Wuthering Heights

A couple of weeks ago I got around to buying Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, after a friend recommended it. It was on my enormous to-read list, but never very high up, since I didn't really know anything about it. Two weeks later I have been to see the new film adaption by Andrea Arnold and even listened to the song by Kate Bush. In a word, I have become slightly obsessed with it.

Right now I am reading Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and after reading Wuthering Heights it is a bit of an effort, given that Austen is arguably a much more stereotypical 19th Century/Victorian novelist, concerned with class, inheritance, romance, marriage and aristocracy (more on this in my next entry). But Wuthering Heights isn't stereotypical by any sense of the word. I'm never really sure what to expect from the books I read at the moment, because I rarely know very much about them. I'm just going through a list of the 100 greatest novels of all time because the BBC and the Guardian, amongst other places, have told me I should. So Wuthering Heights was a surprise...

One of the first parallels I drew, despite the 200 year difference between them, was Wuthering Heights and Shameless (or, to an extent, British drama in general). Essentially, a couple of families entangled in love, sex, arguments and violence. One of the most frustrating things about reading classic literature (particularly Austen) is the concern with propriety and appearances. Pages and pages of interior monologue regarding one of the female characters debating whether or not to say hello to one of the male characters, and running through all the repercussions that it could lead to. Seriously? Was life in 19th Century England really this frivolous? This can be portrayed with hilarity, but it is still a huge relief to read something from the same era which doesn't place so much (if any) focus on propriety.

Wuthering Heights revolves around the connection between the two main characters, Heathcliff and Catherine. I won't go into any great detail retelling the story, because anyone who is interested can get a much better account from Wikipedia. Primarily, the narrative focuses on their emotions; passion, love, jealousy, betrayal, hatred, most specifically the betrayal Heathcliff feels when Catherine marries their wealthy neighbour, Edgar Linton. The majority of the novel focuses on Heathcliff's ongoing search for revenge against Linton as well as Hindley, the abusive eldest son of the man who adopted him. Heathcliff is one of the most remarkable anti-heroes ever created. Almost every decision he makes, every action he takes, every sentence spoken, is violent, aggressive and manipulative. And yet I felt a huge amount of empathy towards him because of the way he had been treated. His suffering is portrayed as such that no matter how despicable his actions, they seem justified. He's even kind of sexy.

It has been apparent for some time now that one of the things I look for in film and literature is a certain level of bleak. It is why I like Charles Dickens, and it is why I like a lot of art-house and independent films. Wuthering Heights is bleak. Oppressively so, as the turmoil, grief and ongoing war of the characters never really wanes. Almost all of them die. Some of them are simply left to wither away because no-one cares about them enough to help. And this is further embellished by the setting, which is one of the most iconic and unforgettable aspects of the book, and one which Andrea Arnold really develops in the new film adaption. Rough cliffs, desolate moors, windswept trees; rain, snow, storm clouds. Unlike the characters in Austen's novels, there are no balls for the characters to attend, no society to consider, no expectations of others to suppress their feelings.

I see that I have digressed into a book review, which wasn't my intent...

When I saw the poster for the new film adaption of Wuthering Heights, it spurred me on to buy and read the book before going to see the film. Reading the original first just makes more sense to me. If you watch the film first then all those hours spent reading the book later won't be as enjoyable, because you know most of what's going to happen (I have recently read Jane Eyre, but I watched the new film first so I knew exactly what was about to happen all the way through it). Anyway... After already establishing a love for the book, I was now even more excited about the film. I'd seen Fish Tank by Andrea Arnold, so the idea of her doing a period adaption was intriguing to say the least. But the fact is, Arnold's style of directing is exactly what was needed.

Raw, passionate, powerfully atmospheric, and unforgivably gritty, it remains completely faithful to the novel, yet so far removed from traditional costume drama that it feels completely new and original. I cannot recall the last time I saw a film with such cutting attention to detail. The hand-held camera drags you down into the mud and zooms in on every blade of grass, every drop of rain, every hair. The focus blurs in and out, now on the characters faces, now on a beetle crawling through the grass. The only soundtrack is the wind howling into the microphone, a tree branch rapping against a window, a horse breathing, or the constant drip of water. Mist, rain, moors. Every aesthetic wonder of the book is pulled into focus and studied in detail.

I think this is a lesson in how to make a great adaption. And proof that an art-house approach works surprisingly well with a genre that usually takes the big-budget, star cast approach. Atmosphere and imagery are two of my primary concerns with films, and not the computer generated type (fuck CGI of all kinds). Many people find an elaborately designed rendering of spaceships, cities of the future, and imaginary worlds displayed on the big screen as the height of aesthetic capability. But if I'm honest, I'd much rather watch films that take a unique look at the things which already exist: fields, woods, and even urban landscapes (but one's that haven't been looked at before, because I'm sure I'm not the only one who is bored to death of seeing the New York skyline). And as the cast, unknown or TV actors, couldn't have been better really. Usually, films which use an all-star cast (the types where the trailers spend more time listing the big names than actually showing a preview of the film) are going to be narratively shite. And films that use unknown actors tend to have a much higher quality concept. If you are making a film set in Yorkshire, for God's sake use actors from there. Don't hire a big name like Anne Hathaway to completely fuck it up.

