Silencio
12-02-2007, 02:51 AM
http://www.girishshambu.com/blog/nosebleedsafe.jpg
A curious tone lingers from the opening credits of Safe and doesn't let up until the end credits start rolling. This tone is one of dread and dispair, matching our feelings surrounding the film's main character Carol, a homemaker whose "perfect" life is about to come to a screeching halt. There have been many films about the banalities of suburban life and the social expectations that we take up without question, but Haynes puts a very distinctive spin on it all - practically molding the film into a horror of the soul and its vulnerability in hopeless situations where we'll do anything and listen to anyone to feel better about ourselves. So when Carol starts haphazardly reacting to everyday chemicals, she is diagnosed with "environmental illness" or in other words, becomes allergic to the 20th century, the world she inhabits. Then with an almost ironic weight, Haynes sticks his character into a rehabilitation clinic meant to keep its patients safe and free of the chemicals that caused them to end up there in the first place. The end result is nothing short of depressing and pessimistic.
As Carol settles into her new surroundings, we begin to see that there may not ever be a way out for her or any of the people similar to her - which in Haynes' case, could be any one of us. How do you escape the trappings of the very world within which you were born? The answer; you can't. While the film brims with realism, Safe is more of a metaphor and analogy than anything else. Or perhaps an extremity meant to foreshadow the inevitable. Regardless, Haynes' film is one of deep revalation raising difficult questions and giving no easy answers. A treatise about society pigeonholing itself to the point where even the slightest mistep or difference of thought leads to a diagnosion of illness, of the need to be treated, and of the need to be safe when in fact everything around you is so detached and apathetic. It's only appropriate then that in a final scene, Carol, played wonderfully by Julianne Moore, is expected to "just say something" as her friends cheer on her birthday, but Carol's monologue is incoherent, disjointed, and ultimately pointless - which is exactly what she has become.
[****]
A curious tone lingers from the opening credits of Safe and doesn't let up until the end credits start rolling. This tone is one of dread and dispair, matching our feelings surrounding the film's main character Carol, a homemaker whose "perfect" life is about to come to a screeching halt. There have been many films about the banalities of suburban life and the social expectations that we take up without question, but Haynes puts a very distinctive spin on it all - practically molding the film into a horror of the soul and its vulnerability in hopeless situations where we'll do anything and listen to anyone to feel better about ourselves. So when Carol starts haphazardly reacting to everyday chemicals, she is diagnosed with "environmental illness" or in other words, becomes allergic to the 20th century, the world she inhabits. Then with an almost ironic weight, Haynes sticks his character into a rehabilitation clinic meant to keep its patients safe and free of the chemicals that caused them to end up there in the first place. The end result is nothing short of depressing and pessimistic.
As Carol settles into her new surroundings, we begin to see that there may not ever be a way out for her or any of the people similar to her - which in Haynes' case, could be any one of us. How do you escape the trappings of the very world within which you were born? The answer; you can't. While the film brims with realism, Safe is more of a metaphor and analogy than anything else. Or perhaps an extremity meant to foreshadow the inevitable. Regardless, Haynes' film is one of deep revalation raising difficult questions and giving no easy answers. A treatise about society pigeonholing itself to the point where even the slightest mistep or difference of thought leads to a diagnosion of illness, of the need to be treated, and of the need to be safe when in fact everything around you is so detached and apathetic. It's only appropriate then that in a final scene, Carol, played wonderfully by Julianne Moore, is expected to "just say something" as her friends cheer on her birthday, but Carol's monologue is incoherent, disjointed, and ultimately pointless - which is exactly what she has become.
[****]