Safe concerns Carol White (Julianne Moore), a stay-at-home mother who has got a relatively stable life, one where her biggest worry is simply figuring out if the new couch will match the color of the walls of her house. But then she begins to come down with a sickness, one that leaves her feeling constantly tired and prone to seizures. The doctors can't make heads or tails of this, by their accounts, Carol White is perfectly healthy. Clearly in some sort of medical disarray, Carol White begins to look all over for some kind of cure as her friends, neighbors and family begin to put a great deal of distance between themselves and Carol. Now Carol White isn't just sick, she's also being isolated from everyone around her.
Safe is not the first time Haynes has gone into the supposed safeness of Suburban American and shined a light on how this strain of society can ostracise anybody even slightly different from the norm. However, those who fret that Safe is just a retread of thematic material found in Haynes' later work need not fret. A key difference between Safe and other seemingly similar Haynes movies like the aforementioned Far From Heaven or Carol is that the protagonist of Safe never finds reaffirming companionship. There is no forbidden romance to help at least soothe Carol White into the prospect that her world is more morally complex than she presumed. The whole point of Safe is that she's left alone in the middle of her immense turmoil.
Though it doesn't have any jump scares or buckets of blood, the way Safe manifests Carol White's persistently lonely plight renders this project a horror film. This genre classification is reinforced by how Safe evokes horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Picnic at Hanging Rock in making so much terrifying stuff happen out in broad daylight. This is especially apparent in a sequence depicting White and a select few other people attending a group therapy session. This gathering led by a man who uses the softest voice and carries a trusting authority in his mannerisms. However, the words he speaks are truly disgusting as they paint personal pain as a choice that one can easily opt in and out of.
The sun may be shining, the group meeting leader may be cheerful, but none of that can distract from the idea that Carol White, a person in desperate need of help and validation of what she's going through, is trapped in an environment that's only exacerbating her health woes. If that isn't horrifying, I don't know what is. Similarly unnerving is a final scene depicting Carol White all alone in a bunker, staring at a mirror and just repeating a self-affirming mantra to her reflection. After a two-hour movie, this is all White has left. Just herself. Her pained face, placed in the center of the frame, gazes at the camera with a tormented expression that powerfully communicates the lonely existence Carol White is enduring.
This closing shot is a more intimate visual that stands in contrast to the predominately expansive visual approach used throughout Safe. Much of the film is framed through wide shots that at first are used to emphasize the grandiose excess of Carol White's day-to-day surroundings before being used as a way of emphasizing how alone White is once she gets sick. The empty space in any one of these frames perfectly captures how White, no longer fitting a traditional mold of an American housewife, is being ignored by the people around her. The same vividness Todd Haynes brought to lush romance in Carol is used for quiet but no less eerie horror in Safe. That's quite an incredible filmmaking feat to bring to life two opposing directorial approaches and it's that kind of talent that lends Safe so much of its effectiveness.
No comments:
Post a Comment