Martin Scorsese | Hugo / 2011

fixing things

by Douglas Messerli

 

John Logan (screenplay, based on The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick), Martin Scorsese (director) Hugo / 2011

 

Scorsese's 3-D Hugo begins in Paris' Gare Montparnasse with the camera, slightly above the actor's heads, speeding through the crowds. It is a slightly dizzying and cinematically impressive start that also made me fear that the movie was going to be closer to animation than human drama. But, in the end, after the very satisfying human drama that Hugo is, one realizes that that first scene was simply presented as a kind tour de force, as Scorsese’s way of showing off: "Look what I can do now that I'm filming in 3-D." Indeed, Avatar director James Cameron has been quoted as telling Scorsese that Hugo represented the best use of 3-D he had ever seen.

  

   One might argue that that first rush of filmmaking is part and parcel of what the movie celebrates. Like Michael Hazanavicius' The Artist, Hugo concerns itself with the history of silent film, but while The Artist can be said to truly celebrate the form, Hugo, even in its devotion to the films of Georges Méliès, uses that history as a celebration of cinema in general and, by extension, a hurrah for directors like Martin Scorsese. As Scorsese has admitted, the father-son relationship in Hugo reminded him of his own childhood experiences with his father sharing films.

      Well, why shouldn't Scorsese celebrate himself? Although he has never been my favorite director, for years he has produced some of the most watchable movies of male vulnerability, from Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, After Hours, to Good Fellas, Cape Fear and Shutter Island. In Hugo he has marvelously worked against that type of film to produce a lovely fable that both children and adults can admire.

     Young Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield)—a kind of 20th century Oliver Twist—due to the death of  his mother and beloved father (Jude Law), as well as, as we soon discover, the drowning of his constantly drunken uncle (Ray Winstone), works as an unknown employee in the train station. His father, a museum worker who died in a fire, was a tinkerer who restored toys, clocks, and other machines, and, just before his death, attempted to bring to life a marvelous metal automaton which he had rescued from the museum's vaults of unwanted art. With his father's death, Hugo is literally whisked away to the clock tower of Gare Montparnasse by his uncle, where the uncle works as the official clock setter, winding up the huge clock and others each day at certain set hours. As we enter Hugo's world, the uncle has disappeared, and the boy has secretly taken over his position, stealing pastries and milk from the shops of the station in order to survive, living in the now-forgotten rooms originally provided for station employees.

     The problem is that he has also been stealing bits and pieces, small mechanisms and springs, from a station toy shop owner in order to repair the automaton, and the shop owner (Ben Kingsley) is out to entrap him.

    Yet the major villain of Hugo's world is far more vengeful: the dreaded Stationmaster (Sacha Baron Cohen) whose central activity seems to be running down homeless urchins who frequent the station, so that he can deliver them up to the orphanage, where he suffered much of his own childhood. The Stationmaster has his eye on Hugo as well, and some of the most remarkable scenes of the film concern their amazing chases.

     One day, however, Hugo is caught by the toy shop owner, and made to empty his pockets, which contain not only the pieces of metal he has stolen over time, but a fascinating book, which we soon discover must have come with the automaton. Papa Georges, as the toy shop owner is known, seems more upset by the discovery of the notebook—which the child insists he return to him—than he does with the loss of metal parts. Georges announces to Hugo his intent to take the book home with him and burn it.

     Why, we can only ask, is he being so vengeful to the boy? And what possible satisfaction might he attain by the destruction of this fascinating notebook? Like a forlorn puppy Hugo follows him home, continuing to demand the book's return, Georges attempting to rid himself of the nuisance. Once inside the house, Georges discusses the young annoyance with his wife. Hugo and the audience also discover in the house, a young girl, Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz), whom Hugo lures outside into the cold, pleading with her to help him regain his treasure. Isabelle agrees, at least, to keep the old man from burning it.

     But the next day, the toy shop owner hands Hugo a small folded towel in which are only some ashes, evidence, presumably, of the book's obliteration. The child is in tears, and in some recompense, is offered part-time work in the shop. Georges is impressed as Hugo quickly fixes the mechanism to a small wind-up rat.

