Uncovering Television: Thoughts on TOP OF THE LAKE - Episode 3

Before I get into this episode's review, I want to apologize for any confusion that I might have caused those of you following/watching along with me. I somehow didn't realize Netflix had started the next episode on me after I finished Episode 2, so some of the things I briefly mentioned in that post (GJ's conversation with Robin and the hidden room in the bathroom) actually happened in Episode 3. I apologize for the confusion and wanted to mention it now before there's even more confusion when I mention them in this post. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Top of the Lake is an interesting property. It's already clearly a well structured and paced series with each episode building upon the last, revealing more about each of the characters and the peeling back the layers of the overriding mystery. But it's also interesting that each episode seems to have its own sustained theme that drives the actions of the characters. In the last episode it was the idea of hunting and how all of the characters were looking for something or be sought after by others. While I'm not sure if someone could come in to this episode having not seen the previous two and completely understand it or "enjoy" it to the full effect, as a single, standalone episode of television, Episode 3 is fantastic glimpse into the striking similarities between the otherwise drastically different Robin Griffin and Matt Mitchem. And as just one piece of the seven episode puzzle that is Top of the Lake, it continues the wonderful elaboration of the mysteries, the characters and the fascinating world of Laketop, New Zealand. 

Despite all their apparent dissimilarities, throughout this entire episode Robin and Matt Mitchem both engage in various degrees of self-loathing and self-abuse. Up to this point, Robin has remained a pillar of justice and strong, independent femininity in a hostile, male-dominated environment. Yes, Robin has left her mother up the proverbial creek without a paddle, selfishly abandoning her to deal with what we find out is a terminal cancer diagnosis because of her inability to cope with her mother's situation. And yes, maybe Tui's case is a way for her to take control of something after feeling so helpless with her mother. But Robin genuinely believes, and it seems rightfully so, that she can be the sole voice for Tui - perhaps the only hope of bringing the young girl home alive. And in being Tui's lone champion, she continues to display great courage and resolve in the face of tremendous ostracism. 

But this episode makes it painfully obvious that Robin isn't as steely as she would have everyone believe. Her texts back and forth with detective Steve give way to an uneasy phone conversation where he demands to know when she is coming home and calls her out on her rationalizations for her lengthy stay. We also learn that the pair's engagement has lasted over 5 years, much of which seems to be caused by Robin's continued foot-dragging. "Why don't you just marry him?" Her mother questions. "Maybe I'm waiting for him to find someone better," she replies. Much like Peggy Olsen in Mad Men, Robin's self-destructive nature becomes more and more evident as the episode progresses. In addition to continuing to string Steve along, she reignites an old flame with Johnno Mitchem, beginning with a brief but intense encounter in the local bar's bathroom and ending with a liaison in Mitchem's bedroom where he frankly (and in a laughably unsubtle way) tells her to keep her engagement ring on during the deed. Deciding to call Johnno instead of a fellow officer when she became trapped in Wolfgang's cabin from hell clearly wasn't smart. (Though that seems to have little consequences as of now.) But starting a sexual relationship with your prime suspect's son? C'mon, Robin! 

That prime suspect, Matt Mitchem, isn't doing too well either. As the show continues and we move deeper and deeper into these characters, the almost cartoonishly evil Mitchem has proven to actually be one of the more interesting and unpredictable characters in the series. He is truly a fascinating human being, with moments of sincere kindness and warmth sneaking into a personality dominated by hostility, violence and vehement anger. He's the kind of guy who can kindly love on a chihuahua while still running an large psychotropic drug plant. (Don't worry guys, Tui isn't locked away in some hidden dungeon. It's just a GIANT DRUG LAB.) Mitchem gets a bit of a reprieve when the police find Wolfgang hanging in a tree with panties on his head and an apologetic suicide note in his cabin. But although most of the department is convinced of Wolfgang's involvement, Robin (like us in the audience) remains dubious of Zanic's guilt, especially when a shallow grave in the forest reveals the remains of a dead canine. 

