Behind the Wall (2008) - 2/4

The ghost-story horror film nearly always has at its root the notion of trauma. Despite there being no credited scientific evidence for the existence of ghosts, there has always been a consensus among spiritualists and paranormal investigators that a ghost is present only at the site of trauma. Some event must have precipitated the lingering spiritual energies. This is especially true in the case of malevolent spiritual energies. This bias is a Platonic one. Because Plato thought reality is structured by the realization of intellectual forms in a physical world, he thought all similar structures are the product of a single form. So for Plato the right order of the mind, the right order of society, and the right order of the material world are all a product of a single form. Plato's holism suggests that whatever is capable of causing disorder on a psychological level is thus capable of causing disorder on other levels. As a psychological trauma is capable of causing disorder of the mind, a sufficiently traumatic incident is thus capable of causing metaphysical disorder. This metaphysical disorder, the imbalance in physical reality, is manifested as or perhaps just is the ghost. The solution of many ghost movies is thus to uncover the source of the trauma. Psychoanalysis prescribes the uncovering of a trauma's source in order to restore psychological balance. So the Platonic bias extends this psycholanalytic hypothesis to the metaphysical order. The ghost, which is the metaphysical disorder, can only be eliminated by uncovering the trauma's source. Either the uncovering of the trauma's source is itself the solution or it is co-extensive with the solution. In The Legend of Hell House, for instance, the discovery of the true source of the trauma behind the haunting and the solution to the haunting occur at the same time. Opening the lead door and discovering the short body of Belasco occur together. They had to occur at the same time. They are thus co-extensive. This is the way narrative can distinguish the tasks of discovery and solution, though they are formally the same task of restoring balance.

Behind the Wall is a classical ghost movie. It has the malevolent ghost; it has the trauma that caused the ghost; it has the unerring flow toward the discovery of the trauma and with that the elimination of the ghost. There is in fact more than one trauma in Behind the Wall. The first trauma is the cause of the ghost and the second is caused by the ghost when it murders a woman. The first trauma causes the metaphysical disorder of the haunting and psychological imbalance in retired priest Father Hendry (Lawrence Dane). The second trauma causes social disorder and psychological imbalance in the murdered woman's daughter Katelyn (Lindy Booth). Katelyn lived with her parents in the town lighthouse. One night her mother was brutally murdered and her father convicted of the murder. After years away, she is summoned back to the town by Father Hendry. The town's deputy mayor (James Thomas) and a banker (Brad HOdder) from New York are turning the long-abandoned lighthouse into a tourist attraction to earn money for the economically challenged town. Fearing that probing the lighthouse will aggitate the site of trauma, Hendry requests the help of Katelyn to stop the work. As Hendry's fears are confirmed and the ghost begins killing again, Hendry and Katelyn are both led on the painful path toward uncovering the source of both traumata.

As is often the case with a ghost movie, the uncovering of the trauma is both anticlimactic and fascinating. In Hell House, for instance, the trauma could be summed up as an extreme case of 'Little Man Syndrome.' On the one hand, it's silly that so much horror could be the product of one man's insecurity about his short legs. On the other hand, it's revealing of human psychology. Both the cause and the effects of the trauma are revealing. That we are able to accept that a man's shortness can lead to malevolent spiritual activity suggests that we credit to men such narcissism, megalomania, and insecurity at the deficiencies of the body. That much of the spirit's malevolence is sexual in nature suggests much about repression, inhibition, and guilt. It suggests, for instance, the way guilt and shame can transform love to sadism in sexual relationships.

In Behind the Wall the traumata are the result of female curiosity. The first trauma is brought about through jealous rage over a wife's unfaithful sexual curiosity. The second trauma is brought about by a woman's investigation of the walled-up site of the first trauma. It is as though the first trauma causes the second by its need to punish its own cause, by the compulsion for repetition. There are two other women in the film, Katelyn and the banker's marketing guru, Monica (Suzie Pollard). Where Katelyn is a meek, pale waif, Monica is a sophisticated and independent woman. She knows what she wants and tries to get it. The film presents her as predatory. The handsome deputy mayor is attracted to Katelyn, but preyed upon by the sexually-interested Monica. Monica must therefore by punished by the ghost. Katelyn on the other hand never seems to be in any real danger. Female passivity is rewarded, female curiosity dangerous and punishable in Behind the Wall.