     Reencountering Isabelle, Hugo discovers that the old man has not truly burned the book, and a tenuous friendship evolves between the two children. She is the more educated and forceful of them, he remaining, out of need, more secretive and fearful; yet they both gradually share their private worlds, Isabelle taking Hugo to a bookstore, he illegally entering a movie house with her through the back door. She has never been to a movie before, refused permission to attend films by Georges and his wife, her godparents, who have taken her in after the death of her parents. It is a day of great adventure for both; as they slip inside the movie house, Isabelle whispers: "We could get into trouble." Hugo declares, "That's how you know it's an adventure."

      When she demands to see where he lives, he backs away, forced to be protective of his hideaway and self-imposed job. That is, until he sees a necklace she is wearing: a piece of metal, shaped like a heart—the very "key" he has been unable to replicate in order to start up the automaton! Hugo is convinced that whatever the automaton might write will have a link to his dead father, revealing his course of life.

     The boy can no long resist in showing Isabelle his clockwork's abode, as he brings her to his small room and to the automaton, the two of them putting the key into place as the machine rattles into motion. At first the metal man writes only a few unrelated scrawls in various positions on the page, a code that is impossible to crack. The child's disappointment is palpably displayed; after all, the hope of its message has been the only link he has left to his father.

     Soon, however, the machine starts up once more, quickly composing a series of lines and images that reveal that the automaton does not write words but draws a picture: the very image which his father mentioned seeing as a child, a black and white version of the famed scene of a rocket crashing into the moon of Georges Méliès' 1902 film, Le Voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon).

     The automaton even signs the piece with the name of the film's director, Isabelle's godfather. What, they can only wonder, is the meaning of it all? How has Hugo's automaton known anything about Isabelle and her life?*

      That first half of Scorcese's film, filled with mystery, wonderment, and adventures, is, frankly, the best part of the movie, and the heart of its charm. The second half, filled with sometimes flat-footed explanations and historical recounting is less convincing, as we gradually discover that the bitter old man in the toy store is actually the great early filmmaker, painfully hiding out from his own past life after having been rejected by the post World War I generation, his over 400 films having all been destroyed, some of them melted down for their cellulose.

     Scorsese’s attempt to educate both the audience and the children about Méliès and his films is exemplary, and the images from the films themselves are, as always, a wonder to behold. But this section is overlong, with the morose tone of the disillusioned filmmaker dominating the work. Only the continued energy of its young actors and the frantic chases of the Stationmaster after Hugo keep the movie going.

      Having met up with a Méliès' historian, who has, perhaps, the only copy remaining of the great filmmakers' A Trip to the Moon, Hugo is determined to play the film again in Méliès' own home, hoping to reveal to Papa Georges that he is not forgotten and his work is still beloved, at least by a few. But his dreams of the night before are horrific, as he, discovering the automaton's key on the railroad tracks, jumps down to retrieve it while a locomotive comes barreling forward, and, unable to stop, plows through the station, mowing down numerous travelers, diners, and workers in its path—a reference to the horrendous Gare Montparnasse train derailment of 1895, which, in actuality, killed only one person, but injured hundreds of the train's passengers.

     At first, the intrusion into the Méliès' home is unsuccessful, as Mama Jeanne (Helen McCrory) attempts to protect her husband from further piquing his long heartache and disappointment. But finally, the film historian convinces her to view, once more, the copy of the film, which so delights her (and the children who also recognize Jeanne as one of its actresses), that the room is transformed into joy, Méliès himself coming forth after having apparently having watched from the hall, to answer some of their questions. Hugo, who sees himself as a fixer, has mastered a kind of transformation, as the old man recalls his wonderful life of the past. As Jeanne summarizes it:

 

                   Georges, you've tried to forget the past for so long, but it has caused

                   nothing but unhappiness. Maybe it's time you tried to remember.

 

    Kingsley himself has described that transformation as being something like a young boy dragging an old and embittered man back to life.

