clevermanka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clevermanka) wrote2015-10-19 10:41 am
clevermanka) wrote2015-10-19 10:41 am
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Crimson Peak
There's not a person who knows me who'll be surprised that I loved Crimson Peak. But even I didn't anticipate to what extent I would absolutely love this movie. Let me articulate (try to articulate) why.
Without a doubt, this movie is beautiful. I am completely sympathetic to the fact that there are people who don't appreciate this genre of movie, but anyone who cannot admit it was beautifully filmed is just flat wrong. The sets perfectly communicated the feel of a scene. Did you/the characters feel trapped? Lost? Overwhelmed? Confined? Safe? The sets were just as much a part of the plot of a scene as the actors. The costumes were spot-on. Sumptuous (and appropriately gaudy on some minor characters) and detailed but still worn by the characters rather than the other way around (which can happen in period pieces). The effects were beautiful, too. I loved the depictions of the ghosts. Scary books for kids in the 70s were pretty gruesome--a surprising number of details of dismembered children and malicious evils were found in those pages--and I read a lot of them. The ghosts del Toro envisioned for this were the closest thing in appearance I've ever seen to how those ghosts looked that I imagined when I was a child.
But the cinematography. Oh, the cinematography was the real clincher. With his use of (dated, archaic) transitions between several scenes, del Toro conveyed that he was making a modern version of a Gothic romance where the only updates were the general capabilities of current film-making and and perhaps (perhaps) a more complex story-telling. The first time one of the iris-style fades happened, I was taken a bit out of the story because it was something we don't see in modern films. When it happened again, it because obvious that del Toro was using the style of fade to tell the viewer "Yes, we made a straight-up old-fashioned Gothic romance and you are going to watch and experience it on our terms," and I thought that was delightful.
I'm not going to get much into the plot because I know a lot of people haven't seen it yet. Let me detail a few more specific things that made this movie such a glorious experience for me without giving away too many spoilers (at least no more spoilers than you'd get in the previews).
Hiddleston. Obviously. I mean, just obviously. I realized I'm biased, but he's amazing. When it comes to current actors with the ability to simultaneously convey multiple complex emotions without speaking a word, I think he's second only to Martin Freeman.
All the actors were great, though. Mia Wasikowska portrayed a bookish anti-socialite without slipping into a shy, backwards Jane Eyre-esque model (and since she did a wonderful Jane Eyre, that was impressive and a relief). She was reserved, but her passion and drive when she came into her own were entirely believable. Jessica Chastain underplayed Lucille's role perfectly--she could have devolved into shrieking melodrama, but didn't. Charlie Hunam's character was also understated and perfectly played a bit dull. I completely understood why the character of Edith was uninterested in him as anything more than a friend without losing any sympathy for him.
The mood developed slowly, and at one point I thought it was really time to start getting scary already, but then I remembered I was watching del Toro's movie on his own terms. Once I sat back and let it happen when it happened, it was lovely. It was rather like watching a slow motion train wreck. You know it's going to end horribly, but you don't know the details of how so you can't stop watching. It's the details of how that build the tension and when Edith starts putting the pieces together, everything else starts falling apart in perfect timing.
I love how Edith is not a shrinking violet. She might not be an aggressive person, but she knows her own mind and desires. There's the sex scene which we all know about from the trailers, but what the trailers don't show is how Edith, not Thomas, is in control of what's going on in that bed. It's wonderful.
And of course, the ending. Del Toro et.al. have repeatedly said this is Gothic romance, not horror, and I agree. But it is also heavily invested in the horror aspects of this type of romance and there are some things that had to happen and they did. I'll leave it at that unless someone wants to discuss spoilers with me in the comments. I left the theater completely satisfied with the ending--a feeling that was certainly absent when I saw the most comparable movie to this, Radcliffe's Woman in Black, a few years ago.
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mckitterick and I caught an early Saturday matinee and two hours after we got home, I still had a tight feeling in my chest from All The Feels this movie gave me. It was just. so. good.
