An essay I wrote for my Horror Cinema class.






Horror films which claim to be derivative from reality have always been exceedingly popular. Ever since the inception of film, filmmakers have tried to promote that truth exists in a fantastical cinematic story. Perhaps the volition to promote truth is the belief that those who believe in even a sliver of truth are likely to become more involved with it, more enthusiastic to see it most importantly likely to encourage others to see it. However, a question lies in why audiences find truth in film to be so captivating. There is evident mass appeal in a story that portrays an event even minimally factual over a story that is evidently fictional. The gimmick of reality, though it may be applied to all genres of film, is especially appealing to audiences in the horror genre. Not only are audiences more excited by the idea that the plot itself or features in the plot actually happened, they indulge in believing that something terrible happened. The way horror films have employed this gimmick of reality have escalated and become perhaps more convincing throughout time, sometimes causing controversy and panic. The gimmick has matured from inserting an inter-title at the beginning of the film that might claim that “This movie is based on a true story” or “the events which you are about to witnessed actually occurred ….” to employing aesthetic methods that not only tell the audience that what they’re watching is real, but to make them doubt that it’s not.

The history of truth-based film is as old as the medium of film itself. The Sergei Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin was one of the earliest films based on true events. Eisenstein employed the lure of truth to portray a political ideology he (rightfully) found to be extremely telling through a catastrophic, devastating event which occurred twenty years before he made the film. Although the inspiration and backbone of Battle Potemkin’s plot can hardly be marginalized into being called a “gimmick”, Eisenstien nonetheless portrayed horror and agony to an audience to convey a larger idea and to attract viewers into witnessing the dread the film portrays and which still holds weighted significance to this day, even in front of an audience desensitized by films that would come decades later like Cannibal Holocaust. The most revealing point of this early inception of truth-based horror/dread films is that film does not always have to be a mode of escaping reality. In horror and dread we find ourselves attracted to the notion of reality so that we can feel more immersed in the film, rather than being separated by its falsities we immerse ourselves in the sliver of reality the film begs to portray. I admit that comparing Battleship Potemkin to Cannibal Holocaust in any regard is a stretch, and although they share only the nature of reality lending itself to the film as a focal point for horror there probably aren’t any more similarities between them. However, Cannibal Holocaust would later engage with the method of transference of political ideology shown through a horrific cinematic lens that Battleship Potemkin is also famously noted for. Cannibal Holocaust, despite harsh scrutiny that the filmmaker is too politically inconsistent, is nonetheless a commentary on the ethically deprived media that sensationalizes death for ratings.

Cannibal Holocaust being the first “found-footage documentary” horror film made inspired horror films, especially those within the “found-footage” genre, for decades to come and one of the most notable being The Blair Witch Project. Juxtaposed, Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project are both found-footage “documentaries” that employ the aesthetic attributes of the documentary film to portray an image of reality. Some of these documentary-style devices used in “found-footage” films are, as Julian Petley lists: “shaky, hand-held camerawork, 'accidental' compositions, crash zooms, blurred images, lens flare, inaudible or intermittent sound, direct address to the camera, scratches and lab marks on the print” and are all used throughout both the Blair Witch Project and Cannibal Holocaust to enforce the illusion of reality and obscure the indications of craftsmanship. These documentary-like characteristics not only gave the aesthetic illusion of reality to the films, but also compensated for the lack of special effects. Although both treated the film to create even further evidence of truth, each film employs actual documentary shooting differently. The Blair Witch famously had the actors use a hand-held camera to shoot nearly the entire film themselves, improvised much of the script and were left largely uninformed of the “supernatural” events that would befall them every night. Cannibal Holocaust, however, was meticulously crafted to appear as a genuine documentary film and all of it's technical shortcomings were artfully disguised by cinematic mechanisms mentioned. Although Cannibal Holocaust does not fall into the description of art-dread like that of The Blair Witch Project, it does however represent a parallel cinematic representation of unflinching torture and throughout the film, just as in The Blair Witch, the film is teeming with ominous clues that tell the audience that something awful is going to happen.

