Watch Yourself: "Us"

While I've attempted to reveal too much about this film's twists, if you haven't seen the film yet and want to go in as cold as possible, go see it and come back later.

It's impressive that just two movies in director Jordan Peele's name has already become a brand, representing horror movies which are smart and socially conscious, familiar yet different Peele's name was already a brand based on his sketch comedy days with Key & Peele; but even so, transitioning to feature film-making with 2017's critically acclaimed Get Out, which won Peele the Best Original Screenplay Oscar, was quite a feat. Peele is in the position where he can pretty much do whatever he wants. But it is a mixed blessing to have that type of success early on. It's nice to have creative control in Hollywood- a place that's not always supportive of a director's vision- and not having to compromise your vision. However, you're put under a lot of pressure to live up to your early success. Film critics build you up but are equally ready to tear you down. Then there's the pressure to compromise for film critics instead of studio execs. Peele is already receiving comparisons to M. Night Shyamalan, and while Peele's new film Us has received extremely positive reviews, it's a film that's on shakier ground than his first- largely because it's a more ambitious and yes, Shyamalanesque venture, with some pretty big twists. It's a film whose denouement forces us to re-contextualise everything we've just seen, and is genuinely disturbing in its implications.

Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong'o), her husband Gabe (Winston Duke), and two children, Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) are on a family vacation to where Adelaide once grew up. She once had a traumatic experience seeing her doppelganger in a mirror house,  which resulted in her not being able to speak for a time. Adelaide tells Gabe she still feels she's coming for her and soon enough, all the family's doppelgangers show up. The set-up is basic but what is revealed by the end of the film suggests a much larger mythology to the story. Like Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, Shyamalan's Signs and George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, we see a large scale event through the eyes of a small group of characters. This makes the terror more realistic due to its intimacy and limited knowledge concerning the events occurring around the country.   

Peele doesn't explain everything about the story, which can be viewed as a significant flaw but I think Peele's lack of explanation adds to the film's nightmarish and mysterious ambience; he's a director more invested in creating atmosphere and staging horror sequences.With this film I sensed Peele wanted to strengthen and further his visual storytelling abilities. He's a skilled filmmaker, with a great eye for composition and framing. Mike Gioulakis (the cinematographer for It Follows and this year's Glass), clearly understands the horror genre. I love how he use shadow to make the doppelgangers appear as if they're part of another world. The film's editor is Nicholas Monsour, who worked on Key & Peele. He's just starting out in feature films and he has strong grasp on how to slowly pace a film while still having a certain dramatic momentum. 

Before the family of doppelgangers show up, Peele visually foreshadows them- the shadows of the family on the beach, the multiple rabbits during the opening credits. It's cheeky while still being spooky. Peele is adept at incorporating humour in to his films without undermining the uneasiness or weight of the story. I particularly liked the Home Alone reference, which reminds me that I'm getting older and younger kids may not even know what the hell Home Alone is. 

I'd be interested in seeing Peele a silent film due to how effectively he uses close-ups on actors' face, letting those faces tell the story. Peele also makes the doppelgangers being unable to speak, presenting them as primal, inhuman but still frighteningly human. 

Us asks what peoples' reaction would be to twisted mirror version of themselves. But more importantly, it asks what the doppelgangers's reaction would be, especially if they had it worst off than their double. And who is the "real" version, what defines individuality and personhood. The film also asks the timeless question of what happens when those who have been oppressed fight back. In Get Out, it was one individual- In Us, the retaliation is on an ever larger scale.    

Nyong'o is great as Adelaide and her doppelganger, Red. She's fierce, vulnerable and maternal as Adelaide and as Red she's incredibly creepy but also deeply wounded by her past and what we eventually learn about her. The tragic implications of their backstories could form the basis of a whole other film. And like many horror films before it, Us's story is fueled by tragedy and trauma. Horror movies are- in a weird way- extreme therapy sessions for the audience and characters. Peele adds a twist to the catharsis experienced at the end, giving what at first feels like a typical ending a more complex and insidious layer. 

The more I've thought about Us, the more I've liked it. The film showcases the oppressed and the marginalised fighting for their piece of the world. Us is appropriately titled since it's such simple and universal word. I also take the title to refer to the doppelgangers talking: us- humans, people who deserve the same basic dignity as anyone else.  

The title also refers to us, the audience and our comfortable sense of identity. The film is about what happens our sense of identity is challenged. I'd say Peele is preparing us for but I think he's highlighting how it's already happening. We have to make room for each other. Like the aforementioned films I mentioned (The Birds, etc.) Us is about human survival but Peele subverts those films by having it about the supposed villains' survival. And Peele isn't merely preparing us for a revolution, he's clearly saying it's already begun.

    

"The Times They are A- Changin:" Zack Snyder's "Watchmen" at 10

Zack Snyder's Watchmen, adapted by David Hayter from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal 1986 graphic novel of the same name, was released 10 years ago this month. It's often referred to as ahead of its time, just like  Moore and Gibbons' masterpiece, entirely different from anything before or after in the medium. And yes, I would say the same about Snyder's film, which stands out from any comic book movie before or since, even his own.