        

      But Hugo has yet one more great gift to bestow upon the old director. He returns to the station to bring back the marvelous automaton. This time, however, the Stationmaster discovers Hugo before he can return to his secret rooms, following him, as the young child is forced to hide outside the window, hanging from the face of the giant clock, much as had Harold Lloyd in the movie he and Isabelle attended. Unable to find Hugo, The Stationmaster turns back, while the boy grabs up his treasure and runs; but this time, through the Stationmaster's maneuvers, the metal man is thrown into the air, crashing down onto the tracks. Hugo's attempt to retrieve him echoes his dream, as a train bears down upon the trapped boy, pulled to safety at the last moment by the Stationmaster. He hustles the boy away, determined to finally send him off to an institution, just as the Méliès', Isabelle in tow, enter the station, claiming him as their own!

     The story's ending is truly a kind celebration of all that has come before, as Méliès is inducted into the French Film Society which, after having tracked down and reclaimed 180 of his films, presents a retrospective, the family and Hugo in attendance.

     So has the film successfully embedded a real story—almost everything about Méliès is true—within a fable. But I must admit, although I love Méliès' magical art, in this case I prefer the magic of the fable!

 

*Although Méliès did experiment with automata, the one used in this film, I have read, is a kind of hybrid of two famous automata by the Swiss-born clockmaker, Pierre Jacquet-Droz.

 

Los Angeles, December 22, 2011

Reprinted from Nth Position [England] (February 2012).

Ohm Phanphiroj | The First Conversation Between Frank and I / 2018

engaging the “other”

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ohm Phanphiroj (director) The First Conversation Between Frank and I / 2018 [13 minutes]

 

Thailand director Ohm Phanphiroj is perhaps primarily known for his photography collections, most notably, his series Underage of young male prostitutes in Thailand, which features eerily street-lit photos of the boys along with biographical facts (including their ages), their reasons for working on the streets, the average number of customers they have per week, and their aspirations. It is a troubling and revelatory work.

     Ohm was educated mostly in the US at the Rochester Institute of Technology (where he received an MFA), Georgia State University (MA), and the University of Northern Iowa (MA). He received his BA degree from Thammasat University in Bangkok.

    He has also made several films. In the 2018 short The First Conversation Between Frank and I, he focuses his camera almost entirely upon the face of a young straight soldier, Frank Cashio, who after four months of online communication with Ohm went AWOL to visit the filmmaker in New York city, with aspirations of becoming a model and an actor.

     Caressing the face of the apparently nude soldier (his lower body hidden from the camera), Ohm asks questions about and challenges this soldier’s insistence upon his heterosexual identity, asking sometimes probing questions about why the young soldier might allow himself to spend the time with the gay artist, while nude and maintaining his heteronormative position. What does he like about women? What does he feel about Ohm’s intense petting of him? And why has he even bothered to visit the gay artist, spend a night with him, and be pestered with his intrusions if he is truly straight?

    Frank, throughout, although continuing to permit the homoerotic / sometimes even directly homosexual aggression of his interviewer, expresses his discomfort and as the film progresses increasingly maintains his insistence that he really likes women, their bodies, their smell, their vaginas, etc. Whether or not, given the irony of the situation, he is believable depends upon the viewer’s perception. 

        Yet there is an uncomfortable feeling about Ohm’s verbal and physical probing, making it difficult at times to separate the seemingly objective questioning and the sexual behavior of the interviewer, making it appear often as a metaphoric if not an actual rape in which the victim is not quite sure whether or not to proceed. Yet some sexual activity is being enacted, and the soldier never grows violent, but seems also to rather enjoy the “flirtations”—verbal and physical—of his interviewer. Indeed, I might have changed the word in the title from “conversation” to “flirtation.” And the issue in that context becomes whether or not Frank is willing to proceed in the situation in which he has seemingly given his permission or for which he has even expressed a desire or whether he will determine it’s time to end the “conversation/flirtation” and bolt.  

      Throughout we hear Ohm’s voice, without ever seeing his image. I think it’s important, particularly in this instance, to see the face of the hand that’s caressing this sexually confused soldier. I might add, since the title describes this as the “first” conversation between the two, there were presumably follow ups, whether or not they involved physical contact is unclear.

 

Los Angeles, February 6, 2024

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2024).   

