‘Crimson Peak’: Guillermo del Toro’s Gothic Romance Offers a Gorgeous Chill

‘Crimson Peak’s connection to the “women’s pictures” of the ’40s and ’50s, and particularly Hitchcock’s ‘Rebecca,’ is instructive in reading it as a feminist film. Del Toro takes the tropes of a goodhearted, innocent protagonist, an oily older suitor, and a dangerous female rival whose hostility to the heroine is in part motivated by an “inappropriate” sexual desire, and recontextualizes them.

crimson_peak_mondo_sdcc_guy_davis

Guillermo del Toro’s eye-poppingly gorgeous new horror film/gothic romance, Crimson Peak, has generated mixed reviews, even getting panned by critics who acknowledge its aesthetic strengths. While complaints about the script (by del Toro and Matthew Robbins) aren’t entirely unfounded, complaints about the film’s excesses — from its gore to the batshit commitment of Jessica Chastain’s over-the-top performance, to the visual splendor itself — seem to misunderstand the filmmaker’s aim. Your mileage may vary, as always, but del Toro seems to be in complete control here. The movie is consistent in its vision, and consistent with the filmmaker’s work as a whole.

As he’s done throughout his career, del Toro mines the past for inspiration, then puts his own dark twist on the material. Crimson Peak‘s antecedents include Jane Eyre, Hitchcock classics like Suspicion and Rebecca, and the equally blood-drenched Hammer horror films of the 1950s-1970s. A horror geek of the highest order, del Toro makes loving use of the mood and plot elements of these older works, but makes the material his own.

Crimson Peak‘s connection to the “women’s pictures” of the ’40s and ’50s, and particularly Hitchcock’s Rebecca, is instructive in reading it as a feminist film. Del Toro takes the tropes of a goodhearted, innocent protagonist, an oily older suitor, and a dangerous female rival whose hostility to the heroine is in part motivated by an “inappropriate” sexual desire, and recontextualizes them. He makes the heroine, Edith Cushing (most likely named for Hammer star Peter Cushing), not merely an aspiring author who’s recently written a ghost story (“the ghost is a metaphor,” she explains), but the author of her own fate. As played by the consistently excellent Mia Wasikowska, Edith is a brave, resourceful, and powerful woman, with her own sexual desires.

cp edith candles

Tom Hiddleston is Thomas Sharpe, British nobility fallen on hard times. Thomas is charming but weak, as he is batted about by the passions of the two powerful women in his life.

crimson peak lucille and thomas

Chastain plays Lucille Sharpe, and from the beginning, both actor and director relish the character’s seething menace. There’s no doubt from the moment Lucille is introduced that she’s bad news, and that she’s running the show. As she explains threateningly to Edith early on in the film, Lucille is that black moth, thriving on dark and cold, and feeding on Edith’s pretty butterfly. It’s not a logical point in the film for Lucille to issue that veiled warning, but it delivers the intended chill, and, as with those ghosts, is a keen metaphor.

crimson peak Lucille

Edith is a frustrated author, living in turn-of-the-last-century Buffalo with her wealthy industrialist  father, Carter (the great Jim Beaver, beloved of HBO’s Deadwood, bringing an unusual but perfect gruffer-than-thou haughtiness to the role). Edith has personal experience with the supernatural. Her mother’s ghost issued a mysterious warning to her, as a child: “Beware Crimson Peak!” But Edith’s ghost story is not taken seriously because of her gender. She has a suitor, Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam), an ophthalmologist with an interest in Sherlock Holmes, but he clearly doesn’t inspire her. Then Thomas Sharpe comes into her life. He’s handsome and charming and seems genuinely interested in her work. Sharpe is looking for a partner to fund some technical advances at his red clay mine in England, but Carter sees through Sharpe’s charm to his financial desperation.

Noting Sharpe’s interest in Edith, Carter hires a private investigator (Burn Gorman) to look into Thomas and Lucille, and what he uncovers (not revealed to the audience until later in the film, but it should be increasingly clear to all but the densest viewers what’s going on here) is unsettling enough that he threatens Thomas and Lucille with exposure if they don’t leave town immediately, sweetening the deal with a bribe, payable only if Thomas breaks Edith’s heart before he leaves. Thomas knows just how to do it, too, attacking her writing ability.

One gruesome, beautifully staged murder later, Edith is a new bride on her way to Allerdale Hall in England. Her mother’s ghost probably should have told her, “Beware Allerdale Hall!” and not referred to the place by its nickname, which Edith doesn’t find out about until it’s too late.

