Martha Marcy May Marlene
Directed by Sean Durkin
Written by Sean Durkin
Written by Sean Durkin
with Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson
2011
A film not about joining a cult, as I had thought, but about trying to escape from one. As it opens we see a communal way of life; everyone has a job to do and everyone is expected to take part. It all seems very rustic and hippyish, but a sequence around the dinner table reveals an underlying segregation based on sex. One of the young women leaves the house, crosses the road, and runs into the forest. She hides from the people who go after her, but when she makes a phone call from town seems uncertain whether she wants to go further, or go back. This is Martha, but she’s also Marcy May, and Marlene. Her big sister on the phone, newly married and holidaying in a nearby yuppie retreat, hasn’t heard from her in two years and comes to pick her up. The rest of the film follows Martha attempting to readjust to normal life, with the spectre of her experience perpetually hanging over her; an atmospheric, impressionistic, and very effective psychological drama about identity and belonging.
As I said, the film isn’t about how she came to be in the cult. Reference is made to lost parents and a broken home, but chronologically speaking the earliest thing we see is her arrival, sitting on the grass being introduced to the leader, who renames her Marcy May. A good deal of the narrative flashes back to her time there: we see her initiation, the rhythm of life, and the increasingly dark set of events that convinced her to leave. But all these things are there to be echoed in her later behaviour. The cult leader, Patrick, is an off-screen presence as much as he is on-screen, and the moments when he is a threat rather than an active force are the most sinister. It’s when you see his invasive effect self-pervading among his people that you really understand what Martha has been through. As an actor John Hawkes has a low-key intensity that suits the role well, convincing you he could be this imposing without having to make his character too prominent. Performance-wise though the film definitely belongs to Elizabeth Olsen, who the camera barely leaves and isn’t scared of being just pitiable rather than sympathetic.
But it is writer-director Sean Durkin who deserves the most praise, for making such a downbeat and non-judgmental work so compelling. He presents everything through the eyes of Martha, and it’s a testament to his ability that the technically more interesting Charles Manson stuff doesn’t supersede the family strife of the film’s present. The key to the film is in its refusal to cast the two ways of life as normal and abnormal. Yes, the cult is the manipulative domination fantasy of an amoral crank, but when Martha escapes to the outside world she finds herself in another weird fantasy, except this time it’s the fake-wilderness of the well-to-do holiday home; a remote getaway with all the benefits of urban living. Martha finds it strange that only two people would live in such a big place, doesn’t understand her sister’s problem with skinny dipping, and has an attitude to sex that can be described as unshockable. Different members of the audience will have their own views on how acceptable each of these things is, but I’m sure there are people who don’t see any of those opinions as crazy, though in the latter’s instance she’s atleast antisocial. Thematically, however, the film benefits from making the lead character lost in a more recognisable sense than just screwed up.
The script is sparse and efficient, all the performances are perfectly restrained, and it looks very raw and unfussy. In fact the film is a bit self-consciously deadpan at times, with too many lingering shots on silent, preoccupied faces and frames filled with nothing but the suggestion of danger. It means there are points in the third act when the film almost loses itself in a haze of foreboding, but all is wrenched back into place by a fairly brilliant final shot, which is nothing but vindicating in the darkest way possible. It’s a perfectly tense note for the film to end on.
Tom
Tom
0 comments:
Post a Comment