Peter Mullen's portrayal of Mr. Mitchem continues to be incredibly complex and emotionally confusing (in a good way). Yes, he can be apathetically cruel and harshly violent. But he's also, I'll say it, really damn charming. It's clear that he has an ability to form strong relationships in other manners than threats and abuse. His encounter with Detective Parker suggests an agreement that has been going on for some time and it's obviously strong enough to override Parker's apparent feelings for Robin. Mitchem also exudes charisma in his interactions with the women of "Paradise." Though those flowers swathed in wrapping paper were for GJ and though she doesn't fall for his charms, many of the other women were clearly intrigued - in particular Anita (Robyn Malcolm), who finds Mitchem so enticing and mysterious that she looks past the notable cracks in his facade. But this doesn't last too long after Mitchem decides to introduce Anita to his dead mother, only to viciously chastise her for standing on the grave and proceed to flagellate himself with a belt while reciting various vows and promises. 

All in all, Episode 3 is a mixed bag. The amazing performances by Elisabeth Moss and Peter Mullen are obvious highlights. I've already mentioned Mullen's complex performance, and Moss continues to be brilliantly subtle with Robin's emotions. (Her reactions to her mother revealing her cancer is terminal and to seeing the home movie of Tui singing are just amazing to watch.) It's now become clear that both Robin's and Mitchem's vulnerabilities will play major roles in their ongoing involvement in Tui's disappearance. Whether it be Robin's self-destructive tendencies or the fact that, based on how he treats his dead mother's grave, Matt Mitchem really does care about family as much as he says, it's not hard to see how these things will affect the investigation. And, more importantly, how both Robin and Matt will use these vulnerabilities against one another. 

If I had one complaint about this week's episode, it would be the lack of subtly in the dialogue. From Robin's "Can we do a bit more of the wrong thing before we do the right thing?" to the aforementioned "Leave your wedding ring on while I plow you." thing, I didn't really need to have Robin and Johnno's relationship spelled out for me. It's wrong. It's subversive. It's "edgy." I get it. But there is that really dark and hilarious moment where one of the women of "Paradise" answers "What's in this locked shipping container?" with "It's where we keep all the dead kids," to make up for it. It's incredibly quick and easy to miss and really awful, but incredibly funny. 

Until next time, how are all of you liking (or disliking) things so far? 

Uncovering Television: Thoughts on TOP OF THE LAKE - Episode 2

So, for those of you who haven't watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy and don't know, New Zealand is an incredibly prepossessing place. It's full of majestic mountain ranges and enormous, crystal clear lakes. It's a place full of an innumerable amount of possible backdrops for the wonderful cinematography of Adam Arkapaw. It's also a place whose allure makes for a striking juxtaposition with the shocking violence perpetrated within Top of the Lake. Whether it be the rape of an innocent 12-year-old girl, the cruel and unrelenting misogyny, or the murder of the universally unliked real estate agent, Bob Platt (the discovery of whose body ends the previous episode and begins this one), despite its overwhelming beauty, the small town of Laketop, New Zealand is populated with highly secretive and volatile people. But of all its natural aesthetics, perhaps the most significant to this episode is the lush, expansive forest that takes up much of the small town's acreage. You see, most of what Top of the Lake's second episode concerns itself with is hunting. Nearly everyone in this episode is being hunted or is hunting for something. 

Apart from the deer's head from the title sequence that finds itself in both Dectective Al Baker's (David Wenham, Faramir from Lord of the Rings of all things) office and on the wall of the local bar, Robin spends most of the episode hunting. Of course she, like the majority of the community, is still searching for the disappeared Tui to no avail. But she is also looking for love. Not in the Urban Cowboy sort of way, mind you, but in that she's trying to sort out her feelings for Steve, her dull detective fiance, and for mysterious third son of villainous Matt Mitchem, Johnno, with whom she shares some clear history and, after this episode, perhaps an even clearer present. 

There's also the various characters in the women's commune of "Paradise" who are all hunting for something, be it hope, salvation or, in the case of Bunny (Genevieve Lemon), a little bang for her buck. The way Bunny nonchalantly lays her money (what looks like 20 Australian dollars) on the table, not caring which of the gentlemen take her up on the offer to satisfy her needs, provides some much needed, albeit pretty dark, comic relief in an episode filled with its fair share of horrific occurrences. I mean, she doesn't even look at who the guy is! She just tells him to get in the shower and gives him 7 minutes to get the job done once he's out. Initially I thought it might be a way of taking back control of her sexuality. But as she explains to the now twenty dollars richer Kiwi, anymore time together and she runs the risk of forming an emotional attachment. Is this something she's formulated herself or is it something GJ has imparted? If it is in fact GJ, this surprisingly practical advise seems to deeply contradict what the strange guru frankly imparts on Robin later in the episode: "All the bitches here are searching for love. When they don't find that, enlightenment... They don't find anything. Not one of them." 

