Film Review - "Get Out"
Feb. 3rd, 2018 06:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatFinally saw the film Get Out by Jordan Peel. Which has been nominated for multiple Oscars, best director, best screenplay, best picture, and best actor. It's historic in regards to the nominations for multiple reasons.
Also been recommended to me by various co-workers, and several people online.
ME: Is it going to make me want to kill all the white people in the cast?
Co-workers: No, no, not at all. It's a great movie.
ME: Will it keep me up at night with nightmares?
Co-workers: No, no, not at all.
They were wrong. Although not so much on the nightmares. It's not really scary in the same way many horror films are -- but, it does make the heart race, the blood boil, and there's a sense of overwhelming dread throughout.
It is however worth watching and an important film. Particularly in regards to how race is viewed in the US, and how it affects us.
The film is a satirical psychological horror tale that borrows heavily from "The Stepford Wives", "Harvest Home" and another horror film that I can't remember the name of -- I think Robin Cook's "Coma". But mainly, it reminded me of the 1970s psychological horror film/satire "The Stepford Wives, that was in turn based on the novel by Ira Levin. As The Stepford Wives satirizes gender politics in suburbia, Get Out satirizes racial politics, and it tackles as the Stepford Wives did slavery and servitude, how one group objectifies the other as property available for its use.
I've seen both films. Get Out has a better ending than the Stepford Wives and in some respects a more interesting set-up. (I actually found Get Out less disturbing and less subtle than the Stepford Wives, and easier to watch in some respects.) I have to admit I was leery of Get Out, because I was worried it would end the same way the 1970s horror flick the Stepford Wives had. (It doesn't. "Get Out's" ending is more humorous and cathartic. I still haven't forgotten the creepy ending of The Stepford Wives.)
What's disturbing about the film and why it is an important one -- is that the villains in it are the complacent white liberals. Not rednecks. Not the Trump supporters. But the folks who voted for Obama.
One character even mentions that he would have voted for Obama three times. The complacency of people like my own family members, who don't see themselves as racist, yet...somehow further racism with their very complacency. Or any of us really.
My only quibble with the film -- is I think it does its own brand of racial stereotyping and generalizations. It's telling that the only white characters shown are the bad guys. (I literally wanted to kill "all" the white characters.) And they are all at various points depicted as exaggerated stereotypical versions of white liberals. It's a reverse type of stereotyping that works in satire. And it's worth noting that this is "satire" -- it's supposed to unsettle you and make you squirm. It wants you to ask these questions. It's also notably a rather narrow "black male" perspective on it - the heroes of the film are Chris (the black photographer) and Robert (the TSA agent). Everyone else is a villain or a victim. There are no sympathetic female characters in the story, black or otherwise. Like most satire -- it has a rather narrow lense, showing us our societal and possibly our own racial and gender biases reflected back at us -- via fun house mirror.
That said, the film is well done. It has the same level of precision that Guillermo Del Toro's Shape of Water possessed. Nothing is left to chance. And it builds the feeling of dread slowly and well throughout. There's a lot of clear foreshadowing, and visual metaphors shown in the beginning that are repeated later on.
I'd tell you the plot, but I think it's better to watch it cold with as little information as possible. I was able to figure a few things out early on -- mainly because I'd seen too many other films just like it. And it borrows heavily from those established horror tropes, and in some respects subverts and plays homage to them.
It's basically "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner" meets "The Stepford Wives".
[So now, I've seen three of the nine films nominated. Get Out, Lady Bird, and The Shape of Water. So far, I'm ranking them 1) The Shape of Water, 2) Get Out, and 3) Lady Bird. The first two felt new and rather innovative. Lady Bird -- I've seen done one too many ways, and while I enjoyed it, and it still haunts me, I'm not sure I'd put it in the best film of the year category.]
Also been recommended to me by various co-workers, and several people online.
ME: Is it going to make me want to kill all the white people in the cast?
Co-workers: No, no, not at all. It's a great movie.
ME: Will it keep me up at night with nightmares?
Co-workers: No, no, not at all.
They were wrong. Although not so much on the nightmares. It's not really scary in the same way many horror films are -- but, it does make the heart race, the blood boil, and there's a sense of overwhelming dread throughout.
It is however worth watching and an important film. Particularly in regards to how race is viewed in the US, and how it affects us.