Cannibal Holocaust, being perhaps one the first of its kind, not only had characteristics that of a rough-cut documentary film but also weaved the imagery between real death and the fake death to create a portrait of undeniable and captivating reality. Petley describes how the scene in which the turtle is killed, disemboweled and eaten which is shot entirely unconcealed is followed by the scene in which Miguel’s leg is hacked off. These scenes of real and staged violence that construct the film are purposefully interwoven to serve as a realistic backdrop to the fictional death scenes. This exploitation of real death permeates the fictional cinematic space and creates an atmosphere of unsettling reality which lends itself even to the crafted scenes of death. Another notable example of this in the film is when the real atrocity footage which is shown to the television producers titled The Last Road to Hell is claimed to be inauthentic and staged by the character Allen to appear realistic and catastrophic for ratings. Ironically, the footage used to fabricate The Last Road to Hell in fact does depict real death. The fact that aside from the the animal death footage, the portrayal of real death in the film is immediately dismissed as fake and presented in an undramatic, inartistic way invokes the social commentary that the film is engaging with surrounding the sensationalism of death and the distortion of reality in the media. The fact that real death depicted in the film is treated with such nonchalance and without cinematic mechanics is a comment on how the reality of death and suffering in the world is obscured and even undermined by it's sensationalism in the media. Audiences are desensitized to real atrocities as a result of the constantly assault of violent, exploitative imagery perpetuated by the news and media.

Cannibal Holocaust may mostly consists of “found-footage” but a portion of the plot still takes place in the city, a far distance away from the horrors taking place in the “found-footage”. This shifting between unforgiving, foreign jungle and familiar, over-occupied city provides some pockets of minimal comfort scattered throughout an otherwise extremely distressing ambiance. This is also a symbolically comparative shift which asks the audience whether there really is a stark difference between the tribal cannibals and the morally devoid television producers who are willing to exploit anything for monetary gains. The Blair Witch Project, however, has little social commentary to offer but instils in the audience a captivating feeling of dread throughout the film by completely immersing us with what is onscreen. The lack of cut-aways and conventional plot insertions as well as the relentless camerawork puts the audiences in the forest with the actors, feeling the fear, mystery and dread that they feel. Although completely unlike Cannibal Holocaust, there is very little physical manifestation of the characters fears, the audience still finds itself expecting the worst the happen. This impending and lasting feeling of concern and irrational fear of the supernatural is what attributes the overall feeling of dread in the film. The terrifying finale of The Blair Witch would hardly be scary on it's own but is appropriated by the “realistic” and supernatural happenings which occur throughout the film.

The documentary-filmmakers in Cannibal Holocaust and those in The Blair Witch Project are parallel in their arrogance and ignorance, invading a foreign place without any adherence to the forces (whether it be supernatural witches or violent cannibals) that live there. This provides an undeniably realistic backdrop for the horrors about to be unveiled in each film. In modernity, individuals in highly-industrialized societies have become more and more ostentatious and self-assertive in exploring and exploiting the unknown and mysterious, putting ourselves in vulnerable situations with the arrogance that we will always succeed. In both films, the characters of the filmmakers are not only selfishly determined and assertive to make their way into the unknown and exploit it for the sake of media coverage but disregard the lives and space of those they are invading. This specific egocentric disposition of the filmmakers adds yet another hint of realism to the film. After all, all real documentaries must intervene and permeate some form of life, whatever the subject, in order to unravel and publicize it's mystery, lending itself to at least a fragment of arrogance on the part of the filmmakers even if they might treat their subjects with the utmost respect and compassion (unlike the filmmakers in Cannibal Holocaust). An even further investigation of the intrusive nature of documentary film points to the heart of reality television and its exploitation of commonplace human interaction and conflict.

Both Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project used media stunts outside of just the aesthetic tools employed within the film to promote the films supposed reality. Shortly after Cannibal Holocausts release Ruggero Deodato was arrested for indecency and then accused of murder after the public found the the special effects a bit too convincing. What was used as the strongest evidence against him and the most unnerving fact about the films distribution was the public absence of the actors in the film. Deodato had the actors sign a one-year contract forbidding them from being in the public sphere in order to enforce the gimmick that the film was real, or that it at least portrayed real death (aside from the Long Road to Hell footage) a marketing ploy that The Blair Witch Project would adopt decades later with similar (but less condemnable) reception. In addition to also having the actors sign an agreement of absence from the public, the filmmakers and producers of Blair Witch Project produced a slew of supplementary “documentary” footage surrounding the pseudo-legend of the blair witch including interviews with the inhabitants of Burkittsville and the friends and families of the actors in the film which was featured on a website one could visit throughout the films box-office run.