Kathryn Bigelow | The Hurt Locker / 2008, limited USA release 2009

trying not to love

by Douglas Messerli

Mark Boal (screenwriter), Kathryn Bigelow (director) The Hurt Locker / 2008, limited USA release 2009

 

The Hurt Locker is really only a series of situations, dramatically portrayed, in which three men must diffuse bombs while warding off other possible dangers. One scene finds them situated as sitting targets in the middle of the desert, but the other events are centered in hostile urban streets, where at any corner or from any roof top the enemy might lurk. The simplicity of this work, accordingly, demands that the actors work together to create psychological portraits of their characters, for without that the audience would have little on which to focus. Fortunately for director Kathryn Bigelow, Jeremy Renner as SSG William James, Anthony Mackie as Sgt. JT Sanborn, and Brian Geraghty as Spc. Owen Eldridge interact brilliantly, creating a kind of depth in the film that does not exist in the script.

     Of particular interest is Renner's character, a war addict, who seems to know no fear. His recklessness at first frustrates the other two team members, but gradually, as he defuses a car bomb outside the UN mission and later, with Sanborn, shoots and kills their dessert assailants, the men give him grudging respect. 

     Yet there is something deeper and darker about SSG William James that even he does not comprehend. He is, as one officer calls him, "a wild man," a man careless with his life. Questioned by his Colonel, James admits to having disarmed eight hundred and seventy-three bombs. Yet, unlike JT Sanborn, James is not prepared to die, but determined to live. The opposite of the philosopher whose name he carries, William James does not have the ability to philosophize or psychologize, is unable to look inward and comprehend his own being.

 

Sergeant JT Sanborn: But you realize every time you suit up, every time we go out, it's

     life or death. You roll the dice, and you deal with it. You recognize that don't you?

Staff Sergeant William James: Yea... Yea, I do. But I don't know why. [sighs]

Staff Sergeant William James: I don't know, JT. You know why I'm that way?

Sergeant JT Sanborn: No, I don't.

 

      Married and blessed with a son, James has virtually abandoned his family, describing his own situation as a marriage that broke up, although his wife still lives in his house. A call to his wife shows him hanging up before she answers. The reviewer of the London Times lamented that we never do find out why James cannot find satisfaction in his home life. However, I think we do get some insights into "why he is that way."

      Some scenes portray him as a kind of mad man: in one incident we see him lying in bed dressed in his body armor. Yet, of all the soldiers, he seems the only one willing to talk and joke with a young Iraqi boy, nicknamed Beckham, at one point even playing a quick game of soccer with him. Later, a macho barrack game, in which Sanborn and James give and take stomach blows, turns into rather homoerotic roughhousing as James straddles a furious Sanborn, riding him like a bucking bronco.

           On another mission soon after the men are called to a warehouse, where James discovers what he believes to be the body of Beckham, an undetonated bomb buried within his chest. This brutality so upsets him that he undergoes what one might describe as a breakdown: against military rules, James forces a man for who the boy worked outside the American encampment to take him to Beckham's home. There he encounters an Iraqi professor who, thinking him a CIA officer, invites him to sit. Confused, Williams turns to leave, encountering the wife who beats him about the head as he escapes. Reentry into the camp is difficult, as he is stopped and searched     

     Another illegal foray with his buddies, leads to an attempted kidnapping of Eldridge, which James foils by shooting the Iraqis—while crippling Eldridge as well.

      In a later scene Beckham seems to reappear, and cannot understand why James will not greet him. Is the child a stand-in or the real boy, whom James has confused with another? My theater companion insisted that if you looked closely, the second boy was not Beckham. But, in some ways, it does not matter. James has come to realize again that it is dangerous to love, and yes, it appears he has come to love the previous Beckham. His relationship with the boy was perhaps the deepest love he has ever allowed himself. 

     What we gradually begin to comprehend is that James not only keeps a "hurt locker"—a container holding the picture of his son and all the fuses he has disarmed—but is, himself, metaphorically speaking, a human hurt locker, a man trying desperately to keep from exploding. Inside, he is a being pulled in many directions, both spiritually and sexually. While he is clearly a potentially loving person, in his attempts to contain it, maybe even closet it, he is dangerous as well.     