CP Edith and Thomas at Allerdale

Allerdale Hall is a wonderful, creaky setting for a ghost story. It’s a classic haunted house, ancient and decrepit, filled with secrets and fluttering black moths. It’s built atop a deposit of red clay, and the blood red seeps into the building through the floors, walls, and pipes. Filled with mournful ghosts, it’s the perfect setting for a scary story, even if its true horrors are contained within the hearts of its living inhabitants.

It seems clear to me that del Toro is less concerned with creating a steel trap of a plot, which he fails to do in any case, and more concerned with atmosphere and with the emotional twists and turns of the story. If you’re chuckling and aghast at the film by turns, it’s working.

Even its detractors admit that Crimson Peak has atmosphere to spare, but they don’t give enough credit to del Toro and his collaborators (chief among them cinematographer Dan Laustsen and production designer Thomas E. Sanders) for creating a work that’s both gorgeous and extremely personal and unique. Crimson Peak is beautiful, but it’s not picture-postcard beautiful. It doesn’t look like a commercial for anything. It’s a fully realized vision of decay, gore, and grue. The playful transitions del Toro uses, those endearing wipes and irises, make it clear that del Toro is relishing the artificiality of it all. The performers play it straight, though, giving the story emotional heft despite that artifice.

Some have complained about the role the ghosts play in the film, but it’s as Edith says, they’re only a metaphor. They serve their function by being beautifully terrifying in their warnings to Edith. And their look — captured in the horror of their untimely deaths, wispy, smoke-like tendrils splaying out in every direction like flayed skin — is unique. It’s one of the few examples I can think of where CGI brings a unique visual sense to the horror — where it’s used expressively, and not just as a way to indicate scale, or to do things to the human body that can’t actually be done on a film set. These beautiful, unsettling ghosts are unlike any I’ve seen onscreen before.

cp edith and ghost

Edith falls ill as she unravels Lucille and Thomas’s plot. Thomas begins to develop genuine feelings for his mark, enraging Lucille. Alan, meanwhile, begins his own stateside sleuthing, uncovering the truth about the Sharpes. During the film, I felt like Hunnam’s adenoidal performance was the weak link of the film, but again, I feel like this is something del Toro intended. It’s clear that neither Alan nor Thomas is truly worthy of Edith.

Crimson peak keyhole

Her passion for Thomas is real, however, and eventually, she gets him away from Lucille long enough for him to have sex with her, on her terms. He’s weak and devious, but she wants him, and takes control of the situation to have her way.

For a while it seems Alan might save Edith, the damsel in distress. Those familiar with del Toro’s work know better, though. Since his second feature, Mimic, he has always had strong female characters in his films. In this instance, the strongest, Edith and Lucille, are destined to settle their score while the men look on from the sidelines.

crimson_peak_edith

If you’re alternately giggling and gasping, the movie is working. It’s outlandish and baroque, but the actors keep it grounded, and I found myself moved, not just by the passion of the characters, but by the evident passion of the filmmaker for the material. Crimson Peak may actually be Del Toro’s masterpiece. I’m convinced it is every bit as heartfelt and coherent as Pan’s Labyrinth, widely considered his best. This is a filmmaker working at the height of his abilities to deliver a grandly entertaining, uniquely gorgeous, and emotionally involving work of cinema, with a pronounced feminist bent.

Click here to see Del Toro discussing the film.

 

 

‘Pacific Rim’s Raleigh Becket Is a Strong Female Character, and That’s Great

So, yes. Raleigh Becket is a Strong Female Character. Sure, he’s not female, but as far as our understanding of SFCs goes–which here means well-written female and feminine characters–he’s aces. Raleigh Becket is supportive, sweet, intuitive, and loving, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not a damn thing.

Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket
Charlie Hunnam as Raleigh Becket

 

This guest post by Deborah Pless appears as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

