DVD Review- Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh)

Lets make things clear and get this out of the way-forget the connotations that you associate with the above words because this is about as far removed from Disney as you can get.

The sleeping beauty of this movie is a girl who is drugged (though not against her will) and falls into a sleeping state so that men can outlive their fantasies next to her naked body while she is unaware of what is happening- like I say, Disney this ain't.

Julia Leigh's film begins with university student Lucy (Emily Browning) taking part in a drug trial, from the opening scene of the young girl forcing a test tube down her throat, it is clear that she is willing to subject herself to a less than comfortable position to earn some extra money. As she spends time between studying and arguing with her flatmates, her cash flow problem prompts her to respond to an advert in the paper, the requirements of the role however are not entirely clear. She attends an 'interview' at a private estate where she meets the Madame of the business Clara (Rachael Blake) is told the nature of the role, to provide silver service waitressing in provocative underwear for rich clientele, and is given an abrupt and intrusive body examination. Despite the dubious circumstances , Lucy takes the job and is soon earmarked for a more intense but higher paid role, her glacier beauty and diminutive frame catching the eye of the older gentlemen. She is asked to perform the role of a metaphorical sleeping beauty, to be drugged asleep for a whole evening, to lay naked in a bed and for men to spend the night with her in that bedroom so they can act out their desires with no fear of guilt as she is comatose beside them (the one rule however is that they are forbidden to penetrate her).

Leigh's film is problematic in many ways, the most obvious one being a lack of empathy for the lead character Lucy. She is cold and distant, her beautiful but emotionless face gives nothing away and though Emily Browning (a long way away from Lemony Snicket) bares herself literally for the role of Lucy, she is as impenetrable as the character herself. This could be argued to be the point, an air of detachment must be favourable to commit to such a sordid method of work, but this stops the viewer from any connection with her plight. When we see her visit her hermit, flat bound friend Birdman who is suffering an illness (the type of which is not disclosed but hinted at alcoholism by the fact that she uses gin instead of milk on his cereal, the only way to get him to eat), this is the only time Lucy shows signs of emotion. She weeps into his arms but as their relationship is not defined and because of the previous despondency of Lucy, it is hard to illicit any emphatic connection.

The other major problem with Sleeping Beauty is what it is trying to say as a film, it is a well shot oblique piece of work but too indifferent to be effective. Initially it would appear that we are to feel that Lucy, due to her wish to better herself at university, is a exploited victim of a financial predicament but her actions do not reflect this, she displays an uncommitted disregard to her studies and when she begins working as the sleeping beauty, she does not use the money wisely, looking for accommodation she carelessly rents an overpriced unsuitable apartment in a whimsy devil may care style. Lucy also does not display any signs that her sexually degrading role shames her, she is a promiscuous young women, and while it is not a sin to be erotically forward, her brief encounters with men seem hollow and sad, this is what she seems to want but does not make her happy. As a female viewer this does not provide a feeling of womanly empowerment nor does it create a compassion for this young woman, it is an ambiguity that makes the film too misanthropic.

This said, the film is not an entirely squandered exercise. Leigh's visual style shows promise, a sparse allure akin to Michael Haneke,particularly the effective final shot which owes a debt to Haneke's feature Hidden and the setting shows a different side to contemporary Australian cinema, one that is not often seen on the screen.

Sleeping beauty is a film that will divide people, many will see it as an icy achievement but for many, like myself, they will see this as a aloof, cold affair, a fairytale that is too grimm for many tastes.

Review- Martha Marcy May Marlene (directed by Sean Durkin)

The feeling of belonging, to be part of something, to feel significant is a powerful emotion, one that can often misguide our judgment at the cost of gaining some salvation. Sean Durkin's debut film Martha Marcy May Marlene explores this idea when a young girl with no direction in life and no close family finds herself embroiled in a semi religious incestuous cult and the aftermath she faces returning to everyday life.

The film begins with scenes from a rural commune, people tend to gardens, young men fix barn roofs, the women lay the table for the men, this at first glance could simply be a naturalistic community fending for themselves in a back to basics style (the only initial hint that something is amiss is when then women are not allowed to eat before the men). Then the mood shifts as a young girl Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) tiptoes out of the compound and, when is spotted, flees into the neighbouring woods, where she is chased by members of the commune, this sounds like the set up to a horror flick but is something much more terrifyingly real. Martha is caught up with at a diner by one of the young males, but she is not physically forced to return (there is however a psychological threat) and she calls her estranged sister Lucy (Sarah Poulson), whom she has not contacted in 2 years, who lets her stay with her at the holiday lake house she shares with her husband. It is here where Martha tries to readjust to normal life whilst still haunted by paranoia that the cult are going to catch up with her, that they are still watching her every move.

The film does not present a chronological order of how and why Martha came to be part of the commune, instead it seeps in memories of her time there, the slightest sound effect sparks a remembrance, the past and present overlap with subtle effective similarities, her actions trigger recollections of the place she has left. An ill advised skinny dip in the lake is inter cut with images of the commune members naked, all bathing together in an enclosed stream. An even more unwelcome move from Martha happens when she enters her sister's bedroom whilst she is making love with her husband and lies on the bed next to them, much to their dismay and horror. This gives way to a flashback of Martha going to lay with the leader of the cult Patrick (John Hawkes) in his room, her previous experience and her unease with sleeping means she does not see the harm and inappropriateness of her actions of disturbing the martial bed.

As Lucy and in turn her husband find it increasingly difficult to deal with Martha's odd behaviour, Martha herself begins to lose her sense of what is really happening, her ordeal is still too raw and present.

The life in the cult at first seems one of harmony and togetherness, if a little too insular, but as the film teases more and more glimpses of their world, it becomes more and more sinister. It is one of sexual abuse, the women have to undertake an initiation which they try to justify as a 'cleansing' but is actually a drug induced act of rape and the girls are weened off their past lives in a discreet systematic way, given nicknames (Martha becomes Marcy May) that seems a friendly part of the lifestyle but disconnects them from their former existence. For the film to work, we have to believe that the cult leader is someone who would warrant following and one who instills a hypnotic power and John Hawkes' Patrick does just that. Whether he is delivering dubious philosophy ("Fear is the most amazing emotion of all") or playing his guitar in a fatherly manner for his disciples (he sings a song about 'Marcy May' furthering her inclusion) he is utterly and frighteningly believable as a authoritarian messiah, with Hawkes giving a commanding performance.

But this is Elizabeth Olsen's movie, as Martha/Marcy May she is a compelling memorable presence, fully committed and fearless in her portrayal of a young women who encompasses a range of emotions, from child like naivety to steely determination, when her behaviour wavers on the incomprehensible (she goads her broody sister by telling her she will be a terrible mother) she still elicits empathy and is softly bewitching. In terms of acting she is a million miles away from her squeaky sisters and is one to watch for the future. Also promising is director Sean Durkin, with his debut film, he has crafted a intensely beguiling film, one that makes the viewer work for its evasive appeal, his creates a hazy dreamlike scape that is balanced with a stark, primitive world. What is also admirable is that Durkin does not give any resolute answers to his psyche puzzle, it is a habitat that we will not come to terms with, some of the members of the cult truly feel at home in that environment, something that we cannot comprehend and one that is perhaps the most chilling of all. The final scene may be too ambiguous for some tastes but it is one that encompasses the entire position of the the film, not to distinguish the reasons why but to glimpse a fractured young woman, a soul in turmoil, that is a haunting in a beautiful tragic way.