     From the beginning, the film has counted down the days remaining before these men can return home, and after that day finally arrives, we see James at home with us wife and son. We might imagine a hopeful ending. But James in civilian life is truly a fish out of water, a man unable to choose even a box of cereal from the endless choices on the grocery shelves. His wife assigns him tasks that a mother might give to a child, such as cutting up the vegetables while she prepares their dinner. In the bedroom, Williams plays with his delighted baby, opening and closing a jack-in-the-box. More to himself than to the child, he describes his situation:

 

Staff Sergeant William James: [Speaking to his son] You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don't ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-the-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And then you forget the few things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one.

 

     We might imagine that the "one" he still loves is his son, but in the next scene, as he arrives at a new base, beginning the countdown of 365 days all over again, we realize the only thing he loves is the danger of his life, the possibility of dying or living hour by hour. In the world which he inhabits—a world where no one can truly be safe—choosing anyone to love not only endangers the loved one, but, like Pandora's opening of the box, may further release the pain into the world surrounding. And in that sense, perhaps, we understand that Staff Sergeant William James cannot be killed, for he is already a walking ghost.

 

Los Angeles, March 5, 2010

Reprinted from Nth Position [England] (March 2010) and Reading Fictions: My International Cinema (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2012).

Ruben Östlund | Turist (Force Majeure) / 2014

forced march

by Douglas Messerli

 

Ruben Östlund (writer and director) Turist (Force Majeure) / 2014

 

In Swedish, Ruben Östlund’s 2014 film is titled Turist, suggesting that the family at the center of his work are simply “tourists,” temporarily staying in a spot—in this instance, a ski resort filmed in Les Arcs in Savoie, France—from which they will soon return home. Their travails in this spot, accordingly, may possibly be resolved simply by leaving. But even that exodus, as we realize at this film’s end, may involve difficulties which will lead to longstanding psychological effects.

    The English title Force Majeure brings about a whole series of other issues which may, in fact, signify a far different set of issues at play, perhaps even different from those the director wished to project. Usually the term force majeure suggests an “act of God.” But in the case of the avalanche—or potential avalanche—which the family suffers, God has absolutely nothing to do with it. Throughout this tense, would-be family outing, we see and, more importantly, hear the resort’s repeated attempts to prevent just such potentially destructive events by their purposeful exploding of dynamite or recordings of loud explosions in order to set off controlled avalanches before their visitors daily face the slopes. A bit like the mine-sweeping events of war-time troops, “armies” of snowplows and other resort-owned machines patrol the slopes in order to protect the areas from daytime disasters. 

     During the second day of their trip, however, the family, seated on a terrace at lunch, suddenly hears a distant controlled avalanche explosion which appears to have gone awry, as the snow comes cascading closer and closer toward their space before appearing to swallow them up in its wake. In fact, as they later recount their experience, it is merely the fog created by the controlled avalanche that blacks out their vision; snow does not reach their protected spot. But in that instant, all diners were terrified and behaved as if they would soon be swallowed up by the white substance.

     The family central to this work—Tomas (Johannes Kuhnke), Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli), and their children Harry (Vincent Wettergren) and Vera (Clara Wettergren)—are obviously terrified, certain of their deaths. But their reactions are not the ones we might normally expect. Ebba, always the concerned and loving mother, rushes immediately, if a bit tentatively, to scoop up her two children, while Tomas, scooping up his cell phone, rushes away from the space.

     Even though Östlund quite clearly presents us with the facts, we cannot be quite certain, later when husband and wife present two different versions of what happened, what precisely is the truth. If we grant the evidence that Tomas, in his terror, seemingly left the rest of his family behind, we cannot entirely discern his intentions. As his friend, Mats (Kristofer Hivju) attempts to rationalize it, he may have instinctively sought to protect himself first so that he might return and save the family if they were engulfed by the slide. Besides, Mats benevolently argues, we are all indoctrinated by media notions of heroic acts; would any of us truly become heroes if faced with a life or death situation?

 

   But the issues here, the family soon discovers, were not truly a matter of life or death; it was not a true force majeure, an act of God, but an event controlled by man. Immediately after the fog settles, the family and other diners return to their lunches. It is a non-event at which they can (and do) eventually laugh.