Monica and the banker are also targeted on account of the ideology for which they stand. They are capitalists who see the traumatic history of the lighthouse as exploitable. The film does seem to be making a plea for preserving historical buildings. However, it doesn't make this point very well. For one, capitalism is the social order that is disrupted by the trauma. So uncovering the trauma and restoring order should ultimately restore the capitalist order. Moreover, it is the activity of the capitalists that ultimately leads to the uncovering of the hidden trauma and with it the restoration of order metaphysically and psychologically. Hendry's initial goal was to leave the trauma hidden. The capitalist imperative to exploitation is also an impetus for the growth of knowledge. Hence some analyses that consider science a capitalistic manifestation. In the ghost movie, since trauma is co-extensively solved by knowledge of the trauma the value of capitalism and science is often affirmed.

That is what I found most interesting in Behind the Wall. But in execution it has more in common with The House by the Cemetery than with The Legend of Hell House. Just like House by the Cemetery, Behind the Wall comes across as a series of arbitrary supernatural events. The ghost is supposed to be bound in the walled-up room, yet once free it is as liberated from physics as any ghost. It is clearly shown to be non-physical, yet it seems to have physical bounds. For instance, the characters seem able to time its progress as it chases them and to lock it behind doors. Yet other times it seems almost omnipotent as it transports from one character to another and induces hallucinations. During assaults it is usually an invisible force or a hand attached to an offscreen body. The assaults are always weapon-less violence: pushes, pulls, and lacerations. If one is going to use violence in a horror film, one should at least strive for creativity. This is what elevates The House by the Cemetery. It too has senseless violence, but a senseless violence rescued by Fulci's perverse creativity. In Behind the Wall there is neither creativity nor consistency in the ghost's activities.

It's also unclear why the spirit is attacking anyone at all. Hell House offers an explanation and a tone to the violence consonant with that explanation. Behind the Wall offers no real explanation other than the fact of the trauma and the fact that the film is in the horror genre. This is a film that would have profited by withholding violence and focusing on the investigation. The ghostly sound effects are quite eerie. They are much more effective than the anticlimactic assaults. The film's adherence to formula prevents it take any such narrative risks.

Behind the Wall is the case of a potentially interesting story marred by a lack of cinematic imagination. The ghost story structure, the attractive actors, the ethereal screen presence of Lindy Booth, the Newfoundland location and the spooky lighthouse setting all offered many opportunities for crafting a superior ghost film.

The Box Collector (2008) - 3/4

The Box Collector tells an eccentric, melodramatic story about small town people. I think this is supposed to mount up to some statement about jealousy. The basic plot concerns the very sheltered but handsome young Harry (Noah Segen), who likes to paint pictures of boxes. He is falling in love with a sexually provocative and exotic new neighbour, Marie (Lyne Renee). Working against this love is all the men in town who also seem to be falling for Marie and, most importantly, Harry's eccentric and potentially-dangerous mother Beth (Margot Kidder). As the story plays out in this peculiar small town, though, it goes far beyond a statement about jealousy. It becomes a grand expression of a perverse worldview I find deeply fascinating.

It only takes five minutes for this worldview to begin to show itself. As Harry enters the pharmacy to collect medication for himself and his mother, he's immediately set upon by the slutty cashier. She leans forward to flash as much of her ample cleavage as possible, asks Harry why he doesn't come around more often, and drops several subtlety-free clues that she wants him. On his way out of the pharmacy, Harry's friend Burt invites him for a drink at the bar, where it's made clear the slutty, sexy female bartender is into the virginal Harry. When Harry gets home, the beautiful and provocatively-dressed Marie, possibly a slut, is moving in next door and immediately takes a shine to Harry, making a show of her assets.

You may be wondering why I keep using the word 'slutty.' Surely I'm being a chauvinist scumbag? No, I'm just interpreting what is given on-screen. Burt makes clear the bartender will put out for anyone who pays. Similarly, the pharmacy cashier later wastes no time going for a ride with Burt. Even Marie is a 'massage therapist' by night, working in her own home. She's also perpetually flirting with all the town's men.

To be frank, the worldview being put forward here is that all attractive, young women are sluts. It gets better, though. You can't have sluts without slut-hungry men. And sure enough, all men who aren't Harry fall into the category. They are mostly represented in the character of Burt, however. Men are looked upon as incapable of fidelity; and due to the overwhelming number of sexy sluts in town, it's easy for them to cheat. Burt's wife Luz is both menacing and comic relief as his fiercely shrewish shadow, following his every move, just knowing he's adulterous. Beth, it turns out, is Luz's best friend. They spend all day reading tarot cards and bitching about how men can't keep 'it' in their pants. Beth herself was the victim of infidelity and despises all men who aren't her son.