Then there's the cabin in the woods style horror movie that is Robin's home-invasion of another hunter - the frighteningly intense and exceptionally named pedophile bartender, Wolfgang Zanic. It's hard to believe that Wolfgang is responsible for Tui's disappearance. His creepy cabin complete with his own private arsenal and photos of children make his involvement a bit too obvious. That being said, that doesn't make the sequence any less harrowing. From the moment, outside of his dog pen, that Robin asks Zanic "Who are you feeding?" rather than "What are you feeding?" the shotgun in her face seemed inevitable. And although she managed to escape without any real damage, something tells me there might be consequences for phoning Johnno for help rather than one of her fellow officers. 

Elizabeth Moss is particularly strong in this episode. As I saw hints of in the first episode, the character of Robin Griffin is incredibly subtle. At the very end of the episode, she invites Johnno in for tea. She is already dealing with the near-death experience at Wolfgang's cabin and then Johnno declines. There is a slight hint in her eyes that she might simply crumble into a heap right there in his car. But instead she just smiles and quickly exits with a breathless "Okay" and an offhanded "Thanks." Likewise, when she deals with the nefarious louts in the local bar she is understandably upset. As they talk about having sex with sheep and Taiwanese women, she is angry, disgusted. But although she feels an intense hatred for these men, she has impeccable control over her emotions. (The only outward expression she gives being when she turns a particularly nasty individual who accuses Tui of lying into her own personal dartboard.) 

The only visceral reaction we really get from Robin is when she revisits the odious residence of Matt Mitchem. Almost at the onset of their conversation, Matt asks Robin if she'd like to take the recently "drowned" Bob Platt's dog off his hands. No one wanted it, he explains, and he thought it would fit in with his plethora of other pooches. But it has already bit him and harassed some of his other animals. When Robin declines, Matt promptly shoots and kills the dog causing Robin to instinctively recoil in terror. Is this simply another way for Campion and company to show us how evil Matt is? Or is he sending Robin a message like those bastards in the bar who ask her if she's a lesbian and a feminist because "No one likes a feminist except a lesbian."?  Perhaps Matt is showing Robin that he can be nice, (Immediately after killing Platt's dog, he goes over and begins affectionately petting a chihuahua that he got for Tui.) but that he has no problem taking out a nuisance that keeps harassing him and his family. 

Much like Wolfgang, I have a hard time believing that Matt Mitchem is involved in Tui's rape and her disappearance. Throughout these two episodes, the series has tried its damnedest to show us how evil and suspicious Mitchem is. There's the seemingly secret room behind the bathroom in his home, Tui's aforementioned chihuahua that made its way home even though she didn't, and the fact that Mitchem says "No One" loves Tui more than he does - the same phrasing, you'll remember, that was on the scrap of paper Tui scrawled out for Robin at the police station. Like Wolfgang, it all seems way too obvious, too red herring to actually turn out to be much. But if not Matt Mitchem or Wolfgang, then who? For now, I'm laying my money down on one of the Mitchem boys rather than daddy dearest. And of the three, the seemingly good-hearted loner Johnno is at the top of the lake, if you will (and even if you won't). 

Until next time, what did you guys think?

Uncovering Television: Thoughts on TOP OF THE LAKE - Episode 1

While attempting to do double duty the other night, flipping back and forth between the 2013 Emmy Awards and the Steelers/Bears game for all its fantasy football implications (For those curious, I did win this week.), a name continued and continued to stick in my mind. No, it wasn't the Pittsburgh Steelers' Antonio Brown. (Though, he was awesome.) It was the 2013 miniseries, Top of the Lake, created by Jane Campion, director of the 1993 Academy Award winning drama The Piano. 