While the superhero genre had matured and deepened by 2009 with Spider-Man 2, and the one-two punch of Iron Man and The Dark Knight the year previously, the concept of adapting a dense and intricate work such as Watchmen was equivalent to adapting The Lord of the Rings- it was seen as impossible to do a successful film adaptation of Watchmen. I think this is because- as has been said in the past- Watchmen is a comic about the comic medium and uses the medium in a very specific way to tell its story. As such, any film version of Watchmen would have to be it's own thing. In his video on the film, "Iamthatroby" says the Watchmen film is a superhero movie about superhero movies. And I the film, while faithful to the overall plot of the graphic novel, has to be viewed in the proper context without judging it too much against the graphic novel. Having just re-watched it, I've come to love the film and think it's quite amazing. I never disliked it just that I needed a few watches for it to really click with me. And the fact it came out 10 years ago, when the idea of an Avengers or Batman/Superman movie was still a comic book fan's dream, is incredible.

The fact such an ambitious undertaking was only Snyder's third feature is also impressive, though his first two films weren't safe bets either. His first, Dawn of the Dead (2004), was a remake of a horror classic and 300 (2007) was a largely visual effects adaptation of Frank Miller's epic graphic novel 300. That which made Snyder's name synonymous with highly stylized visuals and fidelity to the comic book source material. Also, Miller, like Moore, is one of the most important comic book creators of his time (both also contributed to the Batman mythos with Miller writing The Dark Knight Returns, a big influence on Snyder's Batman v. Superman, and Moore writing The Killing Joke.) So, it's not a surprise Snyder got the job bringing Watchmen to screen.

Watchmen takes place in an alternate 1985 where Richard Nixon has been able to retain power and is still President of the United States. This is also a world where costumed vigilantes have and still exist, though costumed crime-fighting has been made illegal. Former Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie), Hollis Mason, tells his successor Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wilson), also retired, that the earlier generation had it easier. Nixon pushed the younger generation out. I love when Mason calls Nixon a prick then adds "And to think I voted for that prick five times," to which Dan replies "Hey, it was him or the commies." This notion of voting for someone you don't like just to avoid someone who you like less can't help but remind of the attitude in the last American election.

Edward Blake, also known as The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), a government agent and former Minuteman/Watchmen, is killed, which kicks off the action of the story. While in the graphic novel, the Comedian's is shown is brief flashbacks, the film opens with a stylized fight sequence establishes the film's action. While I've had a problem with the seemingly normal people in the comic world having super strength in the movie, I think I've come to view the action in this film in the proper context of it being a heightened reality, as well as calling attention exaggerated superhero action. The contrasts stylization with real-world brutality quite effectively.

I think Morgan really nails the character. This is a guy who's a real bastard- he tries to rape Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), kills a Vietnamese woman he impregnated during the Vietnam War, and killed JFK. But he's charismatic and somewhat sympathetic when he experiences an existential crisis. Morgan captures both the humanity and inhumanity of this man, and we can kind of understand why Sally went back to him and eventually had had his child, Laurie (Malin Akerman), the second Silk Spectre. This is perhaps the powerful and poignant aspect of both the comic and movie, that a woman could love a man who attempted to rape her. This is a complex emotional territory and I love Sally telling Laurie that she couldn't hate Blake because "he gave me you."

I want to talk about John Osterman/Dr. Manhattan because in many ways I find him the most fascinating character in the film. Osterman is a atomic physicist who due to a freak science accident is transformed in to a super-powered being named Dr. Manhattan after the Manhattan project. Dr. Manhattan isn't human but he's not quite a god either. Janey Slater (Laura Mennell), Osterman's former lover and fellow scientist, says Manhattan is a god to which says he doesn't believe in God and if he's real, he's nothing like him. Thinking about the character brought to mind the oft-quoted idea that God can't be both all powerful and all good; and if neither why call him God. Manhattan doesn't seem to be either all powerful or all good, eventually having a detached view of humanity and retreating to Mars.

When Blake kills the Vietnamese woman he blames Manhattan for not stopping it and says Manhattan is losing his touch with humanity, adding "God help us all," underscoring how Manhattan isn't God. Manhattan's purpose in the story is to explore how people would react to a super-powered being in the real world. Snyder would also explore this idea in Man of Steel and BvS, in which Lex Luthor does bring up the Problem of Evil (God can't be both all powerful and all good). And like Manhattan, Superman in BvS begins to lose faith in humanity.

But  there's something terrifying about Manhattan, he's not the hopeful figure Superman is. He's a deterrent to Russia starting a Nuclear War with the US but he also creates a kind of fear that would start a war. Manhattan is not all powerful, as Laurie tells him later, he's just going through the motions like a puppet. Nor is he all good- he doesn't prevent Blake's gunning down of a pregnant woman.