The plot thickens further. Marie is on the run from her ex-husband with her daughter. She keeps complaining about how jealous he was because she was constantly giving massages to other men and flirting. She makes clear jealousy is something she can't stand. Of course, there's a difference between jealousy and not wanting to be humiliated. In this perverse world the filmmaker has set up, one can hardly blame her ex-husband for having been worried. But I digress.

The point of fact is that this bizarre worldview is very fascinating. It basically compartmentalizes all men into two categories: virginal mama's boys and horndogs. And it compartmentalizes all women into two categories: man-hating harpies and shameless, sexy sluts. It's not entirely clear which side the film stands on. It seems to regard with amused condemnation all of these categories. Marie and Harry alone offer some possibility for being a normal, happy, faithful couple in this twisted universe.

The worldview here is the polar opposite of what one finds in Russ Meyer's films. The ultimate expression of Russ Meyer's philosophy, Ultravixens, boils down to one oft-repeated line from the film, "Always look a good fuck in the face." The Box Collector is not appreciative of that philosophy.

So much for worldview. There are other things to enjoy in the film. The grotesque characters who embody the odd worldview are certainly fascinating and amusing to spend time with. They feel like real people. I grew up with people like this. However odd or caricatured they may seem to some, they're real. The most potent of the characters is Beth. Not only is she a complex woman with strong and frightening feelings, but Margot Kidder gives a totally uninhibited performance as this grotesque character. It is truly incredible. One would expect Kidder to be interested in preserving some glimmer of her sexpot image. She let's it all go. She wears huge glasses, hair so dry it might as well be seaweed, frumpy fortune teller clothes, and hobbles with a cane. Close-ups emphasize the wrinkles around her mouth as she delivers frightfully-impassioned lines or cold lines hiding the fire within. Apart from Beth, Luz (Adriana O'Neil) is a scene-stealer as the bitter, jealous harpy. The past-their-prime ladies definitely take control of this movie and show the men and sexy young women a thing or two.

As I mentioned, there is a problematic final three minutes. It calls into question most of the rest of the movie. There is something to figure out there, but I'm not convinced it's worth puzzling out. There is scarcely enough information given and even once one does puzzle it out, it won't reveal anything more about what the film has to impart: the strange worldview remains pretty much what it is. All it might do is serve to distance the worldview from the filmmaker, well-known British producer John Daly, who the end credits tell us wrote and directed the film. Daly passed away in 2008, before The Box Collector had a chance to get out. I wonder if the ending was his decision? At any rate, the film remains an emotionally powerful, fascinating picture that will offer plenty of entertainment for lovers of peculiar characters.

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997)

Guy Maddin was apparently immersed in French decadent writers during the preparation for Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, and writer George Toles was immersed in austere Nordic literature, Knut Hamsun in particular. Ice Nymphs, as such, is a clash of two radically opposed attitudes toward art and existence. Visually, it is morbidly indulgent in the cheerful artifice of decadence, whereas the characters and their impressionistic dialogue reveal the inhabitants of the pleasant world to be remarkably displeased, dreary, in agony. Such a gorgeous world and not a soul to enjoy it.

That is the real tragedy of Ice Nymphs and its major theme: imprisonment. These are self-involved, unfulfilled people in a world that promises boundless fulfillment. Mandragora is a mid-summer night's paradise, but hell is other people. I'm reminded of Alain de Botton's thoughts on travel. He argues that while people travel far from their familiar land in the hope for release and renewal, as if it was their location that prevented them from relaxing and freeing themselves, they can never travel away from themselves. Maddin and Toles' characters are imprisoned within themselves. The motif of imprisonment is repeated often, but it is no external prison that holds these characters: they are free in the lush land of Mandragora, but trapped within themselves.

Ice Nymphs is about a man, Peter, returning to the underground island of Mandragora, where the sun never sets, after a long stay in prison that left scars on his wrists. While on ship he meets a beautiful girl. She disappears, but he can't get her out of his mind. Arriving on Mandragora, he finds his spinster sister Amelia in a bitter conflict with her old servant. He wants to buy her ostrich farm and his patience is wearing thin. Amelia wants to get married first and has her eye set on a Dr. Solti, who is more a magician in the spirit of The Tempest's Prospero than a mad scientist, though there's more than a hint of Bride of Frankenstein's Dr. Pretorius in him. Solti, however, has fallen for the beautiful assistant who nursed him after his statue crushed his leg. And wouldn't you know it, the assistant is the girl from the boat. Complicating the matter is the fisherman's wife Zephyr, with whom Peter has already struck up a sexual relationship. Thus is the complicated love pentangle.