No, that is not a typo. No, you are (probably) not suffering from a stroke. Neither am I. Yes, I am really referring to Charlie Hunnam’s character from Pacific Rim, the alarmingly dude-shaped Raleigh Becket. He’s a strong female character. And it’s great.
So what do I mean when I say this? Well, obviously, Raleigh isn’t technically female. Not in the physical sense, at least. He does not identify as a woman that we know of, nor does he exhibit any strong feminine traits. At least, not externally. Dude goes from being a street brawler to a cocky Jaeger pilot to a welder–all traditionally very masculine jobs and roles. To top it off, he’s a dude’s dude, always talking about the mechanics of his Jaeger, Gipsy Danger, and slightly prone to getting into unauthorized fights. All of which doesn’t sound all that stereotypically female. I know.
But Raleigh does exhibit other traits, ones much less on the surface, and those traits, while not exclusively female, are more traditionally feminine in nature. What I mean is, out of everyone in the movie, Raleigh, not Mako, is closest to our understanding of the “strong female character” trope. And that’s awesome.
Still from Pacific Rim
Still from Pacific Rim
For those of you who haven’t yet seen Pacific Rim, here’s a quick rundown. In 2013, Earth was first attacked by giant monsters that climbed out of an interdimensional rift in the Pacific Ocean. At first, these mega-godzillas devastated our shores, but the world quickly banded together to fight the threat. The solution? Giant robots, called Jaegers, which can fight the monsters, now dubbed Kaiju. The Jaegers are so massive that they need too pilots to “share the neural load” and for plot related reasons, the pilots have to be linked mentally to each other and the machine, so that they can work perfectly in sync.
Yeah, it’s a bit to get through just so we can start the story, but don’t worry. It’s worth it. Also, beware. This is gonna be SPOILERIFIC.
The film picks up seven years into the Kaiju War. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and his brother Yancy (Diego Klattenhoff) are Jaeger pilots, and two of the best. Cocky, charming, and completely assured in their abilities, the boys charge out into the night-time Bering Strait to face another Kaiju–the biggest one ever spotted.
The Becket Brothers
The Becket Brothers
They lose. Hard. Or rather, they win, but at a terrible cost. The Kaiju is both larger and stronger than they’ve ever faced, and as a result, they underestimate it. During the fight, it manages to tear off an arm of their Jaeger (which means that Raleigh experiences the sensation of having his own arm torn off), and then bites into the Jaeger’s head and straight up eats Yancy. Raleigh manages to kill it, but only barely. He pilots the Jaeger back to shore and then collapses.
Cut to five years later. The once thriving Jaeger program is on the brink of collapse. Raleigh has faded into obscurity as a drifting welder working on an anti-Kaiju wall, and the world is about to end. So naturally it’s right then that Marshall Pentecost (Idris Elba), head of the Jaeger program, finds Raleigh in order to recruit him for an end of the world mission to save the planet. The clincher? “Haven’t you heard, Mr. Becket? The world’s coming to an end. So where would you rather die? Here? Or in a Jaeger.”
It’s an easy choice.
Still from Pacific Rim
Still from Pacific Rim
There’s just one problem. Raleigh was still in “the Drift” with his brother when Yancy was eaten, and that kind of mental scarring doesn’t just go away. He’s leery of having someone in his head again. It seems like the central emotional story of the film is clear. Raleigh will struggle to trust someone enough to pilot again, pulling it together, after a few hours of brooding, just in time to save the world and get the girl. Right?
Well, no, actually. Raleigh comes to the Hong Kong Shatterdome with the expectation that he can’t let anyone back in, a belief that lasts about five minutes. Because immediately upon arrival at the Shatterdome, Raleigh meets Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi), Pentecost’s adopted daughter and a potential Jaeger pilot. Immediately, Raleigh changes his tune from “I’m not sure I can let anyone in my head again,” to “That’s her, she’s perfect, everyone in the Jaeger, let’s go fight some Kaiju!” It’s shocking, and fast, and completely not the characterization you expect.
Still from Pacific Rim
Still from Pacific Rim
