Morbid Energy

This week, Park Chan-wook's dialogue with Shadow of a Doubt; a queer coming-of-age in conservative, small-town Australia; and a limited edition story/art book out of Berlin. Spoilers for Stoker, light spoilers for the rest.

From the Grave.

Three ideas from horror cinema's past.

◆ Stoker, dir. Park Chan-wook, 2013.

Nicole Kidman. Kidman plays Evelyn with a high-strung, disorganized, anti-maternal force that makes her—even though she’s the most sane among the familial trio, and the least violent—also the most disturbing. Stoker doesn't have a traditional Gothic setting—no ruins, crypts, or decaying manors here (this manor is perfectly polished and maintained)—but has its own kind of Gothic environment within a decaying and decayed family. Kidman sets the mood, shapes the space, brings the un-familial atmosphere to life.

Matthew Goode. Any intro to film class will cover the Kuleshov effect—the way we interpret an image (especially an image of an actor's face) based on context. Kuleshov's experiments involved editing different images alongside an unchanging clip of an actor, and showing that viewers interpreted his expression differently depending on what he seemed to be looking at. Matthew Goode’s performance in Stoker brings this experiment to mind. Does he have a creepy smile? Or is he simply showing us the same charming smile he puts on in so many other, less malevolent, roles? Does the smile just feel different given the story context and Park's camerawork? I’m not entirely sure what the answer is and, by the end of the film, the performance becomes unambiguously creepy. But I think much of what’s going on with him in the first hour derives from the interplay between face and context: uncomplicated charisma shaded by what’s come before and by the darkness on the horizon.