an ilx discussion thread for the american independent film MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE

this a post that anticipates and dreads in equal measure atm

tinker tailor soldier marlene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERREgOobLOs

looks good.

'oscar buzz' too so they tell us
http://www.movieline.com/2011/01/oscar-2012-watch-elizabeth-olsen-dazzles-in-martha-marcy-may-marlene.php

i am kind of psyched for this

NYer review made me rly wanna see this pretty bad. This and Take Shelter are top o my list right now. And the new Kaurismaki.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NGQD63qAOw&feature=player_embedded#!

this movie is good, ending kinda sucks, elizabeth olsen is pretty terrific, and john hawkes too, as usual

I liked the ending a lot. It's not hard to imagine what's about to happen and I didn't feel the need to actually see it.

I saw this last night. SUPER frustrating movie, many things that were good about it (Elizabeth Olsen in particular) but so many other things that undermined the film (the way it was shot, the terrible British guy, kind of stupid script).

Le Havre was so much better.

Yeah British guy was kind of unnecessarily British. And her sister is kinda weak too.

My only real problem with the movie was that it took way way too long for the sister/husband to recognize that something was seriously wrong with the sister (also they don't ask her anywhere near enough questions). Also in a similar vein it doesn't really make sense that the cultists are able to find her.

But those feel like minor complaints to me. Great use of Jackson Frank, great performances and decidedly unsettling mood go a long way in my book.

She called them and they *69ed her back, so they knew the number there. If they then googled the number, even if unlisted, maybe they could have gotten the address. That's what I assume that scene was for, anyway.

best movie I've seen about the cult experience. first reaction was 'direction could have been better' but in retrospect the muzzy vibe and fractured past/present sequences communicated the main character's psychological fugue state. the ending WAS a bit jarring/unsatisfying yet somehow fit the story, too. good actin' from the olsen kid and the cult leader was perfectly creepy in that charlie manson demented hillbilly way

it occured 2 me somewhere abt halfway thru that i really didnt want the movie to bring the flashback storyline into the present day action @ all but that there was abt a 99% certainty they would

Just saw this with, among others, La Lechera and Je55e. I really liked it. Elizabeth Olsen is great. John Hawkes is super creepy.

My only real problem with the movie was that it took way way too long for the sister/husband to recognize that something was seriously wrong with the sister (also they don't ask her anywhere near enough questions).

This is OTM. When MMMM says, "You're going to be a terrible mother!" I whispered, "You're already a terrible sister!" Like, when somebody calls you crying and looking for a ride and then acts all traumatized and weird and withdrawn and then says, "Do you ever get confused about what's real and what's a dream?" YOU SAY YES! Holy shit.

I thought the ending was a little more ambiguous than all y'all think it was. That might just be serious wishful thinking, though. On the bus ride home, I decided that she stays in the hospital for awhile, feels better, stays in NY, waits tables while she goes to J school, decides to stay single while she works on her shit. Meanwhile, Patrick falls out of the hayloft and dies.

i think the ending was intentionally very ambiguous. there's never any confirmation that the guy at the party, or the truck outside, or the guy at the lake, or the truck at the end, or the banging on the roof, or anything are actually the cult's doing. the idea is to convey the sense that, whether or not it's true, she's going to live with the fear and paranoia induced by that forever. she's constantly going to think they've finally caught up with her.

here's what i'd like to know --

i get that she had a traumatic 2 years on the farm. but before that, when she was living with her aunt and abandoned by everyone in her life, she wasn't ok. she wasn't ok when she decided to join the cult. i got the sense that there maybe something seriously going on in her brain that needs attention beyond the ptsd, and that's why i was wondering what happened at the end.

would she just continue to be abandoned by everyone in her life and withdraw to some far off place and repeat this cycle ad infinitum with a series of characters who pretend to care about her and then take advantage of her? would she get axed by the older woman in the cult? would she "get help" and then suddenly be "better"?

basically that's why i thought the ending was ambiguous -- her condition was ambiguous imo.

overall though, it was beautiful and elizabeth marcy may marlene molsen did a great job of acting and also is v v v pretty.

It was well acted and tastefully done, but I felt like the two sections of the movie didn't really connect, and that ambiguities were more of a middlebrow arthouse cop-out/gimmick than affecting/resonant. If the dynamic with her sister is the crux of the drama, then the lurid details of the cult are pretty irrelevant. Slowly parceling them out just serves to keep us watching, little more. That's fine with pulp thrillers, but the film was so trying to be something more than that, and I don't think it pulled it off. Admittedly it sounds like I'm complaining that the film didn't make her "issue" transparent enough, like if she had a deadbeat dad and Hawkes was the obvious surrogate, but it just felt kind of scattered by the end.