In fact, the central emotional story of the film turns out not to belong to Raleigh, but rather Mako. An orphan of the Kaiju War, Mako wishes desperately to become a pilot in order to avenge her family, but is deemed too angry and emotionally volatile to make a good pilot. As it turns out, it’s Mako, not Raleigh, whose grief and rage endanger their connection, and it’s Raleigh’s job to emotionally balance her out and soothe the tempers around him.
This is what I mean when I say that Raleigh is a “strong female character.” Raleigh’s role in the film is that of friend, counselor, and emotional support–commonly the role given to a girlfriend or wife in a movie like this. He’s the Peggy to Mako’s Captain America, the Jane to her Thor, the Katara to her Aang. Raleigh is the supportive, emotionally intuitive counterpart to his impulsive, rash, and angry best friend. His journey is over in the first 20 minutes of the movie. Hers has just begun.
Part of what makes this film so remarkable is Raleigh’s complete lack of macho behavior. When verbally baited, both by a socially inept scientist (Charlie Day) and by an antagonistic pilot (Robert Kazinsky), Raleigh responds with honesty and tact. He’s calm, even when angry, and more in tune with the emotions of those around him than anyone else in the movie. The only time we see him react in anger is when the jerk-face pilot, Chuck, attacks Mako, and this particular scene actually feels rather out of character.
Still from Pacific Rim
Still from Pacific Rim
Not only this, but Raleigh is supportive to a degree rarely seen in action films at all. Upon finding out that Mako wishes to be a Jaeger pilot, his reaction is not to offer advice or criticism or anything about himself. Instead, he just tells her that he’s sure she will be. Even after she insults him and his actions, his response is still not to denigrate her dream. Rather, he says, “Well, thank you for your honesty. You might be right. But one day when you’re a pilot you’re gonna see that in combat you’ll make decisions, you have to live the consequences. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
Yeah. That’s what he says when he’s insulted. I am 95 percent sure that I have never been that nice in my entire life. Ever. It’s crazy.
And when Raleigh realizes that Mako could be his co-pilot, he is fierce and relentless in his efforts to get her in the role she dreams of. He argues with Marshall Pentecost. He faces down Chuck. He even argues with Mako, insisting that she follow her dream. Throughout all of this, the message is clear: I support you. You matter. Your hopes and dreams and feelings matter.
When she shuts him down, Raleigh leaves her alone. When he and Mako fight, he doesn’t go easy on her, but he’s thrilled when she beats him. When Mako screws up their trial run, Raleigh is the first one demanding that they get another try. Basically, Raleigh, far from being a macho manly man dealing with his inner angst, is actually a cheerleader campaigning for presidency of the Mako Mori Fan Club.
Like I said above: none of these are actually gendered traits. Raleigh is supportive, but that’s not a women-only kind of thing. Lots of men are supportive. And he’s emotionally engaged as well, but that’s not an exclusively female trait either. Not in reality.
Still from Pacific Rim
Still from Pacific Rim
But in movies? Yeah, kind of. Most movies, especially big-budget action flicks like Pacific Rim, the women are supportive and the men are emotional time-bombs. It’s so incredibly rare to see a man like Raleigh, who is both fully male and also incredibly feminine. Because that’s what these are. These are traditionally feminine traits, portrayed by a dude who likes to walk around with his shirt off.
And isn’t that what feminism is about, really? The right for women to pursue avenues traditionally held for men, and the right for men to pursue lives traditionally reserved for women. It goes both ways. Raleigh’s femininity in no way diminishes him as a character. In fact, it serves to enhance, and when combined with Mako’s masculinity, it makes them an unstoppable pair. Their partnership is built on their compatibility, and the fact that neither of them is cookie cutter masculine or feminine is just another part of that.
So, yes. Raleigh Becket is a Strong Female Character. Sure, he’s not female, but as far as our understanding of SFCs goes–which here means well-written female and feminine characters–he’s aces. Raleigh Becket is supportive, sweet, intuitive, and loving, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not a damn thing.

