Filed under: Reviews | Tags: 1970, Heroic Purgatory, review, Yoshishige Yoshida
Sex and politics go well together, and it is easy to understand why. They each offer what the other cannot, and jointly they help to form the internal structure of a human being, shaped through complex decisions, affiliations and identifications. Heroic Purgatory goes to great abstract lengths to bring such essential ponderings to the viewer, doing so through an elaborate aesthetic and exceedingly sporadic narrative. Flashbacks draw us into a political espionage plot that is filled with misinformation and confusion. The leader is guilty, perhaps of being a leader, but it does not matter as they are treated the same either way. Important discussions revolve around plans and events that never transpire, at least not to our knowledge. Frequent disagreements tend to suggest that fact is nowhere to be found, missing from the past and impossible to establish in the present. Such cerebral turns are at the foundation of this compelling meta-construction. Still, I feel the central focus of the film lands on the character of the daughter, and her peculiar, troubled relationship with her parents. This is where the aforementioned combination comes in, the striking of two discordant themes against one another, twisting them to such a degree that scenes begin to collapse together as intransient reality is discarded. In the end what allows this to work in such a provocative and meaningful manner is Yoshida’s outstanding stylization. Each shot rigorously adheres to a visual and aural framework that is established and expanded upon from the very beginning.
The unique framing is immediately apparent, as the majority of shots are composed extremely off balance with regards to what is traditionally expected. Actors find themselves relegated to the edge of frame, often with their bodies cut off completely from the neck down. The rest of the screen can then be filled with an expanse of ceiling, or used to showcase the futuristic architecture, which generates a lot of vital, stark, existential imagery. High contrast photography builds on this, even through costume, by blinding us with white and then drowning us with black. Geometric shapes appear endlessly, lines, circles, squares and curves, many of which form compositions within themselves, separating out characters and crafting a surrealistic take on physical space, where locations are free to transpose and evaporate with a single cut. Eerie music builds atmosphere when necessary, but sterile silence achieves this even more effectively. The past is just a memory that has become a mosaic, defying causality to blend and morph freely. Cold, unnatural acting is able to shed some light on this edifice, as self-aware dialogue comments on the manipulative nature of perception and of cinema itself. Cameras record inside the film and projectors project the falsified footage. Eventually the splintered narrative begins to create a perceptible web, and is from then on able to reference past, unrelated events, objects, words and concepts all by itself. Fetishism plays a subtle but recurring role, with elements of bondage and sadomasochism being brought about through the daughter. This is the inner workings of the mind, with a frightening lack of linearity, yet a captivating ability to fuse new ideas from nothing. After all, this is coming to us through the father, the husband, an electrical engineer remembering his youth. He is the source of the sex and the politics, the muddled structure and the symbolic extravagance. When a character demands to know what time it is, they do not receive a satisfactory answer. The same can be said of all the answers in Heroic Purgatory, for the real thrill is to be found in only knowing the questions.
I do not trust this film. I will never let it go, but I do not trust it. That is a dysfunctional relationship. Every shot, every line, every overt symbol is laid out before us, dripping with significance and begging to be read. That, I feel, is the trap. Once we make our reading, once we say it out loud or write it down, we have lost a part of the film forever to our own scepticism. It is too easy and too convenient to throw a binary lasso around each deliciously loaded image, regardless of how inviting and veracious it may be to do so. Art deserves better than that, for it takes but a single centrally positioned nail to hold an alleged meaning in place long enough to tear it tragically to shreds by way of factitious textual analysis. You would of course be shredding a lie, as I am convinced that Antichrist has far more to it than just the allegorical surface it presents with such manic aggression. The quandary comes in that what lies underneath is, and must remain, frighteningly ambiguous. It took me half the film to realise this, as for the first two chapters it appeared that Lars von Trier was, once again, fighting with his audience. This was not achieved through clandestine plotting or an orthodox distancing technique, but rather an all out impasse of indiscreet exposition, emotional over-analysis and loud, hollow foreshadowing. The result of all this being an awkward, dizzying puzzle, which is only able to be unravelled when complemented by the remaining half. Do not get me wrong, this is not a fault, but rather a great, enduring strength.
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s performance as the unnamed woman is harrowing and steeped in gravitas. There is a great deal to be learned from simply watching her movements, which exploit her entire body as a means of unspoken expression, adding a level of depth to her character that could not have been conveyed in any other manner. Willem Dafoe’s character, also unnamed, is up against her at every turn, deluded by his role in their relationship and unable to come to terms with this. The ferocious battle between these two personalities becomes the dynamic and complex heart of the twisted narrative. As is common with von Trier’s work, Antichrist’s aesthetic is an eclectic mixture of the ethereal, the intimate, and the disorientating. Gorgeous, glowing slow motion sequences of majestic beauty and form are juxtaposed with rough, jarring handheld work that thrives on abrupt zooms and cuts to unexpected angles. The balance between these two disparate styles is delicate but handled well, delivering enormous visual impact when needed and presenting an effective dichotomy with regards to the articulation of depression as an experienced state of mind. While there are a number of moments that would earn Antichrist a place within the horror genre, it is beside the point to digest it as such. The violence, the darkness, the torture, it all comes from within, from a struggle that, as the film so adeptly shows, echoes back to nature itself.
We are looking into the past, and that implies a future. We are haunted because we can already see the future reflected in the past. We are trapped because we know this is human nature and for all the good in the world there is just enough evil to wipe it all out. The setting of a small town dominated by religion and agriculture is perfect for Haneke’s examination of what he refers to as ‘the origin of every type of terrorism’. Scene after scene we watch as innocence is crushed; as one ‘accident’ becomes multiple atrocities. Through all of this we are gently guided by the voice over narration of the village school teacher, now an old man looking back on the strange events that transpired around him so many years ago. He builds the central mystery of the film and helps to weave all of the characters and their loose narrative threads together. Meanwhile his younger self is falling awkwardly in love with a young new arrival to the community, creating a warm, albeit difficult romance in the middle of the ever-growing shroud of darkness that is The White Ribbon’s weighty thematic construction. This lofty morality play is made all the more successful and engaging by the adeptness of the craft, which is so piercing and succinct that it avoids being heavy-handed or contrived and instead elevates the serious quintessence of the story to a challenging, enthralling intensity.
I was lucky enough to view The White Ribbon in its original digital format, which provided the cleanest, sharpest cinematic experience of my life. Every insignificant facial hair, every tear drop, every wrinkle was right there, unmistakably real and visible on each worn and worried face. Wide shots filled with such fine detail and the exquisite use of vertical framing pushing characters and objects to both the top and bottom of frame simultaneously, forcing our eyes to roam about the exhaustive and rich world, creating a stark, meaningful transparency. Comparisons to the work of Béla Tarr seem fitting, not just for the use of black and white, but also the long tracking shots, which move like a silent ghost through the houses and lives of the characters. At times lighting would become so sparse that we would be left with nothing more than a fiery flicker, which would then, upon the arrival of winter, create an extreme contrast with the burning whiteness of the fresh snow. This scrupulously consistent aesthetic is more than just beautiful; it is an accurate, commendable representation of the internal functioning of the film. Still, I feel what will stay with me the longest is the performances of the children. Each one felt professional, authentic and mature, no doubt another testament to the excellent direction of Michael Haneke, who has created a film with absolute intent and potent execution.