Without a doubt, this movie is beautiful. I am completely sympathetic to the fact that there are people who don't appreciate this genre of movie, but anyone who cannot admit it was beautifully filmed is just flat wrong. The sets perfectly communicated the feel of a scene. Did you/the characters feel trapped? Lost? Overwhelmed? Confined? Safe? The sets were just as much a part of the plot of a scene as the actors. The costumes were spot-on. Sumptuous (and appropriately gaudy on some minor characters) and detailed but still worn by the characters rather than the other way around (which can happen in period pieces). The effects were beautiful, too. I loved the depictions of the ghosts. Scary books for kids in the 70s were pretty gruesome--a surprising number of details of dismembered children and malicious evils were found in those pages--and I read a lot of them. The ghosts del Toro envisioned for this were the closest thing in appearance I've ever seen to how those ghosts looked that I imagined when I was a child.
But the cinematography. Oh, the cinematography was the real clincher. With his use of (dated, archaic) transitions between several scenes, del Toro conveyed that he was making a modern version of a Gothic romance where the only updates were the general capabilities of current film-making and and perhaps (perhaps) a more complex story-telling. The first time one of the iris-style fades happened, I was taken a bit out of the story because it was something we don't see in modern films. When it happened again, it because obvious that del Toro was using the style of fade to tell the viewer "Yes, we made a straight-up old-fashioned Gothic romance and you are going to watch and experience it on our terms," and I thought that was delightful.
I'm not going to get much into the plot because I know a lot of people haven't seen it yet. Let me detail a few more specific things that made this movie such a glorious experience for me without giving away too many spoilers (at least no more spoilers than you'd get in the previews).
Hiddleston. Obviously. I mean, just obviously. I realized I'm biased, but he's amazing. When it comes to current actors with the ability to simultaneously convey multiple complex emotions without speaking a word, I think he's second only to Martin Freeman.
All the actors were great, though. Mia Wasikowska portrayed a bookish anti-socialite without slipping into a shy, backwards Jane Eyre-esque model (and since she did a wonderful Jane Eyre, that was impressive and a relief). She was reserved, but her passion and drive when she came into her own were entirely believable. Jessica Chastain underplayed Lucille's role perfectly--she could have devolved into shrieking melodrama, but didn't. Charlie Hunam's character was also understated and perfectly played a bit dull. I completely understood why the character of Edith was uninterested in him as anything more than a friend without losing any sympathy for him.
The mood developed slowly, and at one point I thought it was really time to start getting scary already, but then I remembered I was watching del Toro's movie on his own terms. Once I sat back and let it happen when it happened, it was lovely. It was rather like watching a slow motion train wreck. You know it's going to end horribly, but you don't know the details of how so you can't stop watching. It's the details of how that build the tension and when Edith starts putting the pieces together, everything else starts falling apart in perfect timing.
I love how Edith is not a shrinking violet. She might not be an aggressive person, but she knows her own mind and desires. There's the sex scene which we all know about from the trailers, but what the trailers don't show is how Edith, not Thomas, is in control of what's going on in that bed. It's wonderful.
And of course, the ending. Del Toro et.al. have repeatedly said this is Gothic romance, not horror, and I agree. But it is also heavily invested in the horror aspects of this type of romance and there are some things that had to happen and they did. I'll leave it at that unless someone wants to discuss spoilers with me in the comments. I left the theater completely satisfied with the ending--a feeling that was certainly absent when I saw the most comparable movie to this, Radcliffe's Woman in Black, a few years ago.
mckitterick and I caught an early Saturday matinee and two hours after we got home, I still had a tight feeling in my chest from All The Feels this movie gave me. It was just. so. good.
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In Crimson Peak, you have an example of the exact underdog genre fiction should be celebrating in Edith Cushing. She’s independent enough to have the freedom to write, but has her agency taken away from her. She has a bustling environment that ceases to exist when she’s married and taken into an isolated house in the country. And she is compassionate and curious enough to follow the clues to find out why.
That is the setup for many early gothic fiction tales. Why?