The film is a satirical psychological horror tale that borrows heavily from "The Stepford Wives", "Harvest Home" and another horror film that I can't remember the name of -- I think Robin Cook's "Coma". But mainly, it reminded me of the 1970s psychological horror film/satire "The Stepford Wives, that was in turn based on the novel by Ira Levin. As The Stepford Wives satirizes gender politics in suburbia, Get Out satirizes racial politics, and it tackles as the Stepford Wives did slavery and servitude, how one group objectifies the other as property available for its use.
I've seen both films. Get Out has a better ending than the Stepford Wives and in some respects a more interesting set-up. (I actually found Get Out less disturbing and less subtle than the Stepford Wives, and easier to watch in some respects.) I have to admit I was leery of Get Out, because I was worried it would end the same way the 1970s horror flick the Stepford Wives had. (It doesn't. "Get Out's" ending is more humorous and cathartic. I still haven't forgotten the creepy ending of The Stepford Wives.)
What's disturbing about the film and why it is an important one -- is that the villains in it are the complacent white liberals. Not rednecks. Not the Trump supporters. But the folks who voted for Obama.
One character even mentions that he would have voted for Obama three times. The complacency of people like my own family members, who don't see themselves as racist, yet...somehow further racism with their very complacency. Or any of us really.
My only quibble with the film -- is I think it does its own brand of racial stereotyping and generalizations. It's telling that the only white characters shown are the bad guys. (I literally wanted to kill "all" the white characters.) And they are all at various points depicted as exaggerated stereotypical versions of white liberals. It's a reverse type of stereotyping that works in satire. And it's worth noting that this is "satire" -- it's supposed to unsettle you and make you squirm. It wants you to ask these questions. It's also notably a rather narrow "black male" perspective on it - the heroes of the film are Chris (the black photographer) and Robert (the TSA agent). Everyone else is a villain or a victim. There are no sympathetic female characters in the story, black or otherwise. Like most satire -- it has a rather narrow lense, showing us our societal and possibly our own racial and gender biases reflected back at us -- via fun house mirror.
That said, the film is well done. It has the same level of precision that Guillermo Del Toro's Shape of Water possessed. Nothing is left to chance. And it builds the feeling of dread slowly and well throughout. There's a lot of clear foreshadowing, and visual metaphors shown in the beginning that are repeated later on.
I'd tell you the plot, but I think it's better to watch it cold with as little information as possible. I was able to figure a few things out early on -- mainly because I'd seen too many other films just like it. And it borrows heavily from those established horror tropes, and in some respects subverts and plays homage to them.
It's basically "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner" meets "The Stepford Wives".
[So now, I've seen three of the nine films nominated. Get Out, Lady Bird, and The Shape of Water. So far, I'm ranking them 1) The Shape of Water, 2) Get Out, and 3) Lady Bird. The first two felt new and rather innovative. Lady Bird -- I've seen done one too many ways, and while I enjoyed it, and it still haunts me, I'm not sure I'd put it in the best film of the year category.]
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 04:08 pm (UTC)All the other characters ARE two-dimensional, and that makes them a little less human--which takes some of the sting out of the horror. I was disappointed that the girlfriend turned out to be "the bait," and not much more. A more complex emotional reaction to her role would have made her betrayal even more traumatic for poor Chris. (As it is? Bitch is dead, Chris. Ding dong. You can move on with your life.)
no subject
Date: 2018-02-04 06:18 pm (UTC)I was disappointed that the girlfriend turned out to be "the bait," and not much more. A more complex emotional reaction to her role would have made her betrayal even more traumatic for poor Chris.
That was actually my main quibble about the film. The women characters had 0 development. It's telling that only the two black male characters are able to warn Chris in some way. The female black characters are either rendered silent and too polite, or disbelieving and enabling. Chris' mother is killed, and a victim. Chris' girlfriend is but a pawn of her upbringing, she doesn't appear to have any agency of her own. Once it's revealed that she was hunting these men to bring them to her parents house for their process, her personality melts away and she's little more than a robot.
However, I think this is intentional on the part of the filmmaker. Satire, remember? Also keep in mind this is how blacks have been represented in films over time. The filmmaker is deliberately flipping the fun house mirror. Exaggerating stereotypes, gender and race from a black man's perspective.
We have the "white liberal woman urbanite" who swears her family isn't racist. Came from wealth and is highly educated. Her parents are acclaimed doctors.
She asks him what he's packing when the film starts. And is cheery. Right out of the movies -- I've seen her type a million times.
The asshole redneck brother...who strums what appears to be a banjo guitare. And can barely speak a sentence without a racist slur.
The big house, with the acreage, and the help.
I think it is important to see the film as a satire, not just as a psychological horror film -- since different criteria applies. In satire, character isn't that important, plot and theme are.