Since I read a lot, I see a lot of adaptions of the books I've read, and unfortunately, this is usually a disillusioning experience. There is nothing more frustrating than going to the cinema to see the film adaption of one of your favourite books completely ruin it (A primary example being Harry Potter) through bad acting, a bad script, changing things, or omitting them completely. It was about 30 minutes into Wuthering Heights when I realised that it was already one of the best adaptions I'd seen, and there was a flood of relief that for once, they got it right.

Misanthropic Tendencies

Okay, it's been two weeks since I last wrote a post. But as I stated in the last one, I went to Infest two weeks ago, and as I should have anticipated, it took an age to recover. It seems that 3 solid days of heavy drinking is just too much for my frail old body to handle these days. So the week after was spent mostly in bed, in pain, ashamed of the ludicrous amounts of intoxicants consumed in one weekend. Thankfully, I had the week off work, so I was allowed to fully wallow in self-pity until my stepmother arrived last Friday. This being only the second time in her life that she had been in London, this obviously led to more drinking, clubbing and general stupidity.

(This rambling really is leading somewhere, I promise...)

When it came around to work on Monday, needless to say, I still didn't feel as though I had recovered sufficiently to function on a professional level. I wrote a blog entry a few weeks ago about all the things that I hate about fashion, and these seemed to be highlighted last week, perfectly coinciding with my body's decision to sink into depression. Now, I'm not saying that being at work triggered a depressive episode, and I'm not saying I would have been depressed even if I didn't have to work... Let's just say that it was a mixture of both, but one thing which certainly made it a hell of a lot worse, was the office being decked out in fur for the new collection. I think a vegan's opinions on fur should be pretty obvious, but apparently my boss still thought it would be a good idea to throw it at me. To make my opinion perfectly clear: fur is fucking disgusting, and anyone who wears it is fucking disgusting. I went home on Tuesday feeling nauseated. This was made worse by my route home through a South London market street, full of litter, stinking of fish and meat, and teeming with clueless idiots, many of which carrying bibles or pushing prams. To summarise: fur, meat, fish, litter, religion, children and stupid people in one day. I think it's pretty obvious that I was in an extremely misanthropic mood by the time I opened my front door.

I managed to drag myself to work for a couple of hours on Wednesday, but by Thursday I couldn't stand the thought of leaving the house, so I called in sick (which I don't feel is completely untrue). Sat in my apartment, hating humanity, wanting to quit my job and leave the country to go and live on a desert island away from the painful exercise of human interaction, I decided to download a few films in an attempt to hasten away my bout of nihilistic depression and self-righteousness. I downloaded something called The Release Lounge Extreme Horror Pack, which contained these films:

A Serbian Film

Antichrist

I Spit On Your Grave

The Human Centipede

Perfect! Just what I needed; a bunch of movies so sickeningly barbaric I would probably only ever enjoy them in the mood that I was in. Or at least as close to "enjoy" as it was possible to get. (Except The Human Centipede. I have been meaning to watch it all week but the more I think about it, the more it seems to be just pure fetishist vileness, and I haven't got around to it.)

I am not a fan of horror films in the slightest. I find most of them ridiculous, sexed-up, dumbed-down adventures in imbecility, as I have stated in previous posts. However, as A Serbian Film had been much discussed amongst my friends as the sickest film ever made, I watched this first. It wasn't what I was expecting, and maybe it was because I was somewhat numb to the world at the time of watching, or maybe I am just a sick fuck, but it wasn't as shocking as all the controversy led me to believe. Okay, yes, the Newborn Scene is disgusting. But it's unclear, blatantly fake, and lasts a whole of 5 seconds. I'm not saying I wish it had lasted longer; quite the opposite. I believe it was as long as it needed to be. But this is when it occurred to me that people's reactions often shape the way you view films. A Serbian Film was twisted, but for the most part I didn't find it uncomfortable to watch. I still feel that once a person has sat through Irreversible in a cinematic atmosphere, and endured the full 90 minutes of extreme discomfort, you become somewhat immune to films which strive to be disturbing. Irreversible still remains the one and only time I have been close to leaving the room. I think my primary defence against violent or controversial films is their basis in reality. A Serbian Film just didn't seem to have much basis in reality (at least by way of plot), but was instead a brilliant metaphor. As a gore fest, or boundary pusher, I didn't find it as disturbing as some other films, but as a political commentary, I thought it worked very well. The question is, did it need the extreme violence to do it?

