Article: Going Gothic - The Others

Finding films like The Others is becoming taxing. The film is now almost 25 years old and has reminded me of the relentless and pressing march of time moving ever forward. To imagine it being pitched to a non-A24 studio executive now would require an amount of guile. It’s hard to see such a traditional style haunting finding an audience as well as it did in the early 00s. The film made $210 million from a meagre $17 million budget. Such a feat feels less and less likely as the years move by.

Even though it’s been over two decades, The Others still manages to provide a chill. Even if you already know how the story plays out. The silent moments and knowing glances still hold a stern effectiveness. The film doesn’t have as many frightening set pieces as I recall. I was shocked that the film doesn’t have as many bumps in the night as previously remembered. But what makes The Others successful is the precision of its storytelling and its wonderfully vulnerable central performance. The focus on the eerie atmosphere more than makes up for its lack of typical jump scares. Combined with its command of its story and lack of blood and gore, the film is a wonderfully formative horror movie. Providing the right amount of tension and suspense to guide younger audience members into the realms of the macabre, without its scares being too alienating.

Set in 1945, Nicole Kidman plays Grace, who resides in a remote country manor in Jersey with her two uncommonly photo-sensitive children. The arrival of three new servants has Grace explain the strict rules of the house. Locked doors and heavily drawn curtains restrict the light that enters the house. The combination of a father missing overseas due to the war and overzealous, near-religious rules installed by Grace takes an emotional toll on all involved, with Grace and her new servants struggling with substantial friction. There is also strain between Grace and her children as a dramatic event occurred in the recent past between them. Things take a drastic turn when a series of uncanny events occur, bringing things to a chilling supernatural conclusion.

Does Nicole Kidman get her due? Despite being Hollywood's top brass, I’ve always felt that Kidman straddles between being well-regarded yet undervalued. Detractors make superficial observations of the actress as cold and dispassionate. However, my enjoyment of Kidman has always come from how well she plays women who regulate their emotions, only allowing small moments passions flow over. Her sexuality is often carefully calculated, calibrated and used like a weapon. Dead Calm (1989) and To Die For (1995) are perfect examples. Moulin Rouge (2001), released in the same year as The Others, almost plays as a parody of what Kidman does, flaunting herself so extravagantly that it felt too false to some at times. Although said falseness seemed to be the point.

The Others is a significant example of Kidman repressing and regulating. Pretending everything is ok even when evident cracks are starting to show.  Her demeanour is perfect for the type of paranoia and mania beset on protagonists in Gothic fare.  Kidman’s performance of Grace fits quite comfortably in the sub-genre of her work: A repressed woman slowly losing her mind in a vast empty house. For other examples see Stoker (2013) and The Beguiled (2017). Both themselves are compulsive Gothic dramas. Much like The Shining (1980), it’s evident that hysteria has already reached a peak before things start to bump in the night. Grace opens the film properly by screaming herself awake. It’s a moment which strengthens the story after its first viewing. Starting this way only helps indicate how deep the descent into mania might be.

Kidman is solid throughout the film. Eschewing the so-called Ice Queen persona – an identity that seems more akin to her red-carpet appearances/interviews than her film performances – and delivering a heightened, expressionistic display of matricidal fear. Often wide-eyed and shrill throughout the film, Grace is also a strongly determined woman, willing to do whatever she can to protect her children, even though it sometimes feels like she dislikes them.  It is perhaps why The Others stands out in Kidman’s filmography. It’s a film which shows her as a woman who is both strong-willed yet naïve and conflicted. Kidman’s character of Suzanne Stone in To Die For is full of similar traits. There's little surprise that these roles stand out amongst her filmography, as Kidman seems to excel in such displays where the women seem to be hiding scorn for those around them while also doing their best to swallow their contempt for themselves. 

Director Alejandro Amenábar deftly controls the story of Grace’s growing irrationality, By drip-feeding the information and misdirection into the story where needed. The stellar supporting cast also bolsters events. Including committed supporting turns from Fionnula Flanagan and child actors Alakina Mann and James Bentley. In rewatching The Others, the telltale signs are far more apparent than once remembered. I was pleasantly surprised at how the burden of time allowed me to forget just how early it lets you in on some of its secrets. However, Amenábar’s tight grip on the narrative and the well-drawn-out characters allow a viewer to get swept up in the story instead of trying to figure everything out. And as suggested earlier, knowing what occurs never ruins the enjoyment. It merely adds to it.

Amenábar is less interested in cheap scares as he is in extended periods of suspense. This is not to say that the film does have shocking moments. A sequence in the piano room still holds a high grade in unexpectedness. Meanwhile, the film's visuals are a grand exercise in creating a discomforting atmosphere. Cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe pulls out a simple but effective bag of tricks ranging from unorthodox camera angles and movements to inspired uses of light and reflection. The set design is also noteworthy. The Jersey manor, the only location, is constantly shrouded by thick fog. The use of low light and murky fog not only creates a sense of inescapable and oppressive dread but also a visual metaphor of uncertainty, which matches the growing insecurity held by Grace as the film continues.

As a Gothic period piece, The Others is a traditional Ghost story which leans a lot on the Haunting (1954) and The Innocents (1966) with the film taking on similar creepy aesthetics. However, the notable themes of isolation, dread and paranoia caused by family dysfunction echo in films such as The Babadook (2014) and Hereditary (2018). So, while it’s becoming harder to see studio executives as interested in such a period horror now as they were back then, Nosferatu (2024) withstanding, the elements which make The Others such an enjoyable tale live on in albeit overt, mutated forms. 24 years on, The Others still holds a gem of a Nicole Kidman performance. And as a piece of Gothic horror, it still shines brightly.

 

 The Others is currently streaming on ITVx. I however have it on disc.

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Review: The Beguiled

Year: 2017
Director: Sophia Coppola
Screenplay: Sophia Coppola
Starring: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning.

Synopsis is here:

The more I think about The Beguiled, the more I fear it might not have worked for me. While watching the movie, I enjoyed its opulence. I was occupied in that feathery, dream-like bubble that Sophia Coppola creates with her film. The Beguiled is no exception to Coppola’s ability to craft succulent images. This is southern gothic by way of Vanity Fair. It’s nigh-high impossible not to drink in the lavishness.

However, it was with a second viewing of Don Siegel’s original cinematic adaptation of The Beguiled (1971) that I found myself feeling a little duped. Thinking back to Coppola’s film, I discovered that I had found it lacking. Much was said about Coppola’s decision (and weak explanation) to “whitewash” her civil war film, by omitting the original feature’s only black character Hattie. After watching Coppola’s film, I was first of the opinion that this could have been merely the force of progressive politics imposing itself on to yet another film because it didn’t adhere itself exactly to how a particular left leaning audience would want it to. So often I often feel that we can, and will, find anything to criticise (read complain about) as it may not fit directly into our agenda. But that second viewing of Sigel’s film said even more than expected. Coppola’s film pales in contrast to it, not just because of its refusal to talk about race in a war in which race was a key part of. The Beguiled ’17 sands down more than race, but also the seedier elements which make the 71 version stand out.

Coppola is a director who knows her bread and butter and does well when she sticks to it. Here the girls of the school, like so many of Coppola’s doe-eyed, wonderfully dressed females, embrace the ritualistic elements of being in such a private school in that era, the prayers, the sewing, the music and the repression. Set it in the 70’s and we’re only a few steps away from The Virgin Suicides (1999) with the way these girls gated away from the evils of the world. That is until the devilishly handsome Colin Farrell shows up.

Where the original and remake diverge is in more than just the omittance of slave girl Hallie.  Gone is the more troublesome elements of Martha Farnsworth’s incestuous relationship with her brother which draws a cloud over so many of the women previously. Also removed is a late-night sequence involving southern state soldiers who imply their wish to explore their desires on the girls. Another element which gives more reason to view John with mistrust. The inner monologue of the female characters, illustrated via voice over, also disappears. Something which was clearly used in the original novel, where the male character does not hold a point of view. This motif only enhances and highlights the agency between the girls and their relationship to John. Who is played with a far more predatory manner by Clint Eastwood than here by Farrell, who is given far more sympathy.

Coppola’s decision to omit Hallie from this updated version of the movie is a strange one. In doing so, Coppola dismantles some of the balance and richness found in Siegel’s film and stops from ever exploring some interesting dynamics. Farrell showcases his Irishness in the film and one could only imagine the conflict that could come from a black slave and an Irish soldier fighting for the north. But also, the conflict between Hallie and Eastwood are among the more potent exchanges in the film. Why deny us this? Instead, Coppola goes down a more swooning, safer route of “white woman feminism” which, shouldn’t really be a surprise to a fan of her films such as myself, but only highlights how superficial some of the films discourse can feel. Coppola makes her version of the tale a film full of lavish costuming, pinpoint blocking and near slavish ritualism but it never wants to challenge its viewer.

This causes a conflict. The Beguiled once again shows that Coppola is an auteur of a truly singular vision, observing womanhood in a way that only she can. Her dream-like visions still provide intriguing entertainment to those who are interested. Her cast and their performances are formidable (although 1971’s list of players is more alluring) and the film never outstays its welcome.
However, The Beguiled (race elements aside) holds no controversy, and Coppola is no radical. She never really has been. What we see here is a wonderfully framed period piece, but it has none of the rough edges that the film before it holds. Coppola has fun toying with elements of the women’s repression (Kidman’s face while washing Farrell is a picture), but the playing down and removal of the aspects which made the original so remarkable softens the blow considerably making The Beguiled feel like an entertaining piece but also a missed opportunity. You get the feeling that Sophia Coppola went out and does what she does. It’s just a damn shame it feels all so safe.