Lee Jutton – Bitch Flicks

‘The Witch’ Will Transport You to Another World — A Beautiful, but Terrifying One

‘The Witch’ is proof that when a film is made with utmost care down to the last detail, one can still be transported by it to another world — though, in the case of ‘The Witch,’ it is a downright creepy and unpleasant world, and one that I am grateful, as a woman, to not have to live in.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton originally appeared at Medium and appears here as part of our theme week on Women in Horror. It is cross-posted with permission.

When was the last time you felt truly transported by a film? In a world where people’s social networks are so important to them that they can’t resist lighting up a dark theater with their iPhones, and where theater announcements asking you not to talk or text during the movie have begun to resemble desperate threats, it’s pretty hard to completely abandon the world around you for that of the film you are watching. My personal worst experience at the movies was last winter, when I went to see The Theory of Everything at the Lincoln Square theater on New York’s Upper West Side. The theater was packed — including a large group of teenagers who sneaked in, sat down in the aisle alongside my seat and proceeded to talk, text and laugh out loud for the entirety of the film. There were also two women sitting directly behind me who had to keep loudly explaining the film to each other (complete with loud gasps at Stephen Hawking’s ALS diagnosis, which was apparently news to them), seemingly forgetting that they were not watching it in their living room but in an auditorium full of strangers.

It takes a very special film to overcome the distractions inherent in the modern moviegoing experience and swallow you up with its story. Fortunately, writer-director Robert Eggers’ debut feature, The Witch, is such a film. Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, where Eggers took home the directing award, The Witch is a beautifully researched, written, and photographed horror film about an isolated Puritan family struggling to eke out an existence. I saw it on a Saturday evening at the Court Street theater in Brooklyn; naturally, as the opening shots begin to roll, numerous voices continued to rumble throughout the theater, only to be repeatedly and emphatically shushed by other moviegoers, which was equally distracting. Yet only a few minutes later, I was no longer aware of the people around me and whether they were still chatting, texting, and crumpling popcorn bags with the force of Sergeant Terry Jeffords on Brooklyn Nine-Nine. They could still have been doing all of these things, but I was so enraptured by the film that I was no longer capable of noticing. The Witch is proof that when a film is made with utmost care down to the last detail, one can still be transported by it to another world — though, in the case of The Witch, it is a downright creepy and unpleasant world, and one that I am grateful, as a woman, to not have to live in.

As The Witch begins, William (Ralph Ineson) and his family are exiled from their Puritan community because of William’s pride and forced to start again on a small plot of land at the edge of a forest, where their crops keep failing. When the baby of the family disappears under the watch of eldest sister Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), paranoia begins to seep into their tiny, closed-off world. Mother Katherine (Kate Dickie) spends her days and nights crying and praying, stopping only to shoot poisonous barbs at Thomasin, blaming her for the family’s loss. When another member of the family disappears, with Thomasin again the only witness, the fraying bonds holding this desperate, lonely band together tear apart in an increasingly violent manner. The young twins Mercy and Jonas (Ellie Grainger and Lucas Dawson, quite possibly the creepiest set of siblings on-screen since The Shining) accuse Thomasin of being a witch. In such a religious, superstitious world, it’s not difficult for William or Katherine to believe such a tale. Trapped on this claustrophobic plot of land more than a day’s journey from civilization, all Thomasin can do is repeatedly say that it is not true, which isn’t enough proof of her innocence — not even for her own parents.

The most terrifying thing about The Witch is not the threat posed by Satan or his witchy minions, but the one posed by Thomasin’s own family as they increasingly suspect her of having signed a pact with the devil. That’s not to say that the supernatural elements of the film are not spooky in their own right; they are deliciously creepy, from the repeated sightings of a bold brown rabbit lurking among the family’s livestock to the blood inexplicably squirting from the teats of a goat when Thomasin tries to milk it. Cinematographer Jarin Blaschke frequently shoots the characters from behind to make one feel as though you’re helplessly bearing witness to something evil sneaking up on them; it’s an old trick, but one that has not lost any of its potency, especially when paired with the frantic, distorted strings of the score by Mark Korven. Despite a low-contrast palette comprised mostly of shades of gray, the film looks beautiful. Blaschke relies on natural light, which gives the film — mostly shot outdoors under the bleak sky or inside the dark cabin — a stark, realistic feel. Also adding to the realism is Eggers’ script, with dialogue that was heavily researched and in some instances taken directly from historical records. The frequently unfamiliar words and stiff cadences of this Puritan speech could potentially sound goofy, but the perfect cast manages to make it work. It still sounds unnatural compared to modern speech, but in a way that only accentuates how removed this world is from our own.

While newcomer Taylor-Joy, who gives a striking performance, does have the peachy complexion and flowing blonde hair of an ingénue, there is also something slightly alien about her wide eyes, and the rest of the actors in the film have equally distinctive and unfamiliar faces. In short, they all look like they could have walked right out of a painting from that time period — especially Mercy and Jonas. Like many children one sees in art from that time, the twins look more like tiny elderly people than children. When they dance around singing about their beloved goat Black Philip in their shrill little voices, you can’t help but feel chills run down your spine. These subtle, psychological horrors — moments that just feel off for a reason one can’t explain — are the best moments in the film. Unfortunately, Eggers frequently decides to go one step further and show us much more explicit examples of evil. For instance, the audience learns the fate of the missing baby almost immediately after his disappearance. Seeing what happens to him actually removes some of the film’s foreboding, as opposed to adding to it. It’s not that these scenes are excessively gory or disturbing; they’re just not necessary. I can’t help but think of M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, and how much more impact that film’s aliens had when one saw merely a hand or a shadow, as opposed to the full creature. Similarly, The Witch thrives when the audience feels as helpless and lost for answers as Thomasin and her family.

While The Witch’s ending is not particularly surprising or frightening in and of itself, by the time the lights came on, I was relieved to be back in my modern world — annoying audience members and all. It is a great little horror film that provides the escapism one seeks at the cinema, even if that escape is to a terrifying and dark corner of the world.

See also at Bitch Flicks:

The Threat of Feminine Power in The Witch

The Witch and Legitimizing Feminine Fear

The Witch and Female Adolescence in Film

Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. Currently a staff writer at Film Inquiry, her writing has also appeared in publications such as Bitch Flicks, Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture, TV Fanatic, and Just Press Play. You can follow her on Twitter @leiladaisyj for more opinions on movies, pictures of cats, and ramblings on German soccer.

‘Raw’ and Coming of Age via Cannibalism

What writer/director Julia Ducournau does with ‘Raw’ is use the traditional tropes of body horror to tell the story of one young woman’s awakening. … It’s frightening and disturbing, as coming of age often is. … By filtering this all-too-common struggle through the extreme lens of cannibalism, Ducournau highlights the absurdity inherent in how women’s bodies and desires are policed.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Women in Horror. | Spoilers ahead.

Women are constantly fighting for control of their bodies. This is not an exaggeration, however extreme it may sound. One’s body is the most personal and precious possession one has — literally the only one we are born with — and yet, if you are a woman, it is also the most policed. Society tells us that women’s bodies must remain pure and virginal in order to be deemed desirable. Men in government aspire to limit our access to healthcare despite expecting our bodies to constantly churn out babies; they want to take away our birth control, but they also don’t want us to get abortions. We’re shamed into starving ourselves to get in shape for bikini season while men’s beer-bellied “dad bods” are glorified in the same media that shove those unattainable ideals down our throats.

In a world where women’s urges are so obsessively monitored and shamed by society, it’s no surprise that in pop culture, there is no shortage of stories of women rebelling against these attempts at control — often in extreme ways. In Han Kang’s Man Booker International Prize-winning novella The Vegetarian, a South Korean housewife is so traumatized by a bloody nightmare that she abruptly stops eating meat. Despite being shamed (and subject to abusive attempts at force-feeding) by her family and treated like an outcast by society, Yeong-hye holds fast to her desires and refuses to eat meat. Even when she is hospitalized and appears to be wasting away to those around her, she is more at peace and in control of her body than she ever had been previously. Why does a woman like Yeong-hye have to essentially cast off her human body in order to prevent others from telling her what to do with it? Why do women need to go to such lengths to prove their autonomy?

In her debut feature film, French writer-director Julia Ducournau covers themes similar to those in The Vegetarian, but reverse-engineers them for maximum shock and awe. Instead of telling the story of a woman deciding to give up meat, Raw chronicles what happens when a lifelong vegetarian discovers an animalistic desire to consume raw meat during a hazing ritual at veterinary school. What follows is an intensely visceral, gore-filled saga of one young woman taking control of her body and her urges, however unacceptable they may seem to the rest of the world. In an interview with Women and Hollywood, Ducournau said she “wanted the audience to feel empathy for a character that is becoming a monster in their eyes.” While you might not be able to comprehend the nature of protagonist Justine’s desires, you cannot help but sympathize with her struggle to balance what her body wants with what is expected of it by others.

