The first which I shall be reviewing, is Naught.
Amazing. This is an eerie, quite bleak film directed my Johnathon Beamish that although crazy and complicated is beautifully done.
The actual filming is just as clever as the story line, with the use of high and low speed changes, countless transitions, fading, and immaculate lighting.
Now I must admit, even though I pride myself on being able to find meaning and am, according to Nathan, the very definition of pretentious, I had no idea what this film was truly about.
I thought I did. Twice in fact.
My initial theory was most English-y. The young girl, trapped in the bleak psych ward, and in the sinister thoughts of her mind. (hence the imagery before she wakes). She awakes, the red hamster ball, acts as a motif throughout the film, representing the monotony of life, going over her 'issues' again and again in her mind.
The pills, again red are given to ease the pain. The evil man under the bed represents her psychiatrist and takes her back through her horrific past. Making her remember details of haunting events. This would explain the scenes we now see along the beach. The therapist is there the whole time. I thought that the woman with the pram was herself, and that her walking into the ocean represented the path she was heading down due to her mental illness.
When the blindfold was off, and the 'psychiatrist' flipped out, I assumed that meant that her focus had fallen. Or perhaps she had had an epiphany and realised how to change her life.
She is then seen back in her room, alone. She searches for the psychiatrist under her bed, and without finding him she is free to start her new life.
The planting of the 'seed' is the ending of her psychological help. And the flower at the ending represents her successful transition into her blossoming new life.
yeah so turns out, that is NOTHING like what it actually means.
The film is an appropriation of the Greek myth of Persephone. (took me three times to pick up on her name)
The myth of Persephone is as follows:
According to Greek myth Persephone is the daughter of Head God, Zeus and Demeter (Mother Earth), Persephone is Goddess of Spring and helps Demeter tend plants.
Hades, Lord of the Underworld, was smitten with Persephone and asked Zeus for her hand. Zeus didn't consent because he feared Demeter's temper. Hades whisks Persephone away to the Underworld anyway and makes her Queen of the Underworld.
But Demeter was distraught that her daughter left and stopped tending the plants and wandered the earth looking for her. People and animals began to starve.
Demeter insisted Persephone return to her. Under pressure from Demeter, Zeus went to talk to Hades and begged that Persephone leave the underworld and help Demeter again (before everyone on earth starved to death.)
When Hades protested, Zeus exercise his power, and declared that Persephone's marriage would be void as long as she ate nothing from the Underworld's garden. Hades was sad to see Persephone go and wooed her with a pomegranate. She ate a pomegranate from the garden in the underworld and that act consummated her marriage to Hades.
Her return from the underworld marks the beginning of Spring. Because Persephone tastes the pomegranate she must return to the underworld and her husband at the end of harvest and Winter begins.
So I was completely and utterly wrong, but I like my interpretation just as much as the real one. And I think that it is one of the most alluring concepts about this film, it is left to interpretation. Ten different people could watch this film and have 15 different interpretations.
I think its an amazing, wonderfully constructed film. The transitions, the use of color. I commend Beamish, he is a truly magnificent director.
I think its an amazing, wonderfully constructed film. The transitions, the use of color. I commend Beamish, he is a truly magnificent director.
Stayed tuned, I shall review more,
xx
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