I think my favourite sequence in the film is  Manhattan's origin, beautifully edited by William Hoy, Snyder's editor on 300 and his follow-up to Watchmen, Sucker Punch (2011). Hoy  creates a nostalgic, dream-like feel that soon turns in to a nightmare when Osterman becomes Manhattan. I love how the flashback stars out with a warm look at the fair with Osterman and Janey. The scene cuts from Osterman's friend  Wally Weaver looking lively to Weaver dead in a hospital; this shot has a cold look. The scene in the science lab is also shot to look a little colder, foreshadowing Manhattan's personality and look. 

One of the major changes in the film is Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) making the world think Manhattan attacked New York City, preventing any nuclear conflict and bringing the world together in an Utopia. In the comic, it's a giant squid but I think-at least in the movie- Manhattan being the scapegoat works really well, tying everything back to the fear surrounding Manhattan. People are willing to accept Manhattan did turn on them. Veidt understands what will unite the world is the fear of something outside of humanity.

What I like about Watchmen's ending is it's not about whether Veidt's actions are morally justifiable but what do the characters do in the aftermath of destruction? Do they preserve the lie that has brought peace or reveal the truth, which would mean all those people died in vain if the world went back to the brink of war. It's a no win scenario. Walter Kovacs/Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) doesn't compromise and I think it's incredibly appropriate he tells Manhattan to kill him; that's the only way he won't reveal the truth.

Rorschach reminds me of the Marvel Comics character The Punisher, in that he is committed to warring on crime and killing criminals without mercy. When he's arrested and interviewed by a psychiatrist, he tells of how he used to let criminals live until he found the killer of a young girl, brutally murdering with a meat cleaver. This is where- as Rorschach tells it- Walter Kovacs truly died and Rorschach was born. When his mask is taken off by the police, he screams for them to give him back his face. It's part of him, it is him. Rorschach's narration is reminiscent of Travis Bickle, the character portrayed by Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), due to his narration about the scum on the New York streets. My favourite shot in the film is when Rorschach goes in to the bathroom to kill Big Figure (Danny Woodburn). The door swings eerily and unusually back and forth as we see Rorschach move in for the kill- until we can only see Rorschach before the door closes. For a film with such brutal and explicit violence, this is an effective example of leaving it to the audience's imagination what happens.

Haley has to do a lot of acting with just his voice and body language. I think he absolutely embodies the character. When we see him without his mask, we see a man cold and detached but with much anger underneath the surface. It's only at the end when he tells Manhattan to kill him that we see him actually break down emotionally and cry. For me it's the most affecting emotional moment in the film.     

Rorschach does get the last laugh, so to speak, since his journal will be discovered by a newspaper employee. The film ends with the question of not only will the truth be revealed but what are the consequences? Will humanity go back to the brink of or will it enter a new status quo? It's also a question of personal responsibility and what choice an individual feels he/she should make. Is a world of peace more important than our own feelings of morality? And how do we deal with knowing a dark truth, what does it do to our conscience?

I know one criticism of the film is Veidt being too sinister, telegraphing he's the villain, as opposed to his depiction in the comic. I believe Veidt is intentionally being played up as the villain because the surprise of the film is his plan not be rooted in villainy. He's attempting to make the world a better place. His villainous demeanour is a red herring. Veidt is set up as an archetype, an archetype that's subverted by film's end.

I also want to mention Larry Fong, who I think is a fantastic cinematographer. He creates a diverse palette for this, as I mentioned when I talked about the Manhattan origin scene. Some scenes have a warmer look, others colder. There are scenes and shots that reflect an "old-timey" representation of the past, and more urban, gritty scenes. We also  have cosmic stuff with Manhattan on Mars. What's impressive is it all blends together, forming a cohesive world.

The title sequence is a great example of this, as we travel through history, showing us the Minutemen's origin in the 40s, to Manhattan meeting JFK in the early 60s and the emergence of the new Watchmen. There's both happiness and tragedy in this sequence. It's  a brilliant piece of visual storytelling.

Another sequence I think is wonderful is Mason's death. After Nite Owl and Silk Spectre break Rorschach out of prison, some goons think it was the former Nite Owl who did it. They attack Mason who fights back and from his POV we see him imaging the attackers as his former enemies from his time as Nite Owl. The music is stirring until it cuts out when Mason is killed with a trophy, signifying the emergence of brutal reality in to the scene.

Snyder is one of those rare blockbuster auteurs, filmmakers who are making personal and artistic films on a large budget. Instead of relying so much on a formula, movies like Watchmen operate outside of the box. I've come to appreciate Snyder as a filmmaker more since Man of Steel. I'd go as far as listing him as one of my favourite working directors. Watchmen foreshadowed similar themes Snyder would explore later on in MoS and BvS, including the idea of a super-powered, God like being among us.

It's appropriate that Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin" plays over the opening credits since Watchmen is about the past and nostalgia. And the perception of superhero cinema has changed over the years. With the deluge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, Watchmen shines a little brighter because it's so distinct from other superhero films. Like BvS, it's a grower, and one now I would rank amongst my favourite comic book films.