Justine, played by the suitably wide-eyed and coltish young actress Garance Marillier, comes from a family of ~~strict~~ vegetarian veterinarians. She plans to follow in the family tradition by joining her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf), at the same veterinary school that their parents both attended. While Alexia is a bit of a wild child, Justine is a quiet, albeit passionate, prodigy. She comes to the vet school more prepared for her studies than the vast majority of the students around her, including her roommate Adrien (Rabah Naït Oufella). What Justine isn’t prepared for, however, are the extreme hazing rituals forced upon the “rookies” by the older students, including Alexia. These include being forced to sing along with strange songs, having buckets of blood poured over them for a class photo, and — in the moment that changes everything for Justine — being pressured into eating raw rabbit kidneys. Justine initially refuses, citing her family’s vegetarianism and asking Alexia to back her up. When Alexia denies her claims and eats one of the kidneys right in front of her, Justine doesn’t feel as though she has any choice but to follow suit or be shunned by the rest of the school. She’s nearly sick, but she does it nonetheless.

Soon, Justine finds herself plagued with a raw red rash on most of her body. The school doctor chalks it up to food poisoning, despite Justine mentioning that she also feels ravenously hungry all the time. Justine takes the cream prescribed by the doctor; she also starts stealing hamburgers from the cafeteria and eating late-night shawarma with Adrien. But these seemingly normal cravings — which could be chalked up to a girl discovering that once she is free from her parents’ overwhelming and possibly stifling influence, she actually likes different things than them — turn extreme quickly; gnawing on raw chicken in the middle of the night extreme; lusting after the body of her gay roommate until she gets a nosebleed extreme. But all of this pales in comparison to the moment when Alexia accidentally cuts off part of her finger in a freak scissors accident and Justine picks it up and starts eating it.

This incredibly unsettling scene is skillfully played for maximum impact by Ducournau, from the frantic and electric turn that Jim Williams’ musical score takes to Marillier’s intense performance, in which one can see her visibly struggling with her desire to taste human flesh and her knowledge that what she wants to do is wrong. The scene then takes a delightful yet disturbing comic turn when Alexia wakes up from her faint to stare agape at her younger sister as she nibbles on a part of her body. You can’t help but laugh, both as an attempt to ease discomfort with what is happening and also because what’s happening is pretty damn funny.

It turns out Alexia is subject to the same strange urges as Justine, going so far as to cause a car crash on a deserted road just to provide both sisters with a couple of corpses to feast on. In her own twisted way, this is Alexia’s idea of being a supportive and understanding sister. Yet while Alexia has no qualms about wanting to eat human flesh, Justine flees, unable to come to terms with what her body wants. As the film progresses, Justine continues to struggle, vacillating between allowing herself to succumb to her desires while also fighting to contain them. In no scene is this better visualized than when Justine’s overwhelming lust for Adrien results in her losing her virginity to him and, when she climaxes, sinking her teeth into her own arm after Adrien refuses to let her bite him. As blood oozes out, Justine grows visibly relaxed. Tasting flesh, even her own, seems more satisfying than sex for her.

By the end of the film, Alexia’s uninhibited actions have resulted in tragedy and she’s hospitalized, after which Justine learns from her father that their mother is subject to the same urges. “You’ll find a way to control it,” her father says in an attempt to comfort Justine about this distressing family trait, but his words elicit only deep choking sobs from his youngest daughter. In the end, who is more free? Is it Alexia, trapped in an institution but with nothing left to hide, or Justine, out in the real world but forced to keep such a large part of herself a secret?

As Justine starts giving in to her desires, gobbling raw meat and ogling Adrien’s shirtless torso, she becomes more confident. The quiet, meek student who seemed to be trying to disappear into her oversized sweaters starts projecting an aura of boldness. Donning her sister’s slinky cocktail dress to writhe in front of her bedroom mirror and smear lipstick seductively across her mouth, Justine is vastly more comfortable with her body as a cannibal than she was as a virginal vegetarian.

In showing us Justine starting to blossom, is Ducournau condoning cannibalism and condemning vegetarianism? Absolutely not. What she does with Raw is use the traditional tropes of body horror to tell the story of one young woman’s awakening. The obvious youth of her lead actress (Marillier was born in 1998) makes her message hit all the harder. It’s frightening and disturbing, as coming of age often is. Watching your body change and awaken to new desires is scary enough; dealing with the constant messages from society that everything you’re dealing with is somehow wrong is even worse. By filtering this all-too-common struggle through the extreme lens of cannibalism, Ducournau highlights the absurdity inherent in how women’s bodies and desires are policed.

‘The Fits’ and the Complicated Choreography of Adolescence

Director Anna Rose Holmer… described her film as portraying “adolescence as choreography.” I personally cannot think of a more apt way to describe the delicate movements one takes throughout the teenage years. One yearns to step into the spotlight and embrace one’s individuality while also fearing the consequences of doing so. It’s a delicate balancing act, wanting to be your own person while also wanting to fit in with everyone else.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton originally appeared at Medium and appears here as part of our theme week on Women Directors. It is cross-posted with permission.

I saw The Fits at a screening at the Museum of Modern Art that was followed by a Q&A with director Anna Rose Holmer, who described her film as portraying “adolescence as choreography.” I personally cannot think of a more apt way to describe the delicate movements one takes throughout the teenage years. One yearns to step into the spotlight and embrace one’s individuality while also fearing the consequences of doing so. It’s a delicate balancing act, wanting to be your own person while also wanting to fit in with everyone else. Just one misstep can ripple throughout one’s adolescence, leading to bullying and ostracizing. Once you’re an adult, you can look back and almost laugh at these things, many of which, in hindsight, seem so little as to barely be memorable; but at the time, these decisions are so massive that they can occupy your entire mind.

The Fits chronicles one girl’s journey to find herself both as an individual and as a part of a group. It’s a unique take on a timeless story, infusing the usual coming-of-age drama with a hearty splash of magical realism. Here, the choreography of adolescence is both figurative and literal. Eleven-year-old Toni, played by newcomer Royalty Hightower, is a quintessential tomboy who spends most of her time at a Cincinnati community center training as a boxer alongside her supportive older brother, Jermaine. One day, Toni finds herself drawn to the award-winning drill dance team that practices in the same building. The team, known as the Lionesses, are a tight-knit clique who barely notice Toni lugging her gym bag as they stream by her in the hall, giggling and glittering. After Jermaine catches Toni dancing around on her own, he encourages her to try out for the team, and despite a hilariously awkward first attempt at the team’s signature clap back call choreography, Toni is accepted as one of the newest Lionesses. However, it becomes clear it will take more than memorizing a few steps for Toni to fit in.

At one of her first rehearsals, Toni witnesses one of the Lionesses’ captains collapse with what appears to be a bout of seizures. Not too long afterward, a similar attack strikes down the team’s other captain. Soon, these episodes of hysteria, dubbed “the fits,” take the girls by storm. They start with the older, more experienced girls, but they gradually make their way down the hierarchy to the youngest and newest recruits. The community’s inability to explain why the episodes keep happening, compounded with the unpredictable way they occur, builds tension in the way of the best horror movies; after all, how can one not be terrified when it appears one doesn’t have control over one’s own body? Yet eventually the fits start to be seen less like a scary sickness and more like a desirable way to mark one’s progression into womanhood. Once one has had the fits, one has something to relate to the rest of the girls about; one truly feels like part of the team.

Having the fits bears a striking similarity to how so many girls feel about starting to menstruate; you’re afraid of it happening, this mysterious and morbid signifier of womanhood, but once it starts happening to everyone else, you can’t help but wonder when it will be your turn. (And, when it still doesn’t happen, if there’s something wrong with you.) At first, Toni is grateful to be spared from the fits, finding them frightening, but eventually, she starts to grow anxious about not having experienced this strange rite of passage. Already a girl of few words, Toni silently listens to her newfound friends gossip together about their own unique experiences with the fits — each attack different and yet somehow the same — while she is deemed unworthy of inclusion in the conversation. As one friend snaps at Toni, “You don’t know anything about it.” Toni grows increasingly distant from her old world of the boxing gym as she devotes more and more hours to perfecting the Lionesses’ choreography, yet because she has not experienced the fits, she remains on the outside of her new world looking in, a face peeking out from behind the backstage curtain. She’s stuck in the middle, with no clear place to belong.

In the absence of the fits, Toni tries to fit in in other ways, incorporating more feminine details into her appearance. However, in the end these are all uncomfortably rejected by her. When a friend applies a temporary tattoo to Toni’s arm, she peels it off; when her nails are painted with gold glitter polish, she picks away at it until the flecks litter the floor of the boxing gym. She even goes as far as to pierce her own ears in the community center bathroom, but eventually removes the sparkling studs, citing infection. In these small ways, Toni maintains some small part of her individuality in a world that values the team over the individual; she’s trying to fit in, but her willingness to do so will only go so far.

Hightower carries The Fits on her remarkably muscular shoulders. Reliant almost entirely on movement and expression, as opposed to dialogue, her performance is remarkably natural and her struggle to fit in relatable. When one learns that Hightower is in fact an experienced dancer who has been a member of the team portraying the Lionesses since she was small, as Holmer told us during the Q&A session, one is even more in awe of the evolution she manages to portray onscreen. I was someone who was incapable of sticking to the choreography growing up, both in my childhood dances classes and in my actual life. In some ways, I was proud of my ability to march to my own oddball tune, but in many others, I longed to know what it was like to be just one of the smiling girls in the line, never missing a beat. Watching Toni walk this tightrope in The Fits hit home for me in a way that very few movies about girlhood ever do.

Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. She previously reviewed new DVD and theatrical releases as a staff writer for Just Press Play and currently reviews television shows as a staff writer for TV Fanatic. You can follow her on Medium for more film reviews and on Twitter for an excessive amount of opinions on German soccer.

‘The Love Witch’ Looks Familiar but Feels Remarkably Fresh

Yet behind the eye-catching homage to Technicolor cinematography, the retro-glamorous hair and makeup, and the stylized performances of the pitch-perfect cast [Anna Biller’s ‘The Love Witch’] is a sharp-eyed satire of how society views female sexuality as simultaneously desirable and dangerous. …It is a remarkable look at the way our modern world views and values women — a serious statement about sexual politics wrapped up in a cocoon of cats-eye liner and cake, making it all the more dangerously potent.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton originally appeared at Medium and appears here as part of our theme week on Women Directors. It is cross-posted with permission.

On the surface, director Anna Biller’s sophomore feature, The Love Witch, might look like a grab-bag of filmmaking tropes from the 1960’s and 70’s, a contemporary film designed to play on audience nostalgia for cinematic eras gone by (a recurring theme at theaters this winter; see: La La Land). Yet behind the eye-catching homage to Technicolor cinematography, the retro-glamorous hair and makeup, and the stylized performances of the pitch-perfect cast is a sharp-eyed satire of how society views female sexuality as simultaneously desirable and dangerous.

We first meet Elaine Parks (Samantha Robinson) as she drives along a quintessentially Hitchcockian rear projection of the Northern California coast in her cherry-red convertible. She devours cigarette after cigarette, continuously stubbing them out in her car’s ashtray; her long dark hair is made even longer by a shiny synthetic wig, and her eye makeup is heavy and hypnotic. She’s the ultimate honey trap, with everything about her look and attitude designed to project maximum glamour and sensuality. Through voice-over, Elaine informs us that she’s leaving her old life in San Francisco behind after the death of her ex-husband, Jerry, to move to the small town of Eureka and start anew. After Jerry left her, Elaine sought solace in the arms of a coven of witches, and is now a master (better, mistress) of love and sex spells. Obsessed with obtaining the love that Jerry always held at arm’s length, Elaine is determined to do whatever it takes to make a man fall for her, and when not actively pursuing love herself, she constantly urges her friend Trish (Laura Waddell) to do whatever she can to make her own husband happy — even at the expense of her own wants and desires. Elaine strives to embody all of men’s fantasies about the ideal woman — she cooks delicious meals, performs spontaneous stripteases in sexy lingerie, and coos words of comfort every time one of them starts feeling insecure (which is often). She both literally and figuratively casts a spell over nearly every man that crosses her path. Yet Elaine’s spells start to seem more like curses when the men she targets start meeting rather unpleasant ends.

Elaine’s coven, led by the creepy Gahan (Jared Sanford) and his partner, Barbara (Jennifer Ingrum), spends a substantial amount of time camped out in a burlesque club; dancing is how Elaine first met Barbara and was introduced to the world of witchcraft. Gahan and Barbara teach new recruits how to use dance to manipulate the male gaze, and how to embrace their sexuality as a source of power just as potent as magic. During one scene, set against the backdrop of a burlesque performance, Gahan and Barbara lecture two girls on how the history of witchcraft has been eternally tied to women’s sexuality. Women are supposed to be sensual and available, but never too aggressively — never too much. Then, men feel threatened by them, afraid that they’ll lose control of themselves (and naturally, this lack of self-control is always the woman’s fault, never the man’s). The Love Witch explores these conflicting feelings and then some, examining the ways men view women — not to mention, the ways other women view women, too. Biller fills her film with close-ups of her casts’ eyes and mouths, lingering over their heavy false eyelashes, glossy lips, and frequently imperfect teeth as though daring you to succumb to them.

Biller, a multitalented artist who also wrote, produced, edited, scored and designed the costumes and sets of The Love Witch, is clearly a dedicated scholar of the pulp fiction and thrillers of the 60’s and 70’s. The film, despite taking place in the modern day, thoroughly sticks to its retro conceit, right down to being one of the last films to cut an original camera negative on 35 millimeter film. The campy tone and stylized performances are so spot-on in regards to mid-century, low-budget horror that I kept expecting icon of the era Udo Kier to pop up at any moment. It is lovingly made down to the last detail, from the frilly and frothy Victorian tea room that the women of Eureka frequent to the jewel-toned paintings of pentagrams that decorate Elaine’s apartment. So many modern films are shot to be dark and dour; The Love Witch, by pleasant contrast, dazzles with its delightful use of color and light.

The Love Witch is lovely to look at, but like Elaine herself, it’s so much more than just a pretty face. (Speaking of Elaine: Samantha Robinson’s performance is an absolute stunner; her shy, breathy voice and fluttering eyelashes create a picture-perfect facade of feminine fragility that barely masks the seething anger and disappointment within.) It’s laugh-out-loud funny, cartoonishly violent, and so, so smart. It might look and feel like a film from the past, but at its heart, it is a remarkable look at the way our modern world views and values women — a serious statement about sexual politics wrapped up in a cocoon of cats-eye liner and cake, making it all the more dangerously potent.

Nicolette Krebitz’s ‘Wild’ and the Importance of Living Without Fear

That film is ‘Wild,’ a modern-day fable unlike any of the Aesop-influenced tales you heard as a child. It tells the story of a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is forever changed after a chance encounter with a wolf. By turns intense and outlandish, deeply emotional and utterly outrageous, ‘Wild’ busts taboos left and right to show audiences how true happiness can be achieved if one sets societal expectations aside and embraces one’s true nature.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors. | Spoilers ahead.

The way filmmaker Nicolette Krebitz tells it, it began with a dream — or rather, a nightmare. Night after night, she dreamed something was following her; what it was, she didn’t know, but it haunted her sleep over and over again. Eventually, someone advised her to try turning around within the dream so she could identity her mysterious stalker. When she did, she was surprised to discover that the creature so intent on tracking her was a wolf.

Shortly afterward, Krebitz heard that wolves were migrating into Germany, nearly a century after they had been hunted to extinction in that country. Prior to this, Krebitz had no particular affinity for wolves, but their return to Germany so soon after her dream seemed fortuitous. So, Krebitz traveled to the east, where wolves were crossing over the German border from Poland, to come face to face with these creatures during her waking hours. Intrigued by this encroachment of nature into civilization, the idea for a film began to formulate in her head.

That film is Wild, a modern-day fable unlike any of the Aesop-influenced tales you heard as a child. It tells the story of a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is forever changed after a chance encounter with a wolf. By turns intense and outlandish, deeply emotional and utterly outrageous, Wild busts taboos left and right to show audiences how true happiness can be achieved if one sets societal expectations aside and embraces one’s true nature. It’s a message of universal value, even as the story that Krebitz tells to get it across veers into the extreme.

When we first meet Ania (Lilith Stangenberg), she is floating aimlessly through life like a ghost, her existence barely even susceptible to those around her. Every day, she pulls her hair into a stringy ponytail, throws on her grubby white puffer coat, and catches a bus from her drab high-rise to the drab office where she works as an IT specialist. She’s a favorite of her boss, Boris (Georg Friedrich) because she never asks questions and brings him coffee when he asks for it; he does this by throwing things against the glass wall that separates his corner office from the cubicles, like an anxiety-ridden zoo animal. Ania’s only interest outside of work — and the only sign that something is stirring beneath her placid surface — is firing guns at the shooting range. She barely speaks, and once her younger sister moves out of the apartment they share, and her beloved grandfather falls into a coma, she doesn’t have much reason to interact with anyone. It’s life, but it’s not really living.

That all changes when, while trudging through the park on her way to work, Ania sees a wolf. The creature’s effect on Ania is immediately palpable; rooted to the spot, her previously impassive face grows wide-eyed, not with fear but with total fascination. Ania might struggle to connect with her fellow humans, but her connection with the wolf is startlingly primal. The moment is brief; the wolf disappears into the woods, and Ania goes to the office, as she would any other day. But the spark lit within her by the wolf’s appearance has begun to smolder, and while at first it only manifests in the form of a few seemingly harmless image searches on the Internet, it quickly grows out of control.

Ania’s obsession with seeing the wolf again spurs her to develop an elaborate scheme to capture it. Conveniently already an excellent shot from her many hours at the shooting range, and with easy access to tranquilizers, thanks to her grandfather’s hospitalization, Ania manages to stun the wolf and sneak it into her apartment. Watching Ania’s slight form struggle to drag the massive animal through the front doors of her building without anyone noticing is one of the more genuinely hilarious moments in a film that has plenty of awkward, cringe-inducing humor as well as many scenes that elicit a few involuntary chuckles out of sheer discomfort.

Once the wolf is sequestered in her sister’s old bedroom, Ania begins to disconnect from the human world. Clad in only a grungy tank top and underpants, her hair free to tumble loosely around her shoulders, Ania spends her days chattering away at the wolf and cooking him meals before collapsing into a heap on the floor to sleep at night. When low on money, she boldly ventures out into the night to scarf down food left behind on cafe tables even as the proprietors urge her to scram. When she manages to drag herself into the office, she merely throws on a giant coat to cover herself; she doesn’t bother with pants or with niceties. Meanwhile, the wolf tears apart her apartment as any trapped wild animal would, filling the small space with debris and a stench so potent that the neighbors begin to notice, even if Ania does not. It’s clear that the situation is untenable. It’s also clear that Ania would follow the wolf to the ends of the earth if required.