Also I kept wondering which ambiguous shot would be the last one.

When a film that clearly aspires to more than Pulp Fiction funsies plays with chronology, sometimes its questionable whether they left parts out because they weren't necessary or because they'd actually be the hard part to get right. Blue Valentine is the most egregious example I can think of.

the idea is to convey the sense that, whether or not it's true, she's going to live with the fear and paranoia induced by that forever. she's constantly going to think they've finally caught up with her.

That's what I thought, too.

Also I had John Hawkes-led cult nightmares last night.

i didnt like this movie v much at all

this movie was so good!

im not sure i got anything from this that i didnt get from watching the trailer

i think it was actually supposed to be the american apparel story, with john hawkes as dov charney

is this like what lies beneath

if only!!

it's more like deep blue sea

i think it was actually supposed to be the american apparel story, with john hawkes as dov charney

― The sham nation of Israel should be destroyed. (Princess TamTam), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 19:23 (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol

ya 4 real

i did find myself wondering why the cult's clothes were all so hip. not enough pitstains or walmart dragon tees.

yeah and they all looked like models. and it was shot like a moving catalogue

'i mean its... i just like, dont really hang out w/ ugly ppl or w/e, yknow'

is this like what lies beneath

― ASPIE Rocky (dayo), Wednesday, November 9, 2011 12:23 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if only!!

― so solaris (Lamp), Wednesday, November 9, 2011 12:26 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

love u guys, this is one of my favorite movies of all time

i didnt like this movie v much at all

neither did Jaime C, which upset some ppl:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/martha-marcy-may-marlene/5829

anyway i didnt even really notice that i just that it was sorta humdrum and meaningless, never really moved or cohered,

This was often unnecessarily slow, and the flashbacks clumsy. croup mostly OTM.

ambiguities were more of a middlebrow arthouse cop-out/gimmick than affecting/resonant.

i agree with this i think, in that it just didn't really seem to amount to much (the gimmicks, that is). i find insanity narratives a bit tiresome on their own.

I watched this in a double feature with Take Shelter, both flawed but very enjoyable films.

ws lil' olsen obv

gr80 what did you think of the photography? apparently they shot it underexposed and lifted it in post, turning all the blacks into greys. it seems like it has an antecedent in still photography that you see on ~hip tumblrs~ but i dont know enough to pin down those influences. cant think of any movies with that look either

i loved the photography but obv i'm a sucker for hip tumblrs and UO catalogs.

it reminded me of Picnic at Hanging Rock a little

in retrospect, this movie seems a little thin. sure, it's pretty, but it kinda seems like the cinematic equivalent of a "crime scene!" themed fashion shoot. also, i don't know how the brother in law character has escaped scrutiny here -- what a clown.

gr8080 otm

It was sort of like if the Levi's GO FORTH campaign was a psychological thriller instead entitlement-generation escapism

i really enjoy the GO FORTH campaign

"also, i don't know how the brother in law character has escaped scrutiny here -- what a clown."

To be fair it was mentioned above (albeit mostly in the context of his terrible Britishness.)

he was just such a cartoon, and the only time he stopped being a cartoon for like 30 sec was when he was drinking cheap beer with her on the boat
every time he opened his mouth i just braced myself for something ridiculous to come out
sorry you're so stressed out, stressbag!

This movie's kinda nothing.

Pretty good lead performance left out to dry (on purpose, I know, but I still wish it was in a more direct movie).

frankly, as I prioritize year-end glut, no desire to see this

There is the whole anti-barometer thing to consider, tho.

I don't think it was even a particularly good performance; to me she couldn't handle the shifts from quiet to crazee.

That worked for me in the sense that she's supposedly a person without any sense of context, so the "shifts" are nicely illogical.

(Except when they aren't, which is, again, the movie's fault.)

this movie is good, ending kinda sucks, elizabeth olsen is pretty terrific, and john hawkes too, as usual

― max, Saturday, October 29, 2011 10:35 AM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

John Hawkes's pretty looks have faded a bit since Winter's Bone.