Because if you’re a woman in the regency-victorian eras, you will have your agency taken away (you can’t even pick up mail without your husband), you will be isolated in your house, mostly alone when your husband goes away for months (why doesn’t she just leave the house? well, because it’s so far from anywhere else that she’ll probably die of exposure), and you will be so lonely that you may begin to see things.
This is what women were afraid of. They were afraid of it not because it was a story concept. They were afraid of it because it was their lives. They were afraid of what happens, and who could possibly come to call. They are afraid of isolation and a lack of an outside perspective, which at some point in that situation, they have to believe doesn’t exist.
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it sounds from your description a bit like Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1994ish?), which was a thoroughly life-changing experience for me. I know that's a controversial statement, since a lot of people HATED that movie, and even I can recognize some of its missteps... but in terms of lavish production, sumptuous visuals, and stylized cinematography... that was the film that pretty much started my love affair with the gothic.
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I was thinking about how Edith and Thomas are both rising and falling, and cross for a brief time at different points. He from the precarious balance of his life to his outcome and then a sort of redemption, she from her protected life to having it all thrown apart and then coming out the other side through her own strength. The sex scene was one point, and then at the end.
I loved her part in the morgue, and the delivery of the line about filling the house with friendship.
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Oh, I hadn't thought of that, but yes! What a great insight.
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Thank you!
Also, watching Hiddleston's long long legs while dancing. Oh, boy. *sigh*
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J does. not. dance. I do not think I will ever reconcile myself to this fact.
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Woman In Black scared the pants off of me, that is horror not romance!
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Are you able to link to the Toast comments or article?
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I suppose del Toro was attempting to fill that nostalgic urge when he did his gaiju movie, and here he is, doing it again with gothic romance. I think this reclamation of old genres is wonderful. MOAR.
Also, Hiddleston bum. Heehee....
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I can see this as a cross between it and The Last Lovers Left Alive, am I right? (so sad we didn't make it this weekend, it better be around for next)
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I wouldn't call it a cross between those two things, though. It's just straight-up gothic romance.
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If nothing else, it is very, very pretty.
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You might like this post from a friend of mine, as well as her blog header of a bunch of us swooning in the theater lobby:
http://hyzenthlayplays.tumblr.com/post/131452741874/crimson-peak-spoilers-ahead
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Hiddles was glorious. Mia Whatsherlastname was so much more than the giant child's doll she was done up as (I wanted to kiss her nose every time she put on her glasses), the blood-oozing, breathing house was all manner of ridiculous and atmospheric, the ghosts were gorgeously horrific, I loved that Edith took back her agency (the pen! ARGHH I LOVED THAT!!) with both hands, and I need to see all the things Jessica Chastain has been in.
Also HAHAHAHA THE SIBLINGS ARE BOTH GINGERS DONE UP WITH DARK HAIR! I love that cryptogingers an aesthetic now (see Cumberbatch's Sherlock) because it is absolutely mine. So much more than I could have ever predicted. YAY!
It was the perfect-for-me Halloween film.
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Also someone pointed out (on the Toast?) that at the beginning of the movie she says "I want to be a widow" and VOILA, she totally got her wish by the end!
I'm not familiar with too many of the tropes of gothic romances, but I did absolutely adore that the dude who showed up to rescue her totally failed and she rescued BOTH of them, and there were zero hints that they hooked up after. Like, they absolutely set it up for him to be the knight in shining armor and she would fall into his arms blah blah blah and then NOPE.
And that Tom's character is somehow both horrible and sympathetic and also just has no will of his own. His whole "nooo but I actually DO love you!" and you honestly can't tell if he really does or if he's said that to all of them.
Also all the supposedly horrific ghosts were women giving her accurate advice. Hah.
NGL, there were a few scenes I had to cover my eyes. The sink scene. That was a little more than I was expecting. Blood, sure, smashy, sure, but the site of his open skull was a little more than I could deal with, as was the face-stabbing. Were you in the convo on my facebook where we told a girl when to close her eyes? It was great.
THE COSTUME POOOOOORN. Holy shit.
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