   The Swedes, as we have come to know from Bergman, can sniff out an existential crisis—particularly when it comes to issues that concern martial relationships—from the most minor of events. And even we too begin to doubt the behavior of this father, who has only joined his family in this “tourist” vacation, the script hints early in the film, because he has spent too many long hours away from them working.

    By day three of their short vacation, Ebba is already seeking time away from her husband in order to sort things out. Who, in fact, is Tomas? Is he the seemingly loving and protective father she has presumed him to be or is he someone closer to being a cowardly self-centered stranger she now suspects he has become. Meeting up with another Swedish woman, who, although married, lives an actively engaged sexual life with other men who she meets along the way, further shakes Ebba’s more traditional notions of behavior, values which, she apparently has not previously questioned. Accordingly, if she now asks herself who her husband really is, she must also ask that question of herself.

 

   At first, the couple, obviously uncomfortable about speaking of the event—particularly because of their varying notions of what actually happened—determine to let go of the ramifications of Tomas’ behavior. Yet, their children, already sensing something momentous has happened, refuse to silence the event by temporarily rejecting both their parents’ company. Instead of helping to allay their children’s fears, the couple retreat from them at the very moment when they should insist upon a verbal confrontation.

    By the time their friend Matts and his 20-year-old girlfriend arrive, the “non-event” has grown into a sore so painful that Ebba, slightly drunk, can no longer remain silent, telling the entire tale once more, and even proving it through a tape their cellphone has recorded, to show up Tomas as a liar. So powerful are her expressions of pain that even Matts’ girlfriend Fanni (Fanni Metelius) is infected by the psychological disease from which Ebba is suffering, suggesting to Matts that he, too, might not come to help her if such a situation where to occur. The kind and loving Matts, himself having just suffered a divorce, is so upset by her assessment of him that he can no longer sleep.

     The following day, the two males attempt to bond, escaping to the slopes as they try to work out their own sense of failure and guilt. The day’s events end with Tomas finding himself locked out of his own room (he has forgotten the key card) and, ultimately, experiencing a temporary mental break-down as he becomes consumed by a feeling of guilt and unworthiness, during which he admits to other affairs and even cheating at cards with his children. He is a fraud, he insists. Throughout his uncontrollable tears, Ebba stands apart in judgment while Tomas’ daughter and son—suffering from their own fears of their parents’ possible divorce—try to console him with their hugs, finally insisting that Ebba join them. It is a nearly unwatchable scene, as the family, sprawled out on the floor, attempts to administer aid to one of their own like a necessary limb that has suddenly become broken.

     What we soon begin to realize through this series of events is that these all too-human figures are using the natural world (a possible act of God) as an explanation and cover for their own selfish natures and their failures within. However, while at least Tomas has admitted to his failures, Ebba stands apart in self-righteousness.

     Perhaps we must understand the concept of force majeure less as a natural force than as a legality, like the clause contained in many contracts that exempts individuals from liability or obligation due to extraordinary events of circumstance beyond their control. What Ebba has not comprehended in assessing her husband’s behavior is that, in his instinctual behavior, he has acted without any conscious intention. If one is hit in the knee, the knee will jerk, perhaps even hurting anyone in its path, without the individual willingly or consciously intending to. In short, it becomes an issue of the separation of mind (will) and body (instinct). Matts argues for this very separation when he admits to Tomas that after years of mental therapy, a simple scream emanating within his chest helped to cure him. 

     Yet Ebba clearly cannot make this distinction. As a strong-willed and intellectualized woman, she believes that she can and has been able to control all of her bodily desires and reactions. Which is precisely, perhaps, why she continues to blur the line between the natural world and human nature. On the final day of their “tourist” trip, the family once again joins up for one last outing. But this time a deep fog has descended upon the slope, and their vision extends only a few feet ahead. Logically, they should return back to the lodge, but it is clear they all feel they must play out events in order, in some inexplicable manner, to prove they can, if nothing else, outmaneuver the natural world in which they feel trapped. Determined to take the lead, Tomas suggests he go first to check out the territory, with Harry and Vera following and Ebba after to guard their children from behind. At their final stopping point, the director gradually reveals through the fog the outlines of Tomas, Harry and Vera, who stand for an excruciatingly long time awaiting Ebba. Finally, it is clear she is not going to join them. Commanding the children to remain in place, Tomas, removing his skies, returns to find his wife, calling out her name. Again, a tortuously long few moments pass, but eventually he does come back into the picture, carrying Ebba. She has apparently fallen or become lost, but her immediate recovery suggests that it may instead have been a test; her husband’s playing the savior satisfies her that he is still a masculine force upon who she can depend.* Their family unit, accordingly, has been restored, as they again become simple tourists ready to return home.