I suppose it was a brave decision for Maddin to leave Toles' very stylized dialogue as it was written. Not only that, but for a Maddin picture, Ice Nymphs is dialogue heavy indeed. Sounding not unlike the elementary English of a children's program with a broader vocabulary (including 'fuck'), it can be distracting, even if the artificiality is right at home with Maddin's decadence. Along with the purple colours, boats, and the style of dialogue, I was reminded immediately of Fassbinder's Querelle, though Maddin claims not to have seen a single Fassbinder picture at that point. Like Querelle, an effort on the part of the audience is required to get into the world at hand and even then the conceptual rather than real emotional lives of these characters tends to be rather boring.

As far as being a work of decadence goes, I think Maddin may have missed his mark. Ice Nymphs looks and feels much more symbolist than decadent. The movements were very closely linked, but not the same. Maddin claims his visual guide was Gustav Moreau (a symbolist) and that the bright colours are a result of printer brightening. While I'm sure Maddin wouldn't lie, the surface articulation that is such a prominent feature in Moreau is mostly lacking in Ice Nymphs, with the exception of Solti's lab, and that can't be explained by printer errors. I was reminded much more of Odilon Redon's late colour pastels. Maddin had just done a short two years prior to Ice Nymphs in the visual style of Redon's early black and white works; Ice Nymphs feels like a visual sequel, as it were.

Maddin said in an interview or commentary somewhere--I forget where--that nothing worked in Ice Nymphs. I think he's being too harsh on himself. It's as visually beautiful a fantasy as one could ask for, due to the aesthetic, yes, but also to the lovely women, Pascale Bussieres, Alice Krige, and Shelley Duvall. Toles, moreover, comes up with some wonderful speeches for his characters, with Solti and Amelia getting the best of them. Nevertheless, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, while certainly worth watching and even worthy of its comparison to what I believe to be the superior Querelle, is far from a complete success. A lesser Guy Maddin picture is like a lesser Rembrandt painting: far better than these eyes deserve. I'm grateful Maddin made Ice Nymphs and you should be, too.

The Mask (1961)

REVIEW:
Just seven years after Aldous Huxley published The Doors of Perception (1954) and five after Heaven and Hell (1956), The Mask delves into similar themes of exploring other, possibly deeper states of consciousness than any of which psychology has been aware.

For better or for worse, the thin plot serves only as an excuse for this delving. A psychiatrist, Barnes, comes into possession of an ancient "Indian" mask--"Indian" referring to mesoamerican aboriginal cultures, in this case. It just so happens this mask has mysterious powers, which include psychedelic hallucinations and strong addiction--oh yes, and a propensity for murder.

While Barnes is convinced the mask can teach him "of man's most secret mind, of a world that exists even deeper than the subconscious," his friends and an obligatory homicide detective are becoming increasingly worried and suspicious, respectively.

What makes this film stand out is the genuinely amazing hallucination sequences. One is treated to an utterly surreal barrage of tribal-infused Gothic imagery, sometimes coming faster than one can compute: dozens of hands are seen reaching, grabbing from beneath a river; a flaming eye crashes from the sky and becomes a flame-throwing, skull-headed beast; a giant skull floats above a strange temple, where a woman is reclining upon an altar. What can it all mean?

Not only is The Mask Canada's first horror film, it also happens to be Canada's only 3D film. All of the psychedelic mask sequences are arranged in 3D, to give the viewer the same experience Barnes is receiving from the mask. No fan of 3D films myself, it is here handled competently and, while the imagery would be effective even without the 3D, it is neither intrusive nor detracting.

(For the original theatrical release of this picture, the 3D glasses were attached to a wearable mask. Whenever one would hear the Voice in the film tell Barnes, "Put on the mask," the audience knew to do likewise with their own masks.)

Regardless of whether its hallucinations mean anything or not, this film offers a tripping experience. I can guarantee you've not seen anything like it.

FACTS:
Director: Julian Roffman
Starring: Paul Stevens, Claudette Nevins
1961
77 min.

WHERE TO GET IT:
Long out of print, it has just recently been released on DVD by Cheezy Flicks. It can be found on Amazon.ca for a decent price. It comes with 3D glasses.

TIDBIT:
The poster of The Mask supplies the cover of Re/Search #10: Incredibly Strange Films.
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