Deborah Pless runs Kiss My Wonder Woman and works as a youth advocate in Western Washington. You can follow her on twitter, just as long as you like feminist rants and an obsession with superheroes.

Cool Robots, Bad-Ass Monsters and Disappointment in ‘Pacific Rim’

Pacific Rim movie poster.


Written by Leigh Kolb

Spoilers ahead!

The theme at the core of Pacific Rim is that collaboration and trust lead to success. And while the sweeping visuals of human-team-led robots (Jeagers) fighting with ocean monster-aliens (Kaiju) left me surprisingly entertained and satisfied, the dialogue and plot relied heavily on tired tropes.
Pacific Rim, directed and co-written by Guillermo del Toro, treads lightly around commentary on humans’ environmental abuse of Earth and allowing women in combat roles, but the bulk of the plot relies on trope after trope to support the larger-than-life action sequences between the Jaegers and Kaiju.
Overall, the film works, and it continues to get great reviews; however, it could have worked so much better had the writers tried a little harder to stay away from clichés.
The film takes place just a decade in the future, in a world that’s been rocked and partially destroyed by the Kaiju coming from the depths of the Pacific Ocean and attacking cities. The international government is halting the Jaeger program (which puts two pilots–who must share a “neural handshake” mind-meld–in the driver’s seat of an enormous robot), and the crew has one more opportunity to fight the Kaiju. Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) leads a crew that includes his hand-picked choice of Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and, eventually, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi).
Stacker Pentecost.
Each of these three characters has an emotional weight–Pentecost feels protective of and responsible for Mori (he rescued and adopted her when her family was killed by the Kaiju), Becket lost his brother to the Kaiju while the two were mentally connected and fighting as co-pilots in a Jaeger, and Mori lost her family to the Kaiju when she was a little girl and has spent her life studying and training to become a pilot–and she’s “one of our brightest,” Pentecost says.
In his leadership position, however, Pentecost is concerned that Mori’s vengeance and difficult memories will impede her abilities to be a pilot, so he limits her career. Becket–who was literally in his brother’s mind when his brother was ripped from their Jaeger and brutally killed–and his memories are of no real concern to Pentecost.
Mako Mori.
While Pentecost’s fatherly feelings of protection and concern are justifiable, Becket is forceful in his desire to have Mori as a co-pilot. Her test numbers are strong and she fights him as an equal, which none of the male candidates could. With trepidation, Pentecost allows Mori to be Becket’s co-pilot.
The larger idea that women are “too emotional” for combat positions has been pervasive throughout the debate of women serving in combat positions (which the American military officially accepted in January 2013). Mori does get caught in her memories in her first major flight simulation with Becket; however, if she’s had hands all around her wringing about that possibility, certainly her anxiety over it would have helped push her over the edge. When anyone is told, over and over again, that she is fragile and emotional–chances are, some of that will be internalized.
Pentecost angrily dismisses her after her memory drift almost causes mass destruction (in fact, she asks to be dismissed, as she “respects” Pentecost, which she tells Becket is different than being “obedient”). Becket–after seeing her memories–tells Pentecost, “You rescued her, you raised her… now you’re holding her back.”
Mori is an equal to Becket.
Mori’s respect/obedience is troubling at times, but overall she is a strong female character. She’s excellent at what she does, and she is persistent at succeeding and meeting her goals. In fact, when Becket gets in a fight when another pilot is disrespectful to Mori, it feels odd and out of place–“nonsensical” and “unnecessary,” as Zev Chevat says at The Mary Sue. Otherwise, Becket is her greatest champion and leads with experience without being condescending.
And while the plot ebbs and flows in regard to its depiction of women (and I use that term broadly–Mori is really the only female character with lines), the film comes close to satisfying my desire for diversity and empowered female roles, but then it quickly regresses into tired tropes.
Becket is happy to see Mori is his co-pilot.
Becket seems to be the protagonist (and I almost thought at the beginning that there would be some interesting commentary on masculinity and military culture–from the monstrous masculine robots to the fact that Becket has to work in a dangerous menial construction job before being reassigned), but Mori is more fully developed, in terms of her memories and motivations. The two share a clear bond, and whether or not it’s a romantic one depends on the viewer (del Toro wasn’t totally sure, either).
At the end (after Pentecost has figured out that they need Mori and he asks her to “protect him”), Becket and Mori travel into the depths of the Pacific to Save Humanity. Once they get there to drop the bomb, their oxygen levels plummet and Becket tells Mori to retreat into a protective pod so he can drop the bomb. “I can finish this alone,” he says, giving her his oxygen.
So he does. His motivations are pure, but it still seems like a letdown to the viewer after all that Mori has accomplished. The final blow that does, indeed, Save Humanity, is dropped by our white male protagonist (the black man has sacrificed himself, and the Asian woman is protected in a little bubble).

 

I would have loved to at least see Mori giving Becket CPR to save him in the aftermath (instead of him just waking up), or something to level the heroism. Her role feels diminished at the end.
Becket and Mori are both heroes, but Becket is the default protagonist.
I don’t need a female protagonist in every film. However, when a film like this focuses on and develops the female lead without giving her the satisfaction of being a clear hero, something feels off. Either more needed to be done with Becket’s emotional baggage, or less with Mori’s. As it stands, the film perpetuated the notion that women’s emotions could be a hindrance in combat, and men’s emotions translate to strength in battle. Stuffing Mori into a pod at the climax of the film is symbolic of trying to shoo women back into their protected spaces so they don’t fly too close to the sun. I don’t think Becket as a character would have approved of that idea, nor would del Toro, probably. But that scene certainly left that taste in the viewer’s mouth–let the white guy finish the job!

I can’t stress enough how entertaining and well-done the visuals of this film are–and again, that’s coming from someone who did not expect to feel exhilarated while watching monsters fight robots. The lightly developed characters and don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it female empowerment, however, left much to be desired. And while the optimistic ending and refreshing lack of American exceptionalism reinforce the idea that everyone–different ethnicities, genders, and races–needs to work together to succeed, the lackluster writing and reliance on tropes still sends the message that women’s emotions can be a hindrance and that they need to be protected.

Mori is instrumental in helping save the world–but she doesn’t get to set off the bomb. She’s not fully treated as a damsel in distress, but she comes too close for comfort. Maybe, just maybe, next time Becket can retreat to the pod while Mori fries the enemy.

In addition to having an almost-not-really female protagonist, Pacific Rim really only caters to the female gaze, in terms of mild sexual objectification. I guess I am simply perpetuating this.

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri.