the Invitation: (2015. dir: Karyn Kusama) An extraordinary film which, if you look at the plot, might be classed as a psychological thriller, but it dredges up the kind of heavy loathing and dread that the best horror does. The acting is first-class (including excellent use of my two favorite actors from Carnivale, Toby Huss and John Carroll Lynch). A group of old friends gathers for a dinner party after a few years apart instigated by a tragedy, and these actors really do feel like old friends. It's set in a mansion in the Hollywood hills, and although the house itself doesn't feel like a character as in your haunted house films, the view from the terrace and the winding road up and away from the hoi-polloi makes L.A. feel like an integral, living part of the story. Kusama knows just when to take us up close into our main character's haunted head (Logan Marshall-Green, revealing a star talent) and when to come back into the world of tense laughter and conversation. This is a director who knows exactly what she's doing.
The ending gave me shivers, down my spine and along my arms.
Seriously, it's such a good movie it works on your mind for days after.
Strangerland (2015. dir: Kim Farrant) Bleak, fascinating movie about a disconsolate emotional winter fallen across a family (husband and wife sleep in separate rooms, the son walks all night and never sleeps) as the teenaged daughter's powerful onslaught of sexuality wreaks havoc. When both kids go missing during a dust-storm, Catherine (Nicole Kidman) begins to feel the weight of her own long-lost sexual power during the frantic search. Hugo Weaving is lovely as a small-town cop, and there's something about the Australian outback, something more than bleak or wild, something that feels mythical. Characters refer to the Rainbow Serpent, the water-bringer associated with menstruation and so with the protection of women. When Catherine asks an aboriginal elder-woman about it, the woman says, "Children go lost here. It's something in the land."
Since Farrant's interest lies with the sexuality of the girl and the woman, the shape of the story goes awry of our usual expectations. It looks like it's set to be a mystery, then a thriller, and a strong sense of dread builds, but all the mysteries (as in life!) are not solved, and it's Catherine's internal journey that is followed to a point of catharsis. It's a movie more akin to Picnic at Hanging Rock in that sense, a movie unconcerned with cut-and-dried answers.
Joseph Fiennes is probably miscast as the strong but befuddled father. His hugely expressive eyes, a boon in many roles, play against him here, and someone more quintessentially Australian might have been a better fit. Think of a young Bryan Brown, that jagged chunk of Aussie masculinity, and how devastating it would have been at the end to see him break down in cathartic tears with his wife. Whereas Fiennes always kind of looks like he's about to cry, doesn't he?
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