Little by little, Ania gives up human habits and grows increasingly feral. Her appetites grow and she doesn’t balk at satisfying them by any means necessary — including a couple moments of shocking sexual intimacy with the wolf. Yet even as the audience squirms with distaste at her actions, one cannot help but notice how alive Ania has become. One simultaneously disapproves of her choices and admires how little she cares about approval anyways. In this way, Ania becomes startlingly relatable. It’s human nature to have instincts and urges that we feel obligated to suppress in order to present a polite, respectable face to the rest of society. While some of this repression may be for the best — think about those times you may have wanted to lash out at a rude boss, or snatch something delicious off of another person’s plate in a restaurant — one cannot deny how much happier we all would be if we cared just a little bit less about other people’s opinions and expectations of us. Wild might use the extreme example of bestiality to drive that point home, but the film is clearly about so much more than breaking that particular taboo. It’s about the importance of living without fear.

Wild belongs to Stangenberg, a striking actress who somehow manages to simultaneously look like the girl next door and unlike any other girl you’ve ever seen. Her performance is the definition of fearless acting, both physically and emotionally; she takes a character that could easily veer into grotesque and makes her absolutely magnetic. When Boris, shocked at the sudden changes in Ania and desperate to regain the easily manipulated employee of the past, reminds her that things can still go back to the way they were before, she retorts, “I don’t want to go back to the way things were before.” The meek, mousy girl meeting her boss’ every demand is gone, replaced with a woman who is finally succumbs to her own needs and wants. Never is this more apparent than when Ania, after having sex with Boris on his desk, demands more satisfaction immediately after he finishes. Seeing that Boris is helpless to help her, she shrugs and decides to pleasure herself in front of him, without another thought about it. Once dominated by Boris and his demands, Ania is now beholden to no one but herself.

It’s easy to read feminist empowerment in Ania’s story, even if Krebitz denied that was her intent during the Q&A that followed the screening of Wild I attended at Kino!2017, the annual German film festival in New York. Indeed, when discussing Stangenberg’s revelatory performance, Krebitz noted that one of her favorite things about her leading lady was that she was a very “modern” actress in terms of her appearance, which is not very stereotypically feminine. This almost genderless quality, which grows more prominent throughout the film as Ania becomes more feral, was important to Krebitz, as the message of Wild is applicable to anyone, anywhere. Yet whether Krebitz intended to convey a particularly feminist message or not, the fact that her protagonist is a woman does give Wild additional layers that would be absent if Ania were a man — especially as she rebels against her male boss and his manipulation of her. Ania’s reckless behavior is all the more revolutionary when contrasted with all of the times women have been told to be quiet, to sit down, to behave like proper ladies. The film’s message may be universal, but it is all the more potent because its messenger is a woman.

In ‘Arrival,’ Amy Adams is the Superhero We Need Right Now

‘Arrival’ is yet another in a long line of alien invasion movies, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s the story of a single extraordinary woman who steps up to save the human race, armed with nothing more than her ability to communicate. It’s a story of hope — and it’s one that audiences need to hear right now.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton originally appeared at her blog. It is cross-posted with permission.

How do you make an epic about saving the entire world feel as intimate as a independent film? How do you tell a story with such high stakes while still managing to make the audience feel emotionally connected to the individual people involved? With Arrival, director Denis Villeneuve and his collaborators make this incredible task look easy — and utterly gorgeous to boot. Adapted by screenwriter Eric Heisserer from Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life,” Arrival is yet another in a long line of alien invasion movies, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s the story of a single extraordinary woman who steps up to save the human race, armed with nothing more than her ability to communicate. It’s a story of hope — and it’s one that audiences need to hear right now.

That said woman is played by Amy Adams, who makes her all the more compelling. Adams is not only one of the most consistent actresses working today — turning out brilliant performances in such diverse films as Junebug, Enchanted, The Master, and Big Eyes, just to name a few — she’s also one of the most subtle. Her performances never rely on flashy gimmicks or method madness; she can easily disappear inside a character without the aid of wigs and weight gain. Her presence as Lois Lane in the Man of Steel movies instantly classes up proceedings — at least, as much as is possible when Zack Snyder is involved. In Arrival, Adams portrays a very different kind of superhero than the ones she hobnobs with in the dour DC universe, and her quietly intense performance as linguistics professor Dr. Louise Banks is one that stands out even among her impressive body of work.

Louise is living a lonely life in a big house, teaching at an anonymous university during the day and gulping glasses of red wine at night, when she’s enlisted by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) to do what seems to be the impossible. Twelve black obelisks have appeared out of nowhere and are floating above a diverse array of locations across the globe. Teaming up with brash astrophysicist Ian (Jeremy Renner), Louise is sent to the obelisk in Montana to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrials inside. She uses written words on flashcards to get the aliens — dubbed “heptopods” for their seven squid-like legs — to share their own written method of communication, a series of intricate rings reminiscent of the stains produced by coffee mugs. Louise’s painstaking work seems slow to the military men around her, whose trigger fingers are growing itchy from watching too many giddily paranoid news broadcasts (an example of the power of communication used for ill if there ever was one), but gradually she produces results.

One doesn’t think of writing words on flashcards as the epitome of action-packed, but in Arrival these moments are surprisingly engaging. A scene in which Louise explains to an impatient Colonel Weber the numerous steps that need to be taken before asking the aliens what brought them to Earth — pointing out that one has to teach the aliens what a question even is before one can ask them one, then breaking down the various grammatical elements of the question on a whiteboard — is a phenomenal glimpse inside the weird world of linguistics, a world that I admit was almost entirely foreign to me going into the movie. So impressive is Louise’s mastery of language that it feels like a superpower — an unlikely one, to be sure, but one that proves highly effective.

I don’t want to reveal more of the plot of the film for fear of ruining it for others; suffice to say that in Arrival, humans are just as much of a threat to the future of Earth as their alien visitors, if not more so. Throughout it all, Louise remains the quietly heroic heart of the movie, determined to do whatever it takes to maintain the heptopods’ tenuous new relationship with humanity. One doesn’t necessarily root for the human race in Arrival; one roots for our heroine, and it just so happens that the fate of the human race is tied to her success. The story edges its way along a tightrope of tension and never grows boring despite the startling lack of such science-fiction standbys as spaceship shoot-outs and special effects-induced explosions (okay, there’s one explosion). It handles sophisticated topics in a way that feels accessible to the average moviegoer, though one shouldn’t be shocked that a film focused on communication expresses itself so elegantly; despite the potential for pretentiousness, one never feels talked down to by Arrival.

The success of Arrival is not entirely due to Amy Adams’ performance as Louise, though it is a substantial part of it. Jóhann Jóhannsson’s appropriately otherworldly score sets the mood throughout the film, and is an ideal match for Bradford Young’s ethereal cinematography. Young (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, Selma) is a master of using only available, natural light to create beautiful images, and Arrival is no exception. This combination of sound and image results in perfectly crafted moments that are as epic as anything in Kubrick’s classic 2001: A Space Odyssey — the highest praise I can give any film in this genre. The first reveal of the heptopods will make your heart leap into your throat, and stands out in my mind as one of the most memorable cinematic moments of the year.

Arrival has entered theaters as the people of the United States are reeling from the result of our most recent presidential election, and it’s likely we’ll all continue to reel for quite some time. And while cinematic escapism is only a temporary solution to the anxiety that plagues so many of us, Arrival is that rare film that provides a much-needed escape from our real world while also containing a timely message for it. In a world increasingly on edge, with conflict always hovering on the horizon, it would do us all some good to be reminded of the power of communication to maintain peace. And for little girls around the world who long to see people who look like them saving the world, Arrival is a wonderful (and unfortunately necessary) reminder that yes, women can be heroes too.

The Repercussions of Repressing Teenage Girls in ‘The Virgin Suicides’ and ‘Mustang’

Both are critically acclaimed dramas directed by women documenting the coming-of-age of five teenage sisters under close scrutiny for their behavior — especially when it comes to their sexuality. And in both films, the girls’ response to this repression is to resort to desperate measures to regain control, resulting in tragedy that could have been averted if they were given the freedom for which they hungered.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Sisterhood. | Spoilers ahead.

[Trigger warning: discussion of suicide]

Anyone who has ever been a teenage girl knows that the bridge between girlhood and womanhood is a rough passage, rife with drama. Two films that examine this deeply personal struggle are The Virgin Suicides, released in 1999, and Mustang, released in 2015. Both are critically acclaimed dramas directed by women documenting the coming-of-age of five teenage sisters under close scrutiny for their behavior — especially when it comes to their sexuality. And in both films, the girls’ response to this repression is to resort to desperate measures to regain control, resulting in tragedy that could have been averted if they were given the freedom for which they hungered. Yet while the basic elements may sound the same, The Virgin Suicides and Mustang stand apart thanks to the different styles of the women directors who made them.