Filmed and set in New Zealand and airing earlier this year on the Sundance Channel, Top of the Lake tells the story of a detective (Mad Men's Elisabeth Moss) investigating the disappearance of pregnant 12-year-old girl. Needless to say, I was already intrigued by the fleeting glances I was able to snatch in between Ben Roethlisberger interceptions. It was as mysterious to me as the strange, Twin Peaks-esque award show clips and the critical acclaim only bolstered my need to see it. "How could this have slipped under my radar?" I asked myself. "This sounds exactly like something right up my dark, twisted alley!" I had to know more. And, as luck would have it, I would get just that chance. Glancing at my Twitter feed to see everyone's thoughts on various Emmy-related events, I caught a tweet from Netflix Instant stating how wonderful Top of the Lake was and linking to its page on their godsend of a website. "They have the whole thing!" I exclaimed silently in my head. 

So here we are. And all of this was just a long, drawn out way of saying that I'm going to watch it and I'm going to tell you what I think about it. It may take a week or more to get a post up for every episode, but that's exactly what I plan to do. Maybe you'll even watch them along with me (or maybe you've already seen it) and will join me in the discussions. Either way, I hope this proves to be a fruitful excursion to the land under the land down under and I hope it's a journey you'll all make with me. So let's get cracking!

Immediately from the opening credits, with their weirdly wonderful watercolors and haunting piano, I knew my assumptions were right... kinda. The basic framework is clearly borrowed from David Lynch's early 90s cult classic - a lush setting, small town "invaded" by an outsider detective, lots of big secrets and a dead body washed ashore to boot. But this is not Twin Peaks. While there is a variety of eccentric local color, it is not abstract or Lynchian. (Save for maybe Holly Hunter as a grey-haired guru who speaks mainly in philosophical adages to her makeshift commune of troubled and/or damaged women.) What would have been strange or quirky in Twin Peaks, Washington gives way to an unnerving air of hostility and violence personified by the young girl's menacing father and his rabid but obedient sons guarded in their gated and surveilled fortress of a compound. No, this is not Twin Peaks. What Ms. Campion and her writing partner Gerard Lee have created is more akin to a feminist neo-noir, where its expansive scope of women (the detective, her cancer-stricken mother, the aforementioned commune, and perhaps most importantly the young victim) must struggle to navigate, survive and hopefully flourish in this society dominated by violent and dismissive alpha-males. 

From the haunting opening scene of young Tui slowly walking into the lake, the level to which all women in this society are judged and what a sense of utter hopelessness that can breed within them is as clear as the water she finds herself in. As she stands there, shoulder deep clenching her tiny fists, the despair she feels is heartbreakingly palpable. But she is rescued by another, older woman and taken back to her school for an examination. There they find that she's pregnant and thus begins the statutory rape investigation. Robin makes some progress with Tui, but before she can follow up on literally the only scrap of evidence she has - a piece of paper that Tui has scrawled the words "No One" after questioned about the baby's father - Tui vanishes. 

Near the end of the first episode, Robin (Elisabeth Moss' detective) has a quick, but important conversation with her mother that captures this dynamic. "You're a long way from any help," her mother says concerned. "I am the help," Robin replies. Not only does she have to take on the immense responsibility of being the lead on a rape/missing persons case, she must also attempt to traverse the incredibly misogynistic landscape both inside and outside of the police headquarters. Whether its being written off or insulted by officers both above and below her in rank or dealing with these (out)backwoods roughnecks who neither respect her authority nor the veracity of crimes committed against women, she is constantly forced to withstand a level of harsh judgment that would be unspeakable for a male in her exact situation. 

Besides her iffy-at-times New Zealand accent, I can't think of many people more suited to play Robin than Elisabeth Moss. Her time on Mad Men have shown her commanding ability to be a strong enterprising woman. The fact that Top of the Lake is set in modern day and not in the 1960s also gives her more freedom to express her confidence and intelligence. In fact, the hostile environment in which she finds herself demands she do so or be destroyed. But, like Peggy Olsen in Mad Men, Robin's motivations remain as large a mystery as Tui's disappearance. She is driven primarily by unseen (to this early point in the series) forces and plagued by unknown vulnerabilities and her ability to elicit sympathy from the audience makes for a deep and nuanced lead that seems more than capable of carrying the series run. 

