namby-pamby wholesomeness). This film is closer (closer, not necessarily close) in spirit and tone to Catherine Breillat's 2010 digital film, with the most significant difference being a kinky twist to the story inspired by a 1961 Japanese novella by Yasunari Kawabata.

It starts (unlike the two other versions) in modern day, introducing Lucy (Emily Browning), a university student struggling to keep above water financially--she works in a sterile office doing photocopying, waitresses part-time in a cafe, and on occasion volunteers sex in a high class bar (whether she goes through with it or not isn't clear). Eventually she answers a newspaper ad, and finds herself being interviewed by Clara (Rachael Blake). The job offered is decidedly decadent: she is to attend a formal-wear dinner serving wine in snow-white lingerie (that complements her equally pale skin), with lipstick that matches exactly (and this Clara explicitly specifies) the color of her labia.

The pay apparently is very good; Lucy returns seeking more work, and over tea Clara informs her that if she consents (and here's where the Kawabata story comes in), she will be given a powerful narcotic which will put her to sleep, be laid in a large bed where a client will be allowed to do everything and anything to her except penetrate her vaginally.

The sessions are the heart of the film, with Lucy's body often shot head-on, the feet towards the camera, the image striking in its symmetry yet with a tone of unsettling serenity. The clients respond in a variety of ways--one licks her face, another drags her off the bed. There's more, but easily the most disturbing reaction comes from one client who sits at the foot of the bed opposite Clara and tells her (while Lucy sleeps on) a long, rambling story that concludes with him despairingly saying he is all “broken bones.” It's a moment of emotional nakedness, and one can't help but think it's Leigh's way of making the character more sympathetic, which one initially resists--why would anyone want to feel sympathy towards this wealthy pervert?

One is compelled to do so. Stripped, the men reveal themselves to be a sad contrast to Lucy's gracefully perfect form. Oh, some of them show signs of good maintenance--some muscle definition here, there--but on the whole you can see where the sand has slipped, you see the pathos of their tiny phalluses, hanging limply over their shriveled scrotum sacs.

There's more. Lucy on occasion shows up in what looks like a research lab where a scientist takes a tube with a balloon attached and slides it down her throat (the researcher is possibly conducting a procedure called esophageal manometry, where the balloon measures the strength of the esophagus' contracting muscles); at one point Lucy sarcastically calls him “Dr. Frankenstein”--but why submit to these tests? They're apparently paid for--Lucy signs what looks like a waiver, and collects a yellow envelope that possibly contains money--but all that discomfort repeated (she does this several times) seems to indicate more than just a need for money. A masochistic enjoyment of choking? An unanswered desire for penance? A flirtation with the researcher (judging from their interaction, unlikely). Perhaps a combination of all three?

Even more puzzling is her relationship with a man called Birdmann (Ewen Leslie), a lethargic, despairing man who seems attracted to Lucy and grateful for her impromptu visits; conversely Lucy seems happier and more relaxed with him than with anyone else in the film--she casually agrees to his request to get married (nothing seems to come out of this) and, deadpan, serves him a bowl of cereal with vodka poured on top.

Later we meet a man who seems to know both Birdmann and Lucy from way back--an old friend, kind of. I say 'kind of' because when Lucy throws him the question Birdmann used to throw at her--“will you marry me?”--the man starts verbally abusing her.

Who is he to her? Who is Birdmann to her? Why does Lucy go to that lab? Leigh hangs these enigmatic (sometimes comically so) details like so many Christmas ornaments on the central fablelike mystery of Lucy lying asleep--what drives her to do this? She gets paid well--but for a whole night? And doing God knows what? Why do the men do what they do? That first client gives us an oblique clue (as a hedge against entropy and despair), but Leigh seems to hint at more--there's something primal, something powerful in the image of these wrinkled old creatures hovering like vampires over this helpless girl. Possibly Leigh wants to evoke a sense of mortality as opposed to renewal, of flesh corrupted by time lying side-by-side with the miracle of this timeless, ethereal beauty and her breathtakingly smooth skin.

One isn't quite sure what Leigh is getting at--whether she's attempting to say something specific, or simply creating a mood, a feeling. She seems to be a talented imagemaker who knows how to borrow eclectically--the decadence of the dinner scene is possibly inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's magisterially malevolent Salo (1975); the old men in bed with her seem to recall the erotic, deadpan comical surrealism of Luis Bunuel (I'm thinking Belle de Jour (1967)); the overall fairytale ambiance, however, seems all her own. Fascinating debut film--can she manage to say something more definite on her next venture, or will she continue with this more oblique approach, somehow retain our interest? One wonders.

First published in Businessworld, 5.10.12

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Re-posted as part of the For the Love of Film: Film Preservation Blogathon. 

Please donate here.

(Warning: plot and story discussed in close detail)


Was looking at Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) again, drinking in all the little details. Like: Gavin Elster offers Scottie a drink, who turns it down; later Scottie pours himself a drink at Midge's mini-bar. He doesn't trust Elster enough to accept alcohol from him; Midge he trusts like an old friend--that is, completely, though this does him little good in the long run (Midge is about as effective as Scottie's instincts in keeping him out of trouble).

And it's delicious fun this re-viewing, discovering along the way a little clue that should have alerted Scottie to Elster's shenanigans much earlier. When they meet, Elster calls him Scottie; Midge always calls him Johnny, or Johnny-O. When he and Madeline introduce themselves, he offers her several choices: John, or Johnny for close friends, Scottie for acquaintances (again, a reminder of where Elster stands in Scottie's regard). Madeleine settles on John, even calling him by that name once. Then an odd thing happens: through their many scenes together (I checked the 9/12/57 draft of the script, which is yet another interesting read for what Hitchcock cuts out as being too expository, too obvious (a long voiceover by Elster over Scottie's pursuit of Madeleine through the city, for example)), not once does Madeleine call Scottie by name until they reach the seaside (ah, the narcissism of beauty--particularly an endangered beauty whose sense of peril is (presumably) shared by both parties), where she runs and he catches her and they embrace for the first time--at which point she calls him Scottie.

So when did he become Scottie to Madeleine instead of John? Isn't that going in the reverse direction, against his wishes, from good friend to mere acquaintance? But you must remember, Elster called him Scottie; in a moment of (probably acted, possibly genuine) distress she may have forgotten to stay in character and called him by the name under which Elster--and by extension her as Judy, Elster's mistress--knows him.

What d'you think? Does the theory float? Must admit, though, the necklace is a simpler, far more visually compelling giveaway.

But one can leave or take the little details; when all is said and done, I believe Vertigo isn't about love, or obsession, or sex or death (or it isn't just about those things), it's about storytelling, the pull and power of a good narrative. Consider: Elster weaves a plotline about his wife, throws in bits of San Francisco local lore to make it just this side of convincing (remember he's been in the city a year--a year in which to prepare and research for his little drama (but then, doesn't the story need Scottie's accident? Some months then, possibly the period of time during which Scottie wears his corset--maybe a little more if Elster has been at it for a while, and Scottie's accident occurred just in time to allow Elster fit it into his master plan)).

So--Elster tells Scottie this story, and he's brilliant at it, even to backing away and admitting it's all a bit fantastic ("I'm not making it up; I wouldn't know how"--I can't believe Elster kept a straight face saying that). This and Novak's beauty and the spell Hitchcock weaves around him using the magical world of San Francisco seals Scottie's fate.

(On Novak--let's just forget all this talk about her being a bad actress, shall we? She may not have been the most talented performer in Hollywood at the time, but she was perfect as the 'apt pupil' of a bait Elster dangled before Scottie. If as Bresson might put it a human being in a film is just a 'model,' to be used like any other prop to realize the filmmaker's ambitions, then Novak made for a superb prop, from her lacquered elegance as Madeleine to her animal vitality as the more common Judy Barton. More, she was a powerful sexual presence, especially when she broke through the lacquer--the first time when stepping out of Scottie's bedroom (she'd just jumped into the San Francisco Bay): the doorway framing her, her body in a half crouch, her face tilted slightly upwards as if in offering, Scottie's red nightgown pulled tight around her like gift wrapping; the second time in Judy's own hotel room, her body posed in the same slightly crouched, upturned-face position. At such moments she was less an actress than an object, a mannequin of illimitable desire; in the bell tower, however, she was an actress--or to be more precise, she was Judy, the girl from Kansas, wearing a perfected Madeleine mask, frightened to death of her crazed lover, her judge, her possible executioner.

(Speaking of mannequins, I just love the side-view shot Hitchcock inserts, of Judy's feet being dragged up the bell tower steps. If the subtext of Novak's performance is that she's a department store dummy being dressed up by different men for their different designs, then this shot turns the whole into an explicitly grotesque joke, one with not a little hint of pathos--the corpse already being mistreated before it has had the chance to expire).

Elster tells his story, and it works far better than he dreamed; Scottie finds himself trapped in Elster's creation, going mad because Elster, flawed artist that he is, didn't bother providing his story with a resolution (his interest applied only up to the point where his wife is killed). Elster never cared what happens to Scottie; in terms of filmmakers he doesn't have the empathy of, say, Jean Renoir, or Jonathan Demme, or Robert Altman, who show a lively and consistent concern for their characters. Elster is more like Hitchcock himself, who sets his characters in motion motivated by some silly MacGuffin, then puts them through hell-- or what, when you step back and take a really close look, seems suspiciously like the plot outline of a thriller flick.

And Scottie can't take it. Like a man listening to a ditty in an endless loop ("Merry Go Round Broke Down?"), or to a poem that repeats itself over and over, or to a story without any real end, poor Scottie's driven mad by the lack of a resolution.* He wants closure, dammit (partly and possibly because, as someone puts it, he's been there already), and he's going to get it even if someone suffers along the way. Which he does; he in effect sits himself on the very canvas chair Elster has abandoned (the one with the name "Alfred Hitchcock" printed in the back), and continues direction of the drama from where Elster left off.


* (Here for your information is a theme song Hitchcock heard and considered but ultimately rejected--possibly because it might drive you crazy (I think I agree with him))

And then there's poor, poor Judy, remade first by Elster, then, with much resistance, by Scottie (one senses that her reluctance isn't just because of the insult--the man she loves looking at her and seeing someone else--but the sheer dreariness of playing the role for the umpteenth time), her life a metaphor for the beautiful actress writhing under the hand of the sadistic director, giving her finest performance despite herself on the set of the ultimate movie.

While we're at it, where does love come in? Not often, I think; Scottie displays signs of obsession, of being utterly caught up in the circumstances of the film's first half, then of being caught up in the possibility of re-creating those circumstances in the film's second. Does he care for Madeleine? Does it matter to Scottie that Madeleine is actually Elster's wife recreated in the figure of his mistress? That later she's recreated by Scottie himself, in Judy's hand-me-down flesh? I think not, at least for the most part; I think the moment when the emotion was well and truly felt, when there was genuine selflessness, or at least genuine regard for a living, breathing other, occurs near the end, high up in the bell tower. Scottie had just wrung a confession out of Judy; all veils have dropped, all illusions shattered. The possibility arises that Scottie might accept Judy for what she is: a scared young woman foolishly fallen in love, foolishly hoping to make a man love her "as I am, for myself." For at least that moment in time it isn't Elster's or Scottie's designs that rule the two lovers in the bell tower; it's life, pure and simple.

Vertigo stands as testament to how far we will go, what lengths we will pursue, how close to the borderline of madness we will hew (and how far beyond that line we will, on occasion, venture), to indulge our thirst for whatever makes us feel alive. It's testament in particular to our need to know What Happens Next--even what happens in a narrative Hitchcock oh so carefully and perversely ends just moments (seconds?) before its proper resolution. Like many a great story, it leaves us in the same place it left Scottie--hanging on to a ditty in an endless loop, to a poem repeating itself over and over, to a story without real end or hope of any kind of resolution. 

March 16, 2008