Adapted from the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides marked the feature directorial debut of Sofia Coppola, whose elegant, elegiac style immediately marked her as a talented filmmaker who didn’t need to hide in her famous father’s shadow. The film chronicles how the brief lives and tragic deaths of the five Lisbon sisters rocked the residents of a 1970s Michigan suburb. All long blonde hair and sun-kissed limbs, these beautiful girls are kept under lock and key by their infamously strict parents, making them even more desirable to the neighborhood boys.

The story is narrated by one of the boys, now grown, as he reflects on the brief time they spent in the Lisbons’ orbit. “Cecilia was the first to go,” he tells us, and indeed, it is the youngest sister’s suicide that sets the story on its path. After sad, sensitive Cecilia (Hanna R. Hall) throws herself out of her bedroom window and onto a spiked fence, a neighbor scoffs, “That girl didn’t want to die. She just wanted out of that house.”

The Lisbons were always a mystery thanks to the tight reins their parents kept them on, but after Cecilia’s death, the four surviving sisters are elevated to mythical status. When Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst) is the only girl in school who doesn’t collapse at the feet of heartthrob Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett), he makes it his goal to win her heart. He’s able to convince Mr. Lisbon (James Woods) to let him take Lux to homecoming, with one caveat: he’ll have to enlist boys to take her sisters, too. Like awestruck Cinderellas finally wiping the soot from their eyes, the girls — all clad in angelic, virginal white dresses — spend the night dancing, experimenting with alcohol, and canoodling under the bleachers. Lux and Trip celebrate being crowned homecoming king and queen by sneaking out onto the football field to have sex while the others go home without them. Yet the fiery adolescent hunger Trip had for Lux fades away upon consummation. Once he’s managed to win her over, she is no longer the object of his hazy, golden fantasies; when the mystery fades away, she’s just like every other girl. The spell broken, Trip abandons Lux on the football field to sleep through the night — and her curfew.

This is the moment when life as the Lisbon girls previously knew it ends. The sliver of freedom they were so briefly allowed is wrenched from their grasps as they’re taken out of school and kept cloistered within the house. Lux seizes freedom the only way that is within her power — with her body. She repeatedly sneaks onto the roof of the house to have sex with a variety of men; it seems to be the one thing she can do to feel alive. Eventually, the boys show up in a car to rescue the girls, but the scene they encounter in the Lisbon house is more horror show than heroic tableau. Like Cecilia before them, the remaining Lisbons have taken their own lives. The boys flee, left to spend the rest of their lives wondering what could have been if the sisters had found a different means of escape than the most permanent one of all.

Telling such a female-centric film from the point of view of a group of young men is an odd choice — especially for a woman director. One would expect The Virgin Suicides to explore the inner lives of the Lisbons, but instead, the audience — like the boys — is held at arm’s length. Coppola sticks to the format of the novel and filters the Lisbons’ story through the male gaze; we only see them the way the boys see them, both in reality and in their dreams. Lux is frequently seen in hazy glimpses that wouldn’t be out of place on the cover of a paperback edition of Lolita — a flash of flaxen hair covering a twinkling blue eye, red lips curling into a mischievous a smile, long limbs leaping into the air with carefree abandon while a unicorn frolics nearby. Such an object of pure fantasy is Lux that her image is synonymous with that of a creature that only exists in fairy tales. Notebook doodles of hearts and names in cartoonish bubble letters illustrate the film, adding to the illusion that this is all a teenage dream.

Sixteen years after The Virgin Suicides, Deniz Gamze Ergüven made a big splash with Mustang, the emotional turmoil of the teenage years once again providing the inspiration for a talented woman director’s debut feature. Rather than tell their story from the point of view of an outsider, Mustang is narrated by the youngest sister, Lale (Güneş Şensoy), as she helplessly watches her older sisters fall victim one by one to what adults — particularly men — think a young woman should be. Because of this, Mustang feels more intimate, more immediate, and much more heartbreaking than Coppola’s film.

Mustang begins with the life-changing fallout from a seemingly harmless event: five orphaned sisters having chicken fights with the local boys on the beach. The image of these girls riding on the boys’ shoulders — rubbing their private parts on their necks, as their grandmother puts it — is a source of shame in the tiny, conservative village where they live. The elder girls are even subject to a virginity exam in the aftermath, with the ominous warning, “If there was the slightest doubt, you’d never be able to get married.”

The punishment for “teasing the boys” only escalates as the girls’ aggressively old-fashioned Uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) takes control over their lives; meanwhile, the boys involved are able to move on. The infuriating double standard that girls and boys are often held to is on display time and time again throughout Mustang — after all, none of the male characters are ever subject to the humiliation of a virginity test. The girls’ developing bodies are viewed as dangerous objects of temptation that must be subject to control, but one never suggests that the boys should be able to control themselves.

Like Lux sobbing as she is forced to burn her Kiss records in The Virgin Suicides, the girls of Mustang are forced to give up their computers, phones, and anything else that is deemed a perverting influence. The sisters are forbidden from returning to school; instead, they spend their days learning how to cook and clean while wearing “shapeless, shit-colored dresses” that Mrs. Lisbon (Kathleen Turner) would have admired. It is only a matter of time until families come calling to ask for the sisters’ hands in marriage on behalf of their sons. As Lale notes, “The house became a wife factory that we never came out of.”

While it was the actions of the youngest sister that set the story of The Virgin Suicides in motion, in Mustang, the youngest girl starts the story on the sidelines. Lale is too young to be immediately threatened by the prospect of becoming someone’s wife. Her older sisters’ growing sexuality is still a mystery to her, one that she tries to solve by stealing eldest sister Sonay’s (İlayda Akdoğan) bras and kissing pictures of men in magazines. Meanwhile, Sonay is shimmying down the drainpipe every night to meet with her lover, using her body as a means of rebellion in the same way Lux did.

Sonay refuses to marry unless it is to this man of her choice, and shockingly, she gets her way — better she be married off, after all, then not married at all. So, the man meant for Sonay gets passed down to the second sister, Selma (Tuğba Sunguroğlu), with no regard to how she may feel about him. On her wedding night, Selma is rushed to the hospital for yet another invasive examination after she fails to bleed upon having sex for the first time; she’s treated like a defective appliance being returned to the store by a frustrated customer. Her husband has no concern for her emotional well-being, only that of her hymen. Selma’s life as something that belongs to her alone is effectively over.

The middle sister, Ece (Elit İşcan), is next, and her story is the saddest of all the girls in Mustang. Abused by Uncle Erol (Ayberk Pekcan) and repeatedly denied the right to make her own choices, the only way Ece can prove to herself and others that she is still her own person is to choose to die. Her suicide is horrifying, a tragic act, particularly because it is also a form of liberation — the only one she had at her disposal. Ece rejects a life in a house that has become a prison, where nothing — not even her own body — is her own to do with as she pleases. As in The Virgin Suicides, taking one’s life is a desperate form of defiance, the only way to take control of oneself and one’s personhood. It should never, ever be that way, and yet the most painful thing about Ece’s death is knowing that there are other girls like her, and her sisters, in similar situations around the world.

After Ece’s suicide, second-youngest sister Nur (Doğa Zeynep Doğuşlu) is next in line for both marriage and Uncle Erol’s abuse; she’s also the only one left standing between Lale and this terrible fate. A passive observer of the events unfolding around her for much of the film, Lale grows increasingly active as she edges closer to the end of the wife assembly line. She convinces a friendly trucker to teach her to drive. On the night of Nur’s wedding, the two girls lock everyone out of the house so that they can prepare their escape. That’s right — the house that was for so long a prison is for a very brief moment a refuge, with Uncle Erol attempting to break down the door like a rabid animal. In the end, Nur and Lale make it to Istanbul, the bustling metropolis portrayed a symbol of freedom and modernity.

While The Virgin Suicides often has the aura of a dream thanks to its ethereal cinematography, swoon-worthy score by Air, and fantasy sequences, Mustang feels utterly grounded in the blood, sweat, and tears of reality — and because of that, it’s all the more painful and poignant to watch. A scene in which the sisters sneak out of the house to attend a soccer match was one of the most exhilarating moments I have ever seen on-screen, while Ece’s hauntingly calm exit from the kitchen table to take a gun and end her life nearly wrenched my heart in two. What is most heartbreaking about Mustang is the knowledge that communities like this exist throughout our world today (not to mention the sexism girls face in countries with supposed equality), continually repressing girls and telling that they are worth no more than their wombs. Their world is harsh and cruel, with flashes of beauty — the sparkling fireworks at the soccer match, the bright white sand of the beach shimmering beneath the clear blue sky — that are all too fleeting in the darkness.