The pestering sense of potential conventionality is undeniably present in this first episode. This being said, Top of the Lake looks to be an increasingly interesting whodunnit with more to say outside of what appears to be its police procedural format. If nothing else, it seems much more sure of itself than other recent productions with a similar feel such as AMC's recently cancelled The Killing. And with an intriguing central mystery (along with the promise of other reveals along the way), strong performances, and the combination of spectacularly gorgeous landscapes and impeccable cinematography, it's hard to believe Top of the Lake will simply be yet another procedural that fades into obscurity. 

Until we meet again, what did you guys think?

Criterion Spotlight: Terrence Malick's BADLANDS

For those of you who don't know, the Criterion Collection is a visual-distribution company that specializes in "important classic and contemporary films" and markets primarily to film aficionados. Both their DVD and Blu-ray releases are known to be of the highest quality on the home entertainment market and their products are packaged with some of, if not the best and most comprehensive extra/bonus material out there. I am personally an enormous fan and huge proponent of the collection and, as such, thought it might be interesting to do an ongoing series on the collection that chronicles my thoughts on both some of my favorite films that have been given the Criterion treatment and films that I bought as part of the collection that I am seeing and appreciating for the very first time. And to kick things off, I thought it might be appropriate to do the film that kicked off an amazing, if not highly unusual career - Terrence Malick's debut feature, BADLANDS. 

Holly describes her life as if she's writing a novel. "I could of snuck out the back or hid in the boiler room," she supposes, "but I sensed that my destiny now lay with Kit, for better or for worse, and it was better to spend a week with one who loved me for what I was than years of loneliness." It's this wandering, often poetic narrative voice that permeates and lingers throughout the film and speaks to the heart of what Badlands is - a beautiful and poetic fantasy about two young individuals trying to make a mark or find purpose in their seemingly minuscule existences and being diminished under the enveloping magnificence of the world around them.  

Holly (Sissy Spacek) is outside on her front lawn in her leafy, perfectly trimmed neighborhood in South Dakota practicing her baton twirling when Kit (Martin Sheen) introduces himself. She's 15. He's 25 and has just abruptly quit his job throwing trash. We don't know much about Kit and we never really learn anything about his past. He saunters into Holly's life in his denim and cowboy boots and sweeps her up into his tornado of a life. Within a couple of days he's shot her father dead, packed up what little clothes and trinkets she has to her name, burned her house to the ground, and the two are on lam, fleeing across the Midwest.

Badlands is a story that's been told many times - that of two young lovers and criminals who are pursued across America's expansive vastness. It is commonly believed to be based (how loosely can be debated) on the 1958 killing spree of 19-year-old Charles Starkweather who, along with his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate, murdered 11 people, including a small child, and 2 dogs. But it also brings to mind films such as the Arthur Penn's 1967 picture, Bonnie and Clyde. That being said, Badlands is far from a fictionalized retelling or derivative rehashing. It is a standalone story that is wholly and unequivocally Terrence Malick's vision. 

Many, if not all of the artistic flairs that would come to define the range of Terrence Malick's future works are present in Badlands. The philosophical profundities, evocative voice-overs and visual fixation on the natural world are all present, though incipient, and the nascent fashion of their presence only adds to the film's genius. Terrence Malick's works have become known more for their poetic blending of visuals and music than for their stories, well constructed as they may be. And the beginnings of this beautiful marriage is no more present than in Badlands. It is a film that is just as free, experimental and unsure of itself as its young lovers. However, it is not simply more of the same. Despite it's similarities to his other works, Badlands is the least Malick-like film in the director's catalog. 

While Badlands contains the humanism that would become a major component of Malick's work, it is clearly his most frigidly detached film. The dream-like reality created by the exquisite, sweeping landscapes and Holly's introspective monologues remove any impact that the violence in the film would normally have. Though perhaps shocking in 1973 for its then blatant depiction of inexplicable violence and gore, the gunshots that riddle Kit's victims now seem completely cold and strangely hollow. The film doesn't treat these deaths as momentous events. In a film like Bonnie and Clyde, the titular duo are treated as anti-heroes. Though the pair might not see their crimes as morally reprehensible, the film certainly does. In Badlands, however, they're simple inconveniences to the true focus of the film - Kit and Holly's affair. Though the film depicts some truly inimitable, beautifully warm moments between Kit and Holly, it also treats the rest of the world as a series of obstacles trying to pry apart and destroy the couple.