    What might have been the end of many films at first irritated me. Was Östlund really willing to close his purposely problematic film with such a predictable and “staged” ending. If such behavior might satisfy Ebba, it could not, clearly, salve an intelligent audience’s wounds. What might have been the final scene of the film shows the tourists on the bus making their way down the long and twisting road to the valley below.

    But suddenly something unexpected happens. The driver, apparently another lover of Ebba’s casual acquaintance, is clearly drunk, discovering that he is unable to maneuver the vehicle around the torturous turns of the road. Forced to back up, the bus almost teetering over the chasm below, the driver momentarily stalls the bus’s motor. A second turn ends just as disastrously, and by this time numerous of the passengers are growing fearful for their lives. Ebba, in particular, becomes alarmed by the near-misses of the bus from sliding over the edge of the high cliff, and, expressing her dread, moves forward—without her children or husband— demanding the driver let her off. He refuses. But the third time he fails to make a turn, she convinces him to open the door, and she escapes. A moment later, the rest of the bus passengers (with the exception of Ebba’s acquaintance) rush forward to escape as well.

     Matts, displaying the behavior of a wise councilor speaking out against the others’ mad rush to escape, reminds everyone to slow down, allowing children and mothers to exit first. Once they have left the vehicle, the driver moves forward and, presumably, makes his way down the mountain without further incident.

     Not only has Ebba apparently acted without thought for the rest of her family members, but has had an effect upon the entire “community” who shared the bus; suddenly all are faced with the fact they that they no longer have any means of transportation down the seemingly endless route to another human outpost. Children and adults equally must now engage upon a grueling trek through nature, a kind of “forced march,” precipitated by Ebba’s personal fears.

    If Tomas previously acted in a way that led him to separate himself from the community and family, Ebba’s self-righteous outrage for the driver’s behavior involves both her family and her fellow riders, but this time in a negative way that perhaps endangers the group’s survival. We cannot know how their journey down the mountain will end. And we can only imagine how her equally selfish act might later affect her family and how the legal document of their marriage, presumably without a clause of force majeure, will be affected.

     My theater-going companion seemed outraged by my reading, declaring that Ebba has not created the problem, but the drunken bus driver, arguing that she was innocent. Yet, I reminded him, she was the one who insisted on leaving the bus—evidently with or without the children. Although it was clear they might be endangered, in fact once they left the bus, the driver appears to recover and makes his way down the mountain without further ado. Innocence is precisely her problem; she sees herself apart from the evils of the world, unable to fess up to her own abandonment of family, admit to her own fears and face her personal duplicities. Like many Americans, I argue, Ebba uses innocence as an excuse.

     What Östlund makes clear, I would argue, is that the ego (encapsulated in Ebba’s conscious and willful personal decisions) can be far more dangerous than the id (represented by Tomas’ subconsciously-motivated escape from danger, a movement away from the communal world). If Tomas’ act pulls at the fabric of the social order, Ebba’s actions result in a troubling incidence of “herd mentality,” which, in the name of the social good and protection, actually leads those around her into a horrifying status quo that endangers human progress.**

     If Östlund’s film, at moments, is overtly didactic, it deeply engages us, nonetheless, in issues that both explore and transcend gender stereotypes, and force us to consider our own notions of who we are underneath our everyday exteriors.

 

*This conclusion, however, is clearly open to interpretation. Just after the film ended, my theater-going companion, Pablo Capra, asked: “Did Ebba purposely fall behind to test her husband?” confirming my own views.

**We have earlier observed Ebba, as I mention, in discussion with her promiscuous acquaintance, rail out against the friend’s sexual choices. Ebba clearly supports more normative notions of family and sexual behavior.  

 

Los Angeles, December 19, 2014

Reprinted from World Cinema Review (January 2015).