Empathy and Movies

I just returned from seeing Possession at my movie theater. It's an incredibly intense (and angry) movie that I've described as Cassevetes meets Lynch and a hyper-melodrama with supernatural elements as well as comparing it to Cronenberg's The Brood (for the anger) and Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (for the dream/nightmare-like atmosphere)*. As you can imagine, Possession is very hard to describe and is vastly different than what the title suggests. Here's the trailer:



This is one of those movies that I can't say I enjoy, but I would recommend to any adventurous moviegoer. I've had a number of interesting conversations and it's the type of material that stays with you for a few days. The acting is pitched at near screeching levels and the entire world exists in a heightened reality that pushes the boundary of what the viewer expects from a night at the movie. It's these last elements that bring me to my discussion.

My theater is known for monthly kung fu features and monthly grindhouse shows. Possession was not shown under the heading of either of those yet the audience appears to have approached it this way. Much to my chagrin, many people come to those screenings looking to laugh at the movies and not enjoy them for what they are. At some point in movie history, people decided that bad movies could be fun if you watched them for the purpose of making fun of them (I would think Mystery Science Theater 3000 is the starting place, but I could be wrong). As someone who only seeks out movies that I think I might like (or seeks them out to have an educated opinion on something, say Woody Allen or Quentin Tarantino), I think this concept is a waste of time. There's are literally thousands of good to great movies to still be seen. Why waste time on the shitty ones?

Alas, this is the culture in which we live. What started out as mocking obviously bad movies developed into audiences thinking that public spaces were a fine place to practice their wit (note to movie theater wise-asses: you're not funny). Sadly, even though we show many terrific grindhouse films (I'm not much into kung fu, but I'm told they're good), the reputation for these types of films precedes them. Audiences enter the theater with no intention of taking the movie seriously. Not only are they doing the filmmaker a disservice, but themselves because they are putting a wall up that prevents them from having an actual experience. They have no capacity to empathize.

Which brings me back to Possession. I'll be the first to admit that there are bizarre and funny touches, intentional and unintentional, but every seen between Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani is erupting with tension. I don't know how anyone could bring themselves to laugh while these character's lives are spiraling out of control along with their minds. Yet, the audience does, even during a scene in which Neill's character is beating Adjani's character. My mind was blown that people could find that funny**.

The great thing about Possession, though, which is unlike almost any other film, is that it punishes you for laughing. I don't mean to suggest it's doing this intentionally because I don't think the director, Andrzej Zulawski, expected people to laugh, but his film is so visceral and ratcheted up that he takes the viewer into uncomfortable territory. There are several scenes, including the beating, in which the audience initially saw humor but quickly became piped down. That was pleasing to see.

This experience made me realize that many of today's audiences come to watch movies with a chip on their shoulder. They go to movies on their terms, not the filmmaker's and the filmmakers have to work hard to get past the coating of snark and irony. It's disappointing that people can't let their guard down for new experiences and it's even more upsetting that their inability to keep it in the living room might ruin the experience for others. For many, unless there are massive explosions, the days of losing oneself in a movie are over.

*A coworker also posited that it's an alien invasion film, which is totally arguable.
**A friend suggested the laughter was nervous laughter, but much of it seemed more like belly laughs and not awkward titters to me. 

Never Trust a DVD Company That Releases Crappy Horror Movies

A result of how I stock my Netflix queue is that I watch a lot of bad movies. I put anything on that has interesting cover art and a fun sounding synopsis without doing any follow-up research. What can I say? I like surprises...

Cathy's Curse came in the mail this week and I was pretty excited for some schlocky fun. The cover promises a certain type of movie:

The promise of a scary, sexy time.

That image doesn't seem to conflict with the description:

Years after his father and sister were killed in an automobile accident, a man marries and brings his new family back to his first home. Once there, his daughter undergoes horrible changes as she falls under the curse of his long dead aunt.

It's not like Netflix is trying to put one over on me. It's the DVD company. They knew that they'd sell more DVDs with the promise of some titillation (and nothing can help a bad horror movie more than great gore and boobs). Instead, I got this:

I kept thinking the movie was going to jump ahead a few years, but no. It's all about a ten year old possessed girl, which would be fine if it didn't suck so much. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience: don't trust anyone.

Seeing this could have saved me a lot of time.

In a way, I feel like I got the authentic Grindhouse experience. The films shown in those theaters often had advertising (or advertising that had a movie built around it) that didn't match the film to get butts in the seats.