And that's the whole point.

In an early monologue, Holly describes as scene where Kit releases a large red balloon: "Kit made a solemn vow that he would always stand beside me and let nothing come between us. He wrote this out in writing, put the paper in a box with some of our little tokens and things, then sent it off in a balloon he'd found while on the garbage route." She continues, "His heart was filled with longing as he watched it drift off. Something must've told him that we'd never live these days of happiness again, that they were gone forever." You see, no matter how hard Kit and Holly try to make their mark in the world, they're just two more souls floating in the universe, so minute in comparison to the obtruding nature attempting to swallow them whole. The nature that plays such a major role in all of Malick's films - the trees that form a protective canopy over Holly's quiet neighborhood, the brush and dirt covered planes that Kit believes will carry them to their destiny, the forest that provides the couple with a momentary utopia, a slap-dash Garden of Eden - will all remain when all trace of Kit and Holly are gone. 

But Badlands is not a cynical or nihilistic film. Yes, it is a film about two people who want to be the center of the universe only to find themselves being torn apart by it. And no, Kit and Holly will not be remembered for their murder spree across the Badlands of Montana or for the shoddy monument Kit builds for himself before surrendering to the police. Just as Malick's distant, unbiased camera hints at all along, how we make a mark or find purpose in our minuscule existences is through who we choose to share those existences with. "It hit me that I was just this little girl, born in Texas, whose father was a sign painter, who had only so many years to live," Holly opines, looking at slides in her father's 3-D Stereopticon. "It sent chills down my spine," she says, "and I thought - Where would I be this very moment if Kit had never met me?" In the awe-inspiring and all-consuming magnificence of the nature around them, a young girl looking at foreign landmarks in one of her father's trinkets, just like a young man releasing a balloon holding a promise, realizes that the couple have left indelible marks on each other's heart and on each other's existence. 

Shadow of a Person: Thoughts on Park Chan-wook's STOKER

Park Chan-wook's (Korean director of films such as OLDBOY and SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE) English language debut, STOKER, shares many of the same threads as Alfred Hitchcock's 1943 film, SHADOW OF A DOUBT. Both films are psychological thrillers. Both films also center around the relationship between a young woman and her Uncle Charlie. (Yes, even both uncles are Charlies.) In both films, the young woman and her family are struggling with their lives as they currently are. Charlie (another Charlie, the young woman in SHADOW OF A DOUBT, nicknamed after her uncle), who sees her family as stuck in a tremendous rut, complains that nothing is happening in her life. India Stoker's father is dead. (Obviously, this is a bit more extreme than a rut. But STOKER in general is more of an extreme film.) In both films, the mysterious Uncle Charlie shows up, either through a psychic link with his niece or other nefarious reasons, and seems like the answer to the young woman and her family's prayers. And in both films, Uncle Charlie is more than meets the eye, (No, he's not a Transformer.) sharply and suddenly changing the life of his young niece forever. 

That being said, a remake STOKER is not. While SHADOW OF A DOUBT brilliantly peels back the welcoming warmth and innocence of a small idyllic town to reveal its underlying naivete and gullibility, STOKER is primarily a twisted coming of age tale where India's relationship with Uncle Charlie reveals the disturbing truth about the kind of person young India truly is. While SHADOW OF A DOUBT turns the quaint town of Santa Rosa, California into a character in its own right, the Stoker family are secluded, almost suspended in space and time in their large, Victorian mansion. Likewise, where Hitchcock is able to build suspense through not only Charlotte's relationship with Uncle Charlie, but his relationship with the town itself and the feeling of entrapment this causes in Charlotte, Park Chan-wook and STOKER rely solely on the relationships between India, her mother Evelyn, and Uncle Charlie. 

And this is where the problem lies. You see, if your film relies almost completely on the relationships between these three people, they have to feel like, you know, actual people. Although Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman and Matthew Goode all turn in serviceable performances, a pedestrian script by PRISON BREAK star Wentworth Miller is unable to draw up any semblance of what a real person actually is. (Wasikowska and Goode are actually pretty impeccable for what they're given. Kidman has allowed plastic surgery to completely destroy any hope for a realistic, non-plasticy conveyance of emotion.) Don't get me wrong, movies don't necessarily have to have characters who seem like real people. But for a film that focuses so heavily on the evolution of this one young woman, the audience must have something to connect to. And though STOKER has an abundance of lush cinematography and a breathtaking color palette, as a story and character portrait it is resoundingly hollow. 