Sickest scene: Newborn Porn...

The second that I watched from the pack was Antichrist, and this was probably the one that I knew the least about. I had heard about it when it was first released, again with the cliche label of "most controversial film ever made", but the only scene I knew about was the one in which the fox says "Chaos Reigns". Taken completely out of context, and at the height of my horror film hatred, this sounded completely ridiculous, tired, lame, and I waived downloading it. However, I put it on with an open mind, and by the time the Intro sequence was over, it came across as a film that was vastly underrated. The black and white introduction reminded me of French Art-house, and was so completely removed from what I was expecting that it threw me off guard. This led on to some amazing performances, a brilliant storyline, and some of the most breathtakingly beautiful scenes I had ever seen in a movie. I will admit that I began to question the labels that this film had been burdened with. It did become more and more disturbing as it progressed however, and where this film differed to ASF was that it was believable, which disturbed me a lot more. The gore is limited, but extremely graphic, which is I assume is what led to the controversy (along with the title). But genuinely, Antichrist is one of the best films I have watched this year. Whereas ASF conveys a sense of extreme cynicism towards the world, Antichrist is much more personal. Self-hatred and self-mutilation instead of the inflicted violence that is the motif of most horror films. It wasn't what I expected or what I was looking for, but it was extremely good.

Sickest scene: The extremely realistic snip scene.

Thirdly, I watched I Spit On Your Grave, because after Antichrist I felt as though I should watch something purely sadistic, and I knew exactly what ISOYG included. The rape scene aside, the violence in this one(excepting the rape scene) is deserved. Revenge. It's enjoyable to watch. Because who doesn't want to see a rapist getting exactly what they deserve? It isn't good exactly. It has all the same horror movie cliches and stereotypes as any other, but I couldn't deny a sense of twisted pleasure at watching a group of gang rapists being tortured by the person that they raped. Pure, simple, animalistic revenge fantasies displayed on screen: the perfect cure (or dilution) for a bout of sociopathic and misanthropic thoughts.

Sickest scene: The ringleader of the gang having his teeth pulled out and being force-fed his own dismembered cock.

Whenever I watch films like these, I am often left questioning the violence, or whatever it is that makes them so offensive or controversial. More specifically, I question why mainstream horror such as Saw and Hostel is now acceptable, but films such as Antichrist or A Serbian Film are still denounced and utterly rejected by wider society. Why is one portrayal of extreme violence okay where another is not? Running on a philosophical note, I believe it to be linked with the truth. How close does a movie come to the truth? Mainstream horror is not truthful. The situations aren't truthful, the characters aren't truthful, the events aren't truthful. It's just fantasy like any Hollywood movie. It would never happen like that in a real life situation. The victim wouldn't be a blonde, topless, double D. They wouldn't walk outside into the woods alone to see what the noise was. And they wouldn't tell complete strangers where they live. So audiences can accept it, because it's stupid. But when movies like Irreversible, or A Serbian Film are released, people are offended and sickened, because they are truthful. Irreversible was controversial because it doesn't glamourise rape; it shows it how it really happens. A Serbian Film is controversial because it portrays prostitution and paedophilia; sickening as the newborn scene is, people do commit acts like that. And audiences can't stand it. Which is no surprise considering the bubble of censorship that we all live in. Did the rape scene in Irreversible need to be over 10 minutes long? Yes. Because rape is horrible and drawn out, and nothing like the 30 second rapes seen in mainstream films. Did A Serbian Film need a scene involving a baby being raped? Well yes, because of the concept of the film.

The graphic violence depicted in horror films still pales in comparison to the real violence committed by governments, and by real people, in wars and in everyday incidents. The public can't stand to hear about real horror, but they will happily pay to watch portrayals of it on the big screen. Stop for a second and think how fucked up that is. Maybe I am just a bit too cynical. Maybe people are more misanthropic than they really know. But I am painfully aware of what happens in the real world, which is probably why fictional portrayals of violence don't shock me in the same way that they do some people, because they rarely come close to the violence of reality. So instead of watching ridiculous Hollywood slashers and then complaining about the rare instances where films actually try to portray horror truthfully, I suggest people pick up a newspaper, because there is far more violence and far more atrocities happening in reality than there are in film studios.

[EDIT] I have now watched the Human Centipede, and I believe that actually being one of the victims in that film would have been less tortuous than watching it.

Where the Wild Things Are

I feel that I am definitely part of a majority in saying that as a teenager, one of my favourite film genres was the horror slasher. And it's probably no surprise to anyone to say that I grew out of it. I don't know exactly when it was that my opinion changed. But as it stands, horror films are now only surpassed on my hate-list by the nauseating and ever-worsening RomCom. So why the change?