Although differing in content and levels of extremity, The Blair Witch Project and Cannibal Holocaust successfully utilizes the illusion of reality to draw in audiences and diminish the sense of comfortable fantasy one indulges in when watching films. Their effectiveness lies in that each preys on one's sense of humanity and compassion, but also our inherent voyeurism. Through portraying a “raw” representation of how the unknown forces of nature and supernatural react when they are pushed into exposure by pioneers of modernity and media, forces that we yield to as well, we become engulfed in the terror of that projected reality over which we have no control as long as we believe it.

Blue Is The Warmest Color

 (Abdellatif Kechiche, France, 2013)

Blue is the Warmest Color is an arduous love story between Adele, a young and newly self-realized lesbian and Emma, a more seasoned and experienced one. The film tightly tracks the blossoming, flourishing, then diminishing of the relationship between the two throughout it's 187 minutes of running time, specifically from the perspective of Adele. We witness as Adele falters throughout teenage hood, sexually experimenting with a boy in her school and going about a pretty average life before she encounters Emma (a blue-haired college art student) on the street and shares with her a profound, puzzling gaze of attraction. Eventually, Adele propels herself into an environment in which she meets Emma and the two become entwined in a highly eroticized yet compassionate relationship, lasting several years. The fact that Emma becomes somewhat bored with Adele's rudimentary knowledge in the arts and overall disinterest in the things Emma is most attached to is knowledge reserved for the audience and is only revealed to poor Adele in a the form of Emmas questionable attachment to another "friend". This adulterous speculation propels Adele to cheat on Emma. With a man. Emma finds out, they have a very realistic fight and Emma kicks her out, leaving Adele sobbing miserably in the street.

There were some moments where I found myself relating to Adele's predicament and felt pity for her obliviousness. Anyone who has been broken up with realizes afterwards that the relationship was sizzling out for the other person for some time before the breakup actually commenced and seeing Adele desperately trying to hang on to something Emma knows is dead is quite heartbreaking. As I said, the scene in which they break up is extremely well-acted and realistic, the sheer devastation of being broken up with is exposed in all of it's grotesque selfishness and melodrama, a part we've all played. The other effective scene takes place in a cafe, seemingly some time after Emma has broken up with Adele and since moved on to a relationship with the woman Adele suspected of her having an affair with. Adele, not having moved on, desperately pleads with Emma to re-ignite their relationship and attempts to reel her back in by engaging in a momentary burst of sexual passion. As Emma pulls away and admits that she can't continue because she no longer has love for Adele, the well-acted pathetic nature of begging for someones love engages one with the familiarity of the scene and once again slightly pulls on one's heartstrings.

Perhaps after the breakup scene is where the film began to lose my interest, seeing as it entails one of the last dramatics beats before the cafe scene. By the end I found myself watching it for the sole purpose of finding out what happens to Adele, despite already knowing where her road leads by having walked down a similar path. My initial response to the film was more than underwhelmed, the only emotion that effectively lasted throughout and after the long film was sheer boredom. My boyfriend even mentioned that the film left him feeling so restless that he wanted to run laps. Now, usually I would never criticize a film for it's length or for a slow-moving plot, I find that these characteristics usually embody a film that has a lot to say and is dedicated to consuming the viewer into it's world, but this movie was just way too long. My boyfriend and I desperately chuckled at the pointlessness of an (approximately) ten minute scene in which Adele is teaching children how to write a sentence in school. Although I understand now, after reading this review from 'Variety', that every seemingly-insignificant detail is a paint-stroke in the portrait of Adeles somewhat tragic life, I (perhaps unfortunately) never found myself truly caring for her as a character, which made all of these irrelevant scenes revealing her as a complex character to be arduous and unnecessary. Besides, in the scenes of that nature Adele was only concealing her misery, doing her job, resisting the urge to burst into tears.

Another aspect of the film which the Variety review illuminates for me is the disingenuous nature of the sex scenes. To para-phrase the criticism explored by the review, the audience sees Adele as an awkward teen, gingerly discovering her sexuality until it explodes into a lengthy sex scene between her and Emma. My problem with this scene (as well as Debruges, the author of the Variety review) is not it's all-revealing nature, but how it starkly deviates from how the rest of the film is shot. Up until that point and for the rest of the film, we witness the events of Adele's life unfold with a close proximity to her character. The film is mostly comprised of tracking shots and close-ups of her face. Adele is always closed-in and dominating within the frame. Then, all of the sudden, the camera becomes objective when Emma and Adele have sex. The perspective is no longer forcing us to focus on Adeles experience and instead we witness their having sex at a conventional "pornographic" distance. Everything is shown, nothing is concealed, and all of the sudden Adele is a master at sex even though she's essentially loosing her virginity. The awkward moments of fumbling, mishandling or just plain going at it wrong which are unarguably present throughout a first-time sexual experience are completely ejected and replaced with an all-too-perfect (hence, "pornographic") portrayal of sex. I know that it's a movie, it's not supposed to always seem real. However, the way the sex scenes are shot are just inconsistent with how the rest of the film is, exemplifying the fact that a straight man directed this film and finding it hard for me to believe that he wasn't aroused by these scenes and didn't intend for others to be as well (the director also had a creepy obsession with the actress who played Adele which is more elaborated on in the Variety review)