Visually, STOKER is hypnotizing. The constantly moving camera, (including a brilliant intermixing of tracking and steadicam shots) the aforementioned color scheme and oblique angles make this one of the most astonishingly beautiful films of the year. Park's longtime collaborator and cinematographer, Chung Chung-hoon, also blends live events with flashbacks and memories using the awe-inspiring fades and cross-cuts for which the duo have become famous. If STOKER had a story to tell, there could have been no more striking a way to tell it. 

But the film is dishearteningly empty. India quietly broods like a Victorian Lydia from BEETLEJUICE without the cleverness or humor. Uncle Charlie creeps, flirting with Evelyn while longingly staring at India. And Evelyn is either grooming and being a debutante or she's sulking with an unvoiced and immeasurable amount of pain. Sometimes they go out for ice cream! (But don't get India's favorite.) Sometimes they play tennis or have a quiet and incredibly awkward family dinner. And sometimes they play piano. While I'm clearly being facetious, these small repetitious events make up the majority of the emotional content in the film. Hell, they make up most of the content of the film period. There's a veritable Victorian mansion full of latent conflict here. India resents her useless, uncaring mother while turning and turning in the widening gyre of puberty. Evelyn equally resents India for being the focus of all of her father's attention before his death, and for snuffing out the spark of their marriage by being born. Charlie resents quite a few things. Most of which would completely spoil what shock the film has. Plus, there's that whole "father dead in a sudden and horrific accident" thing hanging over everyone. 

And it goes nowhere real or affecting. That latent conflict is swallowed whole by the monotonous lives of these strange, WASPy people. And when the film tries to introduce some real conflict, some real transgression, instead of being shocked or compelled, I just laughed. A strongly developed love triangle between an uncle, a mother/sister-in-law and a daughter/niece is an incredibly interesting concept. But the execution is so overwrought and filled with so much posturing that what should seem ominous and strangely sexy, just seems silly and weird. (But not sexy weird!) A late shower scene of India exploring her body cross-cut with a scene of intense violence should be India's final transition into a monster fit for the Stoker family name. We should be seduced or in awe of her corrupted emergence as an adult. But it just feels hilariously ridiculous. 

Park Chan-wook is famous for his visual flare. He's been quoted in many an interview stating his preference for films with little dialogue - that tell their stories through images. STOKER is no different. Unfortunately, in doing so Park completely smothers his actors. While the visuals should help us connect to the emotions these tortured individuals are experiencing, they just overpower them. In the rare instance where Mia Wasikowska is allowed room to breathe, she can be a commanding and imposing (and attractive) figure. However, it's clear that Park wants his visuals to take center stage, and in doing so they command and impose their will on the actors. Matthew Goode and, to a lesser extent, Nicole Kidman have the same problem. Luckily, most of what they're given to do is leaning against fancy, elaborate furniture and staring. 

As concepts, STOKER is full of powerful and interesting ideas. But there are just too many extra things that don't make sense. India has weird superpowers - hypersensitive hearing and vision, trained to excellence by her father. But they serve no purpose other than morphing distant, secretive conversations into exposition that India overhears. Couple this with Park's insistence on the emphasis of his visual sense with completely unsubtle dialogue and themes and the film crumbles under its own weight. There might be people out there who can enjoy STOKER as a fun bit of strange, fetishistic camp. But I don't see it. What Hitchcock as able to do so brilliantly in SHADOW OF A DOUBT was to create a town that felt real, filled with people who felt like actual people. By doing so, when the town's underlying gullibility and naivete (along with the true nature of Uncle Charlie and Charlotte's transformation) are revealed, the believabilty is as shocking as the reveals themselves. 

STOKER is absolutely gorgeous, both visually and audibly with Clint Mansell's brilliant score. But what made Hitchcock's film so affecting is conspicuously absent. Nothing in STOKER is palpable. The Stokers don't feel real. They're just shadows.

4 out of 10