Meanwhile, The Virgin Suicides seems to project glamour onto the lives and deaths of the Lisbons — likely because we are seeing them through the eyes of the boys, who always saw them as glamorous engimas. Unlike the sisters of Mustang, the Lisbon sisters don’t seem entirely real; there is an element of distance that prevents us from getting close enough to peer inside their heads and hearts. We don’t see them the way they seem themselves; we see them the way the boys do, which is less as fully-fledged human beings than as unattainable objects to lust after, like sparkling jewels kept locked away in a rusty casket that was then lost forever at sea. Because of this, one doesn’t feel the sucker punch of their deaths in the same way that one does Ece’s in Mustang. It doesn’t help that from the opening lines of The Virgin Suicides, we know that the story will end with all of the Lisbon sisters dead. This knowledge keeps us from being fully invested in their struggle for life, because we already know they won’t succeed. A story of the past recounted from the present with a languid tone of nostalgia and regret, The Virgin Suicides lacks the urgency of Mustang, which feels entirely of the here and now. Yet while these films might not emotionally connect with the audience in the same way, both still succeed in showing us the tragic consequences of confining teenage girls at a time in their lives when they most need to spread their wings.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Sofia Coppola and the Silent Woman; Director Spotlight: Sofia Coppola

Recommended Reading: An Interview with Deniz Gamze Ergüven on Her Feminist Fairytale ‘Mustang’ by Ren Jender via The Toast

‘The World Is Not Enough’ and the “Believability” of Dr. Christmas Jones

Dr. Jones went from being a promising step forward for Bond girls to one of the more maligned female characters of the franchise. … And this is what is the most disappointing thing about Dr. Jones. She’s a tough-talking woman whose best moments in the film come when she grows impatient with Bond’s testosterone-driven idiocy and counters his quips with her own formidable sarcasm, yet in the end, she’s just like any of those earlier Bond girls that Denise Richards dismissed as lacking depth…

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Women Scientists.

The character of the Bond girl is nearly as iconic as that of James Bond himself. After all, one of MI6 Agent 007’s defining features — and indeed, one of his biggest weaknesses, one that his enemies exploit time and time again — is his love of the opposite sex. Over the course of 24 films spanning 54 years, Bond has met his match — whether it be intellectually, sexually or a combination of both — in numerous women. While some seem to exist only as a pretty face and body for the audience to ogle as Bond utters some his infamous double entendres, many others stand on their own as vibrant, complicated characters. These are women with their own inner lives, their own professions, their own reasons for being beyond just being eye candy. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t still conventionally attractive; the more modern version of the Bond girl often has brains, but you better bet she still has beauty, too.

The World Is Not Enough is a perfectly acceptable James Bond adventure directed by Michael Apted and starring Pierce Brosnan as 007. Story-wise, it doesn’t reach the heights of From Russia With Love or GoldenEye. But it’s an exciting, action-packed romp featuring a great Bond girl performance by Sophie Marceau as Elektra King, the daughter of an oil tycoon who is not what she seems. The film’s other female lead is a nuclear scientist with the unfortunate moniker of Dr. Christmas Jones, played by a 28-year-old Denise Richards. Previous Bond girls have included fellow agents (both allies and enemies), assassins, thieves, and heiresses (like Elektra King), not to mention the occasional pilot or fortune-teller; adding a nuclear scientist to their ranks could be viewed as a step forward into a more feminist future for the franchise. When asked about the role, Richards told BBC News that she felt the “brainy and athletic” Dr. Jones had more substance than Bond Girls of the past:

“The female roles now have a lot more depth – it’s more than just running around on Bond’s arm. Christmas is strong, intelligent and sassy and there’s an infectious one-upmanship and clever banter between her and James Bond.”

Unfortunately, not many people agreed with her. Upon The World is Not Enough’s release in 1999, a sizeable portion of the criticism was leveled at Dr. Jones — much of it bemoaning the curve-hugging wardrobe she sported throughout the film and insisting that Richards just wasn’t believable as a nuclear scientist. Richards ended up being the recipient of the Bond franchise’s first-ever Razzie Award, while a 2006 Entertainment Weekly list of the 10 worst Bond girls ranked her #1: “Let’s review: Denise Richards played Dr. Christmas Jones, a nuclear physicist who wore a tank top and hot pants. Bloody hell, even Q didn’t have a gadget to help Bond escape from that disaster.” Yet such skin-deep criticism of this character is unfair, and barely skims the surface as to why Dr. Jones went from being a promising step forward for Bond girls to one of the more maligned female characters of the franchise.

Dr. Jones is introduced about halfway through The World is Not Enough, when she emerges from a protective jumpsuit at a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile base in the middle of the Kazakhstan desert. Bond is posing as a Russian nuclear scientist to figure out what notorious terrorist Renard (Robert Carlyle) is doing at the base when he is introduced to Dr. Jones, an American nuclear physicist who has been recruited by the International Decommissioning Agency to help reduce Russia’s stockpile of nuclear weapons by dismantling its nuclear warheads. A tough job, to be sure, and Dr. Jones’ frosty reception of Bond at the base immediately establishes her as someone who has had to be very tough to get where she is in life. Despite being the head of the project, she is clearly not used to being taken seriously, and so overcompensates by being extra imperious towards the men around her to ensure that they keep in line. As Bond ogles her long, tanned limbs as she emerges from her jumpsuit clad in, yes, a tank top and shorts, his guide describes her as the base’s bit of “glimmer” and glumly notes, “Not interested in men. Take my word for it.” Naturally, Dr. Jones overhears, and immediately assumes that Bond’s intentions towards her are along the same lines:

Dr. Jones: Are you here for a reason, or are you just hoping for a glimmer?
Bond: Mikhail Arkov, Russian atomic energy department. And you are, miss?
Dr. Jones: Doctor Jones. Christmas Jones, and don’t tell me any jokes, I’ve heard them all.
Bond, innocently: I don’t know any doctor jokes.

It’s ironic that the character of a beautiful young scientist who is bitter about being dismissed by the men around her as just a bit of “glimmer” was then just as easily dismissed as such by audiences. One can argue that Dr. Jones’ costume caters to the male gaze and that yes, she might have been taken more seriously if she had worn a less-revealing wardrobe, rather than one reminiscent of another sexy scientist: archaeologist Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Yet the notion that beautiful women should have to diminish their appearances in order to be taken seriously — especially when working in a traditionally male-dominated field — is just as outdated as anything in the Bond films of the 1960s. In 2006, Casino Royale addressed this issue in regards to Bond girl Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), an accountant from HM Treasury with a brusque manner of speech and a stylish but severe black suit that she wears like a suit of armor. Lynd is smart, tough and, because she’s a Bond girl, also incredibly beautiful. After a conversation about the art of reading one’s opponents during poker, Lynd then asks Bond to read her:

Lynd: What else can you surmise, Mr. Bond?
Bond: About you, Miss Lynd? Well, your beauty’s a problem. You worry you won’t be taken seriously.
Lynd: Which one can say of any attractive woman with half a brain.
Bond: True. But this one overcompensates by wearing slightly masculine clothing. Being more aggressive than her female colleagues. Which gives her a somewhat prickly demeanor, and ironically enough, makes it less likely for her to be accepted and promoted by her male superiors, who mistake her insecurities for arrogance.

Bond could also have been talking about Dr. Jones, who shares Lynd’s “prickly demeanor” and is viewed as arrogant by the men around her, who can’t believe that she isn’t interested in them. But, she never got the memo about the wardrobe, and one wonders that if Dr. Jones just bothered to put on a pair of slacks, perception of the character would have been different. Indeed, once one is able to suspend any disbelief that they might have over a nuclear scientist being capable of looking good in short-shorts, one realizes that Dr. Jones isn’t a terrible character — like many Bond girls from the series’ earlier era, she’s just a mediocre one.

Soon after Bond and Dr. Jones are introduced, they team up to track down Renard, who has run off with a stolen bomb. When they find the bomb hidden in an oil pipeline, they rocket in on an inspection car so that Dr. Jones can dismantle it, only to find out that half of the device’s plutonium is missing. Even though she doesn’t exactly enjoy spending substantial amounts of time running around with a man who only “speaks spy,” Dr. Jones is determined to help Bond track down the plutonium, noting, “The world’s greatest terrorist running around with six kilos of weapons-grade plutonium can’t be good. I gotta get it back, or someone’s gonna have my ass.” Bond, ever the gentleman, responds, “First things first.”

Now, Richards’ performance is not one that will go down in the history books as a landmark of great acting. But, it doesn’t deserve to be remembered as one of the worst, either. She does her best with the dialogue that is given to her — some of which is, as Richards mentioned when discussing the role, surprisingly sassy and snarky, reflecting her dismissive attitude towards Bond’s heavy-handed, uber-masculine tactics. The problem is, screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade just don’t give her enough, and when they do, it is too often bland statements of the obvious. It’s not that she isn’t believable as a nuclear scientist; it’s that after awhile, we just forget that she is one. Dr. Jones wastes more breath bluntly stating what is happening than she does explaining why; she’s the smartest person in the room for most of the movie, but is rarely given the chance to show it. I refer to this phenomenon as the Legolas Effect, named for the handsome elf archer played by Orlando Bloom in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Legolas rarely shows the wisdom of elves, and instead periodically utters pointless lines like “A diversion!” to remind the audience that he’s more than just a pretty piece of scenery placed in the background of Aragorn’s epic speeches. The same goes for Dr. Jones, who at one point screams, “It’s flooding!” while tons of water gushes into the submarine where she and Bond are waging war with Renard. Moments like this demolish any credibility that Dr. Jones built up while dismantling nuclear bombs and just make her look silly.

Speaking of silly: The World is Not Enough culminates in the stereotypical closing-credits sex scene with Bond that is chock full of the terrible Christmas jokes that Dr. Jones was so firmly against when she was introduced earlier in the movie, including what is the most cringeworthy closing line in the entire franchise: “I thought Christmas only comes once a year.” And this is what is the most disappointing thing about Dr. Jones. She’s a tough-talking woman whose best moments in the film come when she grows impatient with Bond’s testosterone-driven idiocy and counters his quips with her own formidable sarcasm, yet in the end, she’s just like any of those earlier Bond girls that Richards dismissed as lacking depth: she helplessly collapses into the arms of Bond and allows him to turn her into a punchline after all.

