Category: 2016

Selected Scenes: Watership Down

1978

the English countryside of Watership Down is a land where lore and tradition walk hand-in-hand. where history isn’t just a story and legend not just fantasy. Fiver, a rabbit, begins to have visions of an apocalyptic future for his warren and, with the help of his older brother Hazel, convince a motley crew to leave their home and seek another. with help from converted royal guard Bigwig, these three lead the others on a quest inspired by their disturbed brother’s hallucinations. attacks from predatory animals, drowning, the basest elements: there IS something better out there for them beyond their trials, if Fiver’s visions are accurate. but they have to persevere. they have to be caught. the survivors arrive at an abandoned warren high up and away from danger and think that their worries are over, but an unexpected visitor in Bigwig’s former brother-in-arms Holly changes their fortunes. he is battered and bleeding. Fiver’s visions were true: the old warren was destroyed by human excavation, and on his way to find Hazel and the others, Holly was captured and tortured by a rival warren. the continued survival of their new colony rests in liberating the females from this dictatorship. because when the whole world is out to kill you, sometimes the greatest enemy of all comes from within.

this wasn’t what i was assuming it was. a staple of numerous “adult animation” lists, i thought it would be more “Saw meets Disney” based on what i read (rabbits getting knocked-off one-by-one as their trials progress) but what i watched was surprisingly formulaic (political commentary notwithstanding). the non-linear survival plot of the first half gave way to a second half “save the babes” plot, where the third-act villain in the rival warren keep the females hostage under a tyrannical head bunny with one eye missing called the General. but when the mature content finally transpired, such as Holly’s account of subjugation at the hands of the General, brief as they are they do remind you that the film is striving for a certain level of realism beneath the spiritual angle. a good watch if expectations are kept in check.

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Selected Scenes: Lilya 4-Ever

2002

Lilya, 16, is another lost soul in the slums of the Soviet Union. abandoned by her mother and ostracized by her neighbors for making ends meet as a prostitute, she sees a way out: a young, smooth-talking man in a reliable car who takes her under his wing and makes promises of a new life in Sweden. it’s almost too good to be true, especially to her best friend and fellow outcast Volodya: he tells her over and over again that the man, Andrei, is just using her for sex. it couldn’t be true. her beau gives her a fake passport and tells her to go on ahead while he makes excuses to stay behind and come later. Andrei’s boss meets her at the airport in Stockholm. he takes her to a furnished apartment where the doorknob from the inside is broken. he tells her she’ll start work tomorrow. she bathes and ignorantly enjoys her new bounties. the man returns the next day with groceries and rapes her. he tells her Andrei isn’t coming. he drops her off at a john’s flat and pimps her out for sex. her fate is sealed, as much as she tries to resist. she cuts her hair against her captor’s wishes and he takes her to a busy department store to buy a tuque. it’s clear that he’s told her to keep quiet or else she’ll be punished. there are people everywhere. she holds her tongue. her face tells us that she wants to scream; to run; to try to get away, back to her old life in Russia where at least she could dream. and the audience screams right back at her. but we realize that, more maybe then the fear of her predicament, is the fear of being outside of her element: of being away from the low-income housing she’s known her whole life, far from the city and the reality of her dreams, to here, still lost in a dream that’s become a nightmare.

this was on quite a few “most depressing movies” lists and while it wasn’t as disturbing as those previews made me expect, it was still thoroughly engrossing as far as “how bad can things get” plots go. if you like this one then The Whistleblower from 2010 is another good watch.

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Selected Scenes: Possession

1981

Anna is stuck. stuck in a mentally-abusive marriage. stuck in an unfulfilling affair. stuck sneaking around to see her son. cutting eases the pain, but not for long. she’s beginning to lose her sanity. with little left to live for, she begins to have what we think is a seizure: flailing around and shaking in an empty subway station. she smashes her groceries in hysterics and sends egg yolk flying across the wall. something’s wrong. this isn’t a seizure. the title of the movie and our expectations (which at this point have already been skewed) tell us that she’s being taken over by a demon or some other evil, omniscient being. we jump cut to her kneeling on the floor in excruciating pain. white excrement oozes from her mouth. blood and viscera exit her. she is giving birth to what ultimately spells the end of the life she knew before, and the doom of those who left she is trying to leave behind.

a link to the excellent blog post that stirred my adventurous side for an evening. due credit also to motherfuckin Dr. Alan Grant himself, Sam Neill, for his performance as the estranged husband.

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