“Men” by Jesse Buckley, Alex Garland: Film Review

Alex Garland’s hallucinatory streak runs uniquely in his head has probably never been more disturbing than in his third feature film as writer-director. Men. Drawing maniacally from current conversations about male aggression and female trauma, the film lays the groundwork for familiar popular horrors in a quietly insidious setting with a vulnerable woman before Bizarre becomes a triple horror that reaches new heights of weirdness. Exciting performances by Jesse Buckley and real chameleon Rory Kinnear make this beginner-friendly A24 conversation genre extraordinarily distinctive.

While the film opens with Buckley’s troubled harpist being cultivated by men in a way that is less overtly hostile and intrusive than awkward and disturbing, the regenerative cycles of male-dominated behavior are gradually revealed through graphic rudeness. This raises the question of whether Men It can be considered a feminist horror film, although the pathetic spiral of the male characters is viewed with more sadness than judgment, despite the story’s dizzying descent into the grotesque.

The fact that the result is open to different interpretations. Men A more ambiguous work than Garland’s sci-fi/horror hybrids, old machine s Undoing. It’s also the most dangerous and visceral horror.

This is largely due to the director’s usual cinematographer, Rob Hardy pictures, with lush compositions that always give way to chaos. Equally important is Glenn Freeman’s voluminous sound design, an insidious sound attack that blends the calm of the natural world with Ashley’s bold score by Ben Salisbury and Jeff Barrow, which draws inspiration from the choruses of early religious music. These elements are fed directly by Harper’s own voice, singing through the tunnel’s stone walls to experience the echo, or screaming in pain as memory interferes with her solitude in the church.

The Christian and Pagan worlds coexist in a medieval town where Harper retreats, adding another layer of mystery to a story that goes against a tidy explanation but inevitably leaves you wondering.

The less you know about it Men The more records the better. But the main cast is a recently widowed woman seeking peace after a shocking tragedy. The image of Harper’s wife James (Papa Esiedu) falling off the top of an elegant London apartment building near the Thames at random times lingers in his mind, with the tension of his closing argument: he firmly insists where divorce is. your only option; He begs her to reconsider and threatens suicide if she refuses, slowly revealing himself in fragments.

Harper goes alone to a cabin located in Green Forest, where he plans to spend two weeks recovering. At first, he seemed kindly amused by the goofy humor of the owner, Jeffrey (Kinner); He jokes that the guest helps himself to pull an apple from the tree, with a symbolic head, which is also Garland’s wink. Still, he’s clearly interested in bringing out Jeffrey’s full, immature run so he can get the time he needs to be alone. But the deep crimson walls indicate that it will not be an ideal place for recovery and relaxation.

Walking along the old train tracks soon changes his mood from calm to alarmed when he sees a dirty, naked man watching him from a distance. This silent stranger reappears, transforming into an English mythological figure of a green man as he places leaves and twigs on the wounds on his face and body and becomes a leafy manifestation of the cycle of life, death and resurrection.

The most common mortal men living in the city (women are invisible except for one police officer (Sarah Tumei)) are only slightly less irritating, even if their microaggression is initially less dangerous. Among them is a vicar whose intimate body language seems innocent until he starts questioning Harper about her role in James’ death; A troubled student dressed as Marilyn Monroe named Samuel, who is upset when Harper refuses to go into hiding; A self-proclaimed policeman; Public issuer in the country where the standard is issued; And one or two head thieves from Kefala. Garland Deliberately Plays “Final Girl” Tropes And Trains Harper In Practice Only girl.

However, the director’s real brilliance was that all of these male characters were played by Kinnear, with a virtuoso range of physical and vocal modulation, with the help of an expert from the hair and makeup department and, in one case, with digital assistance. . They are broken aspects of the same person, all hiding their insecurities behind the masks of civilization, purity or authority, rudeness or rudeness. When Jeffrey willingly searches the house for the intruder, he quotes his 7-year-old father: “You have exactly the makings of a failed military man,” before proving the old man wrong. It seems to be a fruitless quest for life.

As the threads unravel between Green Man and Jeffrey, Reverend and Samuel, Harper just has to make his own defense decision, a situation where Buckley strikes a balance between terror and wit. She fearfully avoids men who appear to be afraid of her despite her menacing behavior. Masculine potential is lost, men are weakened by their own desire, while women remain self-sufficient, ruled by intellect and fierce defense mechanisms.

It all comes with copious bloodshed, massacres (you’ll never look at an English gate the same way) and a mind-boggling display of subversive reproductive imagery that can turn into a silly scenario where there’s less. In your mind. Body Horror prosthetics are terribly effective, reminiscent of the old Cronenberg. brod. But at the film’s most distinctive climax is the sudden compassion it reveals in Harper, perhaps reminiscent of the helplessness of people who are doomed to pursue their destructive flaws and impossible needs into eternity.