Watching The World is Not Enough seventeen years later, one can’t help but feel that both Dr. Jones and the woman who portrayed her were treated somewhat harshly. The role is unfortunately underwritten, and Richards’ performance in the film pales in comparison to that of the fiery Marceau (to see the two women side by side is to automatically see Richards in a less complimentary light), but to only describe the character’s failings in terms of her appearance says more about the audience than it does about the character. At this point, it should go without saying that scientists come in all shapes, sizes, colors and genders. Instead, our perceptions and prejudices have colored our negative impressions of Dr. Jones. While she isn’t one of the best Bond girls, she doesn’t deserve all of the worst-ever criticism that have been bestowed upon her — nor does Richards deserve the majority of the blame for why the character just doesn’t quite work.

Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. She previously reviewed new DVD and theatrical releases as a staff writer for Just Press Play. You can follow her on Medium for more film reviews and on Twitter for an excessive amount of opinions on German soccer.

Daisy Johnson, Superheroine of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ — And Why She Matters

What makes Daisy special among superheroes is that she embodies all of these tropes as the centerpiece of a network television series — and is also a woman. Not only that, she is a mixed-race woman — and not a token one, but one surrounded by other women, of various ages, races and backgrounds.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Superheroines. | Spoilers ahead.

Much more family-friendly and comic-book kooky than its dark, disturbing and acclaimed Netflix siblings, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is often treated like the black sheep of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by critics, audience members and even Marvel itself. Having just wrapped its third season, S.H.I.E.L.D. boasts one of the most underrated ensemble casts on television — not to mention one of the most diverse. Said cast features many amazingly complex, flawed, and fantastic women heroes who juggle trying to save the world with their own personal quests for family, love, acceptance, and peace of mind. In a television landscape where female characters frequently suffer and die just to further the storylines of their male co-stars, S.H.I.E.L.D. consistently gives these women their own stories and allows these stories to drive the show forward. Chief among them is Daisy Johnson, an ace computer hacker who joins S.H.I.E.L.D. to dig up information on her unknown parents and ends up discovering that she is a superpowered Inhuman.

When S.H.I.E.L.D. debuted in Fall 2013, the advertisements implied that it was a vehicle for Agent Phil Coulson, played by Clark Gregg, who was mysteriously raised from the dead after meeting a tragic end in The Avengers. I eyed these ads with trepidation, looking forward to an opportunity to enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe every week but worried that Coulson wouldn’t be able to carry a show. Turns out, the reason why S.H.I.E.L.D. excels is because he doesn’t. The true star of S.H.I.E.L.D. is Daisy, who over the course of three seasons goes from having no family to being torn between two — S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Inhumans — to finding herself alone again. This tumultuous inner conflict is what cements Daisy as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s emotional center and one of the more complicated characters in the male-dominated Marvel Cinematic Universe. She is not a perfect superheroine, but as one of only a few currently gracing our screens, she should not be taken for granted.

Daisy, played by Chloe Bennet, has evolved so much since the show’s pilot that she no longer goes by the same name. The series introduces her as Skye, a member of the hacktivist group Rising Tide who spent her childhood getting passed around a series of foster homes. Skye is trying to dig up information on her birth parents, who she believes were connected to S.H.I.E.L.D.; it is revealed partway through the first season that she was dropped off at an orphanage by an unknown S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. It says a lot about the lack of diversity in television that for awhile, everyone assumed that said S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and Skye’s mother, was going to be Melinda May, played by Ming-Na Wen. (Bennet’s father is Chinese-American; her given name is Wang, but she now uses her father’s first name as her surname.) Two Asian-American actresses on the same program? There must be a connection, many fans mused, despite not wondering the same about all of the white actors on the show.

At first, Skye is little more than a vehicle for the audience’s entry into the covert world of S.H.I.E.L.D. Many of the early episodes spend too much time debating Skye’s loyalties, and the repetition grows exhausting. Audience members who survived this slow-moving, low-stakes freshman year were rewarded with a much more exciting sophomore season and a much more well-rounded Skye, now a full-fledged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with the trust of her team and top-notch training from known badass Melinda, definitely the most competent agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Another shout out to Ming-Na Wen, who beats up men twice her size and half her age on a weekly basis.) Skye has not yet found her birth parents, but in S.H.I.E.L.D., she has finally found some form of family and identity.

That long-sought sense of stability doesn’t last for long. Soon, Skye is introduced to her birth parents, given her real name — Daisy Johnson — and transformed into an Inhuman. Her power is a literal embodiment of the upheaval and instability that plagues her life — the ability to create earthquakes. As the only Inhuman member of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daisy finds herself once again feeling alone; her powers are viewed as a potentially dangerous liability while she is still struggling to gain control over them. Daisy turns to the Inhumans to find a new sense of belonging as well as an understanding of her powers, only to find herself with divided loyalties when her vengeful Inhuman mother tries to sell her on a war against S.H.I.E.L.D. In the end, Daisy sides with S.H.I.E.L.D., but not without a great sense of loss and regret for what might have been in regards to her all-too-brief time with her mother. Daisy comes away with a desire to use the powers of S.H.I.E.L.D. to find, train and protect other Inhumans; the conflicts that desire causes within both groups becomes one of the driving forces of the series. Literally everything that follows ties into this uneasy alliance, brokered by a driven and determined Daisy, which devolves into conflict when the ancient Inhuman Hive shows up with the goal of coercing other Inhumans to help him conquer humanity.

The arrival of Hive subjects Daisy to a horrific brainwashing experience that turns her against S.H.I.E.L.D. and makes her content to follow Hive’s every order — even if it meant nearly killing her old partner, Mack. The storyline is eerily reminiscent of Jessica Jones’ experiences at the hands of Kilgrave, but without the overt references to rape — though, watching Daisy contently nestle her head on Hive’s shoulder while he plots the downfall of humanity is enough to send shivers down one’s spine. Even after being cured of Hive’s brainwashing, Daisy suffers from aftereffects similar to a drug withdrawal, while simultaneously berating herself viciously for having put her team in danger. Her sense of personal responsibility for actions she committed without having any control over them is heartbreaking, to the point that it would verge on melodramatic if Bennet was not such a capable actress; like the character she portrays, she has definitely developed better control over her abilities over time. By the end of the finale, Daisy abandons S.H.I.E.L.D.– but, it’s not all bad. She returns to a state of isolation and mistrust similar to the one we first found her in, but there’s one big difference: now she knows who she is. That identity as an Inhuman, and the desire to use her powers to help others and to atone for her misdeed while under Hive’s control, is what drives her forward. Daisy might be a fugitive from justice, but in the moment that the woman who newspaper clippings refer to as Quake uses her powers to escape S.H.I.E.L.D., hot on their former agent’s tail, she truly comes into her own as a superheroine.

The character of Daisy is not perfect; some think that others save her too frequently, though I think she returns the favor just as often. Nor is her storyline terribly revolutionary; struggles of identity and the need to reconcile both the heroic and non-heroic sides of one’s personality are not uncommon in superhero stories. What makes Daisy special among superheroes is that she embodies all of these tropes as the centerpiece of a network television series — and is also a woman. Not only that, she is a mixed-race woman — and not a token one, but one surrounded by other women, of various ages, races and backgrounds. In the Marvel movies, there are hardly ever enough women to have a conversation together, while on S.H.I.E.L.D. the women converse regularly, and about all sorts of topics unrelated to men. They mentor each other and challenge each other. They frequently are the ones giving the orders (and defying them) and are respected by their peers. None of these things should be extraordinary any more — and yet, they still are. Dee Hogan sums up S.H.I.E.L.D.’s sense of equality pretty well in this description of a scene in the season three finale for The Mary Sue:

“During this stretch, the ladies to do [sic] a whole lotta butt-saving without having to die in the process, which helps maintain gender parity in terms of who saves whom this week while thankfully not adding to the year’s Dead Female Character tally.”

What can Marvel’s movies learn from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s small-screen superheroines? Why do the films, as enjoyable as I find them to be, always tend to disappoint in their depiction of women, and how can they improve? Representation at the highest levels definitely helps — co-showrunner Maurissa Tancharoen is an Asian-American woman, and Marvel’s other women-centric series, Jessica Jones and the dearly departed Marvel’s Agent Carter, had women literally running the show. It might seem like a deceptively easy solution, but it’s one that DC, at least, has taken to heart in giving Monster’s Patty Jenkins the reins on the much-anticipated Wonder Woman. One hopes that the perpetually-delayed Captain Marvel, adapted from Kelly Sue DeConnick’s iteration of the comics by Guardians of the Galaxy’s Nicole Perlman and Inside Out’s Meg LeFauve, will fill some of the void (if it ever makes it to the multiplex). Until then, I’ll continue keeping company with Daisy Johnson, superheroine of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Lee Jutton has directed short films starring a killer toaster, a killer Christmas tree, and a not-killer leopard. She previously reviewed new DVD and theatrical releases as a staff writer for Just Press Play. You can follow her on Medium for more film reviews and on Twitter for an excessive amount of opinions on German soccer.