 The notoriety and critical praise of this film really escapes me, the fact that it won the Palme 'dOr being the reason I went to see it in the first place. Sure, I guess it deserves mention for displaying homosexuality in a mostly normative light is significant, but Kechiche (the director) couldn't help himself when it came to portraying lesbian sex objectively and from a distance rather than from Adeles perspective like how the rest of the the film is shot,  giving the sex scenes a more pornographic edge than a artfully-cinematic one. Not to mention the cheesy not-so-homo-normative tactics in the film that Kechiche injected just to make sure you absolutely are sure of how gay Emma and Adele are, mentioned in the positive New Yorker review.

I wouldn't say that Blue is the Warmest Color isn't worth watching, but don't allow yourself to get caught up with how progressive it is to make a movie about a lesbian couple dominate your perspective. When it came to portraying the tragic ups and downs of a long-held relationship between two very different but very in-love people it was realistic and at times heart-breaking but where it intended to enrapture me with three hours of what the director believed to be an expose of Adele's ceaseless beauty and emotional hardship it pretty much failed, I couldn't wait for it to be over.

Also, here is a hilarious article/video of what some lesbians thought of the sex scenes.

DS9

Mike and I just finished Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and intend to start watching Next Generation but I must say I'm feeling a little apprehensive. The more I read about ds9 the more it seems (according to well-respected trekkies/trekkors) it had the best developed over-arching storyline and "dark" themes out of any star trek series.

Although the finale didn't floor me, it has big shoes to fill and I fear that nextgen just won't live up to it's hype with it being just another space-exploration series without any inter-personal character conflicts between the intergalactic races. DS9 utilized various plots which developed along with the personalities and disposition of characters, who's interaction with each other had consequences and rewards which yielded evident growth in their personalities. This level of character development is often overlooked in television (and in as much of the other Star Trek series I've seen), character development may occur although it's often limited to the archetype the character is intended to fulfill. Rarely do we really see characters having to challenge their own ideologies which effect every decision they make onward. For example, although Worf himself serves to defy Klingon stereotypes but straddle the line between traitor and patriot to his people, he himself could easily fall into and self-induced stereotype by becoming simply a figure of shallow defiance. However, Worf's struggle to maintain the tradition of his race and his personal valor with his dedication to his lifes work is constantly challenged and in need of balance. Worf, although is a strong and headstrong character no doubt, is faced with having to re-define his moral obligations throughout the whole series, even to the very end.

One of the most appealing attributes of DS9 was it's use of real-life war strategies which develop throughout all seven seasons and beg for reflection on the concepts of war and what it does to societies, much like the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. There are practices used and challenges faced in DS9 which occur during war as we know it today. The brutality of wars image is not necessarily as jarring and unsettling as in Battlestar but it is apparent nonetheless. The fascist cruelty of the Cardassians who exhibit a more insidious and complex face of evil is far more layered and psychologically derivative of real life-evil (Hitler and the Fascist ideology) than many fictional villains.

Like any good sci-fi should, DS9 begs its viewer to reflect on dozens of questions concerning war, racism, sexism, capitalism, fascism and peace. It's an extremely well executed (not to mention highly entertaining) lens through which we engage ourselves with these more challenging concepts and complications of modern life. In the historical practices of other-worldly humanoids lie the embodiment of capitalism/sexism (the Feringi), religiously-driven oligarchy (the Bajorans), the people-fearing imperialist (the Dominion). In DS9 we delve into the relationships (sometimes pleasant, sometimes disastrous, always complex) and conflicts between these ideologies and upon that reflection there lies a potential framework for our capacity for tolerance and peace which, even in the 24th century, remain to be the only solution to these now-primitive but deeply complex problems that plague humanity.