I have mentioned before my vehement dislike of all things sequel and franchise related for the most part (there are exceptions). This crutch of the mainstream film industry flourishes in the horror genre, perhaps more than any other (Halloween 1 to 7,860 for example), even more so now with the discovery of Hollywood's latest obsession: 3D. What is on offer now seems to be countless 70s/80s/90s horror film franchises rising from the dead (pun intended), and bringing out a new installment or a remake, in "ground-breaking" Hollywood 3D. Halloween I've mentioned, along with Scream and the other classic slashers, coming back with worthwhile to add to franchises long dead. Even in a genre famous for bringing dead things back to life, "sometimes dead is better".

To focus on specifics for a second, the use of the word "horror" is a pet peeve of mine, since modern horror films rarely fit the definition of this word in being frightening in the slightest. In all honesty, they don't even try. I'm pretty sure the scariest part of Scream 4 will be watching Courtney Cox try to move her face. The term slasher is generally much more applicable.

When the genre itself is little different to the satire which spawns from it, there is clearly something off point. Scary Movie from example, is a "piss-take" as it were, of these films, but the dumb American girls in skimpy outfits being killed in showers or swimming pools, the telephone calls by faux-threatening voices, the chases and the comic screaming, the blatant stupidity, are present in both; the originals, and the satires. So what constitutes a horror film any more? They seem to be, for the most part, comedies with fake blood and a spooky soundtrack.

Despite my general avoidance of this genre nowadays, occasionally I do stumble across films which remind me what it was that I liked about them in the first place. The opinion of horror mocumentaries seems to be greatly polarised, but I have always been quite a fan of them. Granted, I was only about 12 years old when I saw The Blair Witch Project for the first time, but I loved it then, and I still appreciate it now. It was the first film that I genuinely considered frightening: So far removed from the over production and absurdity of Hollywood blockbusters. And any film that can actually fool Americans into believing it really did happen deserves some level of respect.

As happens with practically everything, this gimmick spawned many more films of the same mould, and it's hard to deny that it has been a little overdone in recent years. Paranormal Activity has got to be the apex of atrocious horror mocumentaries (and yet predictably, they are making sequel after sequel). They are growing in popularity, but at the same time, the originality is declining (Paranormal Activity just felt like a rehashed version of The St. Francisville Experiment), and they are becoming increasingly indistinguishable.

Troljegeren (Troll Hunter) is Norway's take on this growing obsession with horror film mocumentaries, and it avoids the trap of banality that so many American takes fell into. It employs Nordic folklore to intense advantages, perhaps most importantly because it doesn't take itself, or the legends, too seriously. And above all else, it injects a burst of originality into a sub-genre very much in need of it.

The film follows a group of young documentary makers who take it upon themselves to get to the bottom of a number of mysterious bear-killings by following one "Troll Hunter", Hans. Despite his insistence that they leave him alone, they follow him into a forest in the middle of the night and stand around chatting and laughing, until some distant rumbling, flashes of light, and shaking of the earth, followed by Hans reappearing and screaming "TROLL!" quickly transports us into a chase through the woods, thus beginning the film's intensity in earnest.

Despite at first being opposed to their filming, Hans gives in to their pursuit, and eventually explains what he is doing (but not before a full sized Troll is introduced to us). Now I am completely unaware of such matters, but according to numerous film websites Troll Hunter is very concordant with traditional Norwegian Troll myths, and a whole display of weird and abstract theories are presented to us, such as the Trolls being able to smell the blood of a Christian, which I found extremely amusing. Hans also informs the film makers of the various "breeds" of Troll, and the film certainly doesn't hold anything back in displaying them all.

Troll Hunter is unceasing in its silliness and bizarre humour, and thus avoids the pretension that is the downfall of so many mocumentaries. It doesn't try too hard, or take itself seriously, and has major what-the-fuck factor. All this things combined mean that it is incredibly entertaining. But behind this guise, the film still manages to be relevant and important: Hans eventually informs the film-makers that he is employed by the government to kill, and cover up, the existence of the Trolls, and various other government employees enter the narrative with much less friendly attitudes. The theory of governmental cover-ups is one that I find particularly applicable given the rising popularity in conspiracy theories and governmental deceit.

As with all these films based around the idea of found-footage, Troll Hunter ends ambiguously, with the film-makers being chased by the government employees and the camera falling to the ground. And it leaves you agreeably entertained, as well as raising some questions about modern society. Simply, it is what a horror film should be.

It seems then, that Norway is quickly replacing America as the leader in modern horror. On par with Let The Right One In, this is the second case in the argument that Norwegian horror outstrips American slashers by a long way, not only in terms of plot, but in production, cinematography, and the characters themselves. In essence, Norway puts America to shame for a second time, and now I decisively endeavour to watch Rare Exports and make it three.