Kathryn Bigelow’s ‘Near Dark’: Busting Stereotypes and Drawing Blood

Both brutally violent and shockingly sexy, ‘Near Dark’s influence can be felt nearly thirty years later on a new crop of unusual vampire dramas that simultaneously embrace and reject the conventions of the genre. … Yet among all these films about outsiders, ‘Near Dark’ will always have a special place in my heart for being the one to show me that as a filmmaker, I was not alone in the world after all.

This guest post written by Lee Jutton appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

There were many reasons why I felt like an outsider while studying film and television production at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Some were related to class; I felt as though everyone around me had more money (and fewer student loans). Some were related to my lack of practical production experience; prior to film school, I had never operated a camera apart from a few silly movies starring action figures. Some reasons, I am willing to admit, were inside my own introverted, antisocial head. However, it was my taste in film that really made me feel as though I did not belong at a school with “arts” in its name. I like action movies packed with stylish fight sequences, zombie movies so gory that every frame is splattered with brains, and science-fiction movies crammed with special effects. As a writer and director, I aspired to be Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright, Quentin Tarantino, Guy Ritchie and Robert Rodriguez all rolled into one frenetic package, which makes you feel a bit awkward when everyone around you worships at the art-house altars of David Lynch and Terrence Malick. It’s also a bit awkward when you realize that all of the directors you look up to are men.

When I was in my final year at NYU, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. This was already a big deal, but it was all the more important to me because she had won it for directing The Hurt Locker, a tense, literally explosive drama about a troubled bomb diffuser in Iraq. Here was a woman making films that were dark, disturbing, visually compelling and packed with action — all things I aspired to include in my own work — and getting recognized for it by the Hollywood establishment. Delving deep into Bigelow’s wide-ranging oeuvre, which includes Soviet submarine thriller K-19: The Widowmaker and Keanu classic Point Break, inspired and reassured me while I was struggling to pinpoint my own identity, both as a filmmaker and a woman.

My favorite Kathryn Bigelow film, and the one I feel the most kinship with as a filmmaker, is her second feature, Near Dark. Released in 1987 at the height of a bloodsucker boom led by The Lost Boys, it manages to stand out from the pack thanks to its improbable but incredible combination of the vampire genre with that of the Western to create one weird, pulpy masterpiece. Before watching Near Dark, I primarily expected to encounter vampires in eerie, overcast Eastern European locales filled with fog and ancient history; to encounter them smashing across the broad, sunburnt plains of Texas in a battered motorhome was shocking and refreshing. Near Dark’s vampires are never referred to as such, nor do they have the chivalrous manners and old-fashioned elegance of many of their forefathers. Rather, they’re a marauding band of leather-coated drifters who wouldn’t be out of place in the world of Mad Max, coated liberally with blood, sweat and dirt. Both brutally violent and shockingly sexy, Near Dark’s influence can be felt nearly thirty years later on a new crop of unusual vampire dramas that simultaneously embrace and reject the conventions of the genre.

Near Dark opens with a close-up of a bloodsucking creature, but not the one that you expect — it’s a mosquito, hovering on the arm of farm boy Caleb Colton (an achingly young Adrian Pasdar) until he smacks it away. Driving into town to meet some friends, he spies an innocent-looking blonde pixie of a girl emerging from a shop while licking a vanilla ice cream cone. What follows is an all-American meet-cute laden with vampire innuendo that poor Caleb just cannot comprehend.

“Can I have a bite?” Caleb drawls, oozing earnest Southern charm.
“A bite?”
“Yeah. I’m just dying for a cone.”
“Dying?”

The girl, Mae (Jenny Wright), is not just any pretty girl. She’s a honey trap, luring unsuspecting victims into the clutches of her nomadic vampire family. Caleb behaves as though Mae is the prey, the object to be pursued and hopefully won; little does he know, it is entirely the other way around. When he tries to impress her with a lasso, she grabs hold of the rope herself and reels him in, shocking him with her strength. “I haven’t met any girls like you,” Caleb says, attempting to flatter her. “No,” Mae replies in a tense voice, “You sure haven’t.”

The instant, almost animal attraction between Caleb and Mae is obvious, and they share a long, romantic night driving around the Texas plains before Mae begins to panic that she won’t be home before sunrise. Caleb assumes she’s only afraid her daddy will punish her for being out all night, and coyly asks for a kiss before she goes. What he gets is far more than he bargained for — a passionate, hungry kiss, sure, but one that culminates in a nasty bite on the neck and the sight of his bright red blood dripping down Mae’s white chin as she hops down from his truck.

Soon it is morning, and Caleb finds himself staggering across the fields towards his father’s farm, weakened by the harsh rays of the rising sun, with telltale smoke sizzling up from his slowly roasting skin. Before he can make it to safety, he is scooped up by Mae and her gang in their motorhome. They’re ready to suck him dry — that is, until Mae mentions to the others that she did a bit more than just reveal her true nature to him. By biting him, he has become her responsibility –and potentially, her mate. Furious, the rest of the vampires reluctantly agree that Caleb can stay alive a little bit longer and be given the chance to learn to live like one of them. In other words, to live by the cover of darkness, luring (usually via hitchhiking) and killing innocent people without hesitation in order to survive.

“What do we do now?” Caleb, dumbfounded by his new immortal status, asks Mae.
“Anything we want, until the end of time,” she replies.

During Caleb and Mae’s first meeting, Caleb oozes confidence and plays at dominance, the way most boys do when trying to win over a girl. However, once he becomes a vampire, the reversal of stereotypical gender roles is striking. Caleb becomes entirely dependent on Mae. It is only her attraction to him that keeps the rest of her family from killing him on the spot, and it is only her willingness to kill for him and allow him to drink her own blood that keeps him alive in the days that follow. Caleb needs Mae, and because of this, their intimacy grows in new and bizarre ways. In one particularly passionate scene, Mae bites open her own wrist and clutches Caleb’s desperate, hungry head to her while he feeds, until he almost kills her in his fervor.

Despite his obvious need to consume blood, Caleb cannot bring himself to take a life, whereas the other vampires seem not only to kill to live, but also to live to kill. They’ve survived so long by any means necessary that they don’t hesitate to wipe out the entire clientele of a rundown roadside bar for both food and fun (a scene of creative carnage that rivals the equally deadly tavern scene in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds). The gang includes Jesse (Lance Henriksen), the charismatic leader who fought for the south in the Civil War; Jesse’s mate, Diamondback (Jenette Goldstein), whose big blonde hair and skintight ensembles can’t help but remind you of another iconic Eighties femme fatale, the android Pris in Blade Runner; Homer (Joshua Miller), who was turned as a boy and perpetually struggles with having an ancient brain trapped inside a child’s body; and the particularly vicious Severen (a delightfully unhinged Bill Paxton), who introduces himself to Caleb by informing him, “I’m gonna separate your head from your shoulders. Hope you don’t mind none.” They all speak in a bizarre, stylized version of Southern dialect that drips in menace and the occasional old-fashioned turn of phrase that comes from having lived long enough to take credit for starting the Great Chicago Fire. But Mae, the youngest of the vampires, is different. She kills to keep herself alive, but she seems to take a lot less sick joy in it than the others, and the more time she spends with Caleb, the more their heartless behavior seems to turn her off. By being with Caleb, she is reminded of what it was to be human — after all, she was one herself not so long ago.

Near Dark doesn’t have much in the way of plot; Caleb is dragged around Texas by the vampires, the timer on his existence counting down faster and faster, while his father and little sister search for him. The pulsating beat of the awesomely Eighties electronic score by Tangerine Dream adds to the urgency. It all culminates in an explosive finale with numerous characters meeting horrific ends via spontaneous combustion under the cloudless blue Texas sky — beautiful, and without mercy. There’s a happy ending that some might think a cop-out, as it goes against traditional vampire lore. Yet, rejecting traditional and expected vampire tropes is one of the things that makes Near Dark such a memorable film. Nothing about it is expected. It breaks all of the rules and makes up its own along the way. This Southern-fried story of young love, lust and lost innocence has as much in common with Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show than any Dracula movie.

Today, Near Dark’s legacy lives on in films like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, from another promising woman director, Ana Lily Amirpour. In a film described as “the first Iranian vampire Western,” Amirpour brings vampires to another unfamiliar locale — this time, a dead-end Iranian town called Bad City. Here, a nameless bloodsucking girl (Sheila Vand) prowls the dark, empty streets in a chador, using her deceptively delicate and feminine appearance to lure and attack men who abuse women. Like Mae, she is much stronger than she initially appears. Independent film icon Jim Jarmusch also recently experimented in the vampire genre with Only Lovers Left Alive, which stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as an ancient, moody, bohemian couple holed up in rundown Detroit. While less of a direct descendant of Near Dark than A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, ones feels that this sexy, slow-moving story could not have been told without its more frantically passionate predecessor. Here, the horror aspects of the traditional vampire story take a backseat as the film explores how love can be powerful enough to survive enough dark moments to fill multiple lifetimes. The loneliness inherent in being immortal seems to be the one constant among all vampire films, even the most untraditional ones — and yes, even Twilight. Yet among all these films about outsiders, Near Dark will always have a special place in my heart for being the one to show me that as a filmmaker, I was not alone in the world after all.