I'd still let him into my house in the middle of the night.

i thought she was great in the scene where hawkes sung to her, and otherwise p solid. she looks like maggie gyllenhal, but even more boneable

the ending is one of the better things about the movie imo

i didnt know john hawkes was considered like, a hunky dude

it took me a good 10 minutes to realize it wasnt maggie gyllenhal

Olsen's best moment: laughing in Britishes' face on the boat after he shares his plans.

she looks way more like vera farmiga than MG

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2011/01/elizabeth-olsen-headshot-2011-a-p.jpghttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/78/Vera_Farmiga_Met_Opera_2010_Shankbone.jpg/220px-Vera_Farmiga_Met_Opera_2010_Shankbone.jpghttp://www.thecinemasource.com/moviesdb/images/MaggieGyllenhaal-1-300.jpg

I was sort of partial to her being all "gawh, whatever" after she nuzzled up to her sister and husband mid-coitus.

they should cast vera farmiga and tobey maguire as jake and maggie in gyllenhaals: the movie

and then elizabeth olsen can play vera farmiga in source code

yeah the more i think about this film the less i like it. everyone saying the brother-in-law was an asswipe OTM

i liked the song hawkes wrote for her tho! i would def buy a 'songs for girls i have brainwashed' LP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdsk2g1TcHI

oh, hah

good song though

regardless, i still stand by my last sentence in that previous post

when i saw the trailer i thought it was v. farmiga's younger sister

http://www.dlcache.indiatimes.com/imageserve/0bzL5AC7tr8Mr/350x.jpg

i hope lil' olsen has a long career ahead of her

is this commune/cult supposed to be some kind of a nod to the oneida community? i think the only part i really liked was when she said "i am a teacher and a leader" and the flashback to the guns. the song was pretty good too.

i liked how vague the details were about the cult.

oneida women were pretty hip

http://www.nyhistory.com/central/clothes.jpg

Sudden, silent appearance of the cult mother just behind the homeowner in the doorway was the best scene I thought.

imo ppl should check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterschool

durkin was a producer on it
has a v much Haneke feel but i liked it more than what that might imply
also michael stuhlbarg, of course in bowties

it is streaming on netflix

I saw that film, it may suck even a little more than MMMM.

Surprised at the dislike for this. Worked for me as sort of an arty horror movie, just a constant sense of unease throughout

I've been watching Deadwood solidly for the past weeks so it was kind of jarring to see two of the main hoopleheads turn up here!
The DVD has a short called 'Mary last seen' which is kind of a similar thing looking at how someone gets indoctrinated into the cult environment in the first place (haven't watched it yet but gonna).
The movie itself was kind of empty and nothingy. I guess I liked it enough though. OTM re its Blue Valentineyness. The sister's actions were too unbelievable for me to really get sucked into the movie.

Unusual, but except for the most obviously jarring moment, it was waiting and waiting for something that never came. I thought I hadn't understood the ending at all, but when I checked around online, it seems I did (or else reached the same misunderstanding as other people). The casual transitions between then and now were good.

This is seriously one of the best films in a long time

I thought the slow creeping horror and the way that the audiences' sense of her safety was slowly eroded over the course of the film via flashbacks of increasing insanity were flawlessly executed and created a lingering suspense w/o cheap thrills

I might have been too predisposed to a cheap shock or two from the brief descriptions I'd read beforehand. It really is unwaveringly low-key.

Oh it totally is, which is its strong point imo

I saw this on a plane going to Australia, and I'd never heard of it & it sounded interesting. Seeing it with the expectation of "how intense a movie about a cult could it be if they're showing it on the in-flight entertainment" was pretty intense. It was one of those movies that pearl-clutching aero finishes watching and says "honestly though does this contribute anything to the world or just bum people out elegantly" which admittedly you could also say about plenty of the gialli I enjoy & plenty of stuff on Southern Lord but there was something kinda Ulrich Seidl-y about this. Underlying weird contempt.

still I thought it was really effective, especially how the movie lets plenty of stuff go unexplained - the guitar scene, for example: why does the helper cult member/dude sing only nonsense? just a dumb guy fucking around? afraid to sing the wrong thing and get in trouble? out of his mind? etc

Ditto as to watching it at home, with frequent computer breaks--being so heavy on atmospherics, seeing it in a theatre would have been better.

the ending reminded me a lot of Caché. maybe too much.

agh I want to see this

i was kind of dissatisfied with it initially, but it has ended up kind of sticking with me more than a lot of other movies

also reminds me a little bit of Shelter - but leaves even more up in the air

Take Shelter, I meant

good interview w/ campos

http://filmcomment.com/entry/interview-antonio-campos-simon-killer

finally got around to seeing this. Good character study, although as it went on I got a little annoyed that it was so inert plot-wise. I get that the sustained paranoid tension is meant to evoke her mental state - always looking over her shoulder - but narratively when it doesn't really go anywhere its impact gets dissipated a bit. Great acting throughout from the cast though, and great cross-cutting with the flashbacks throughout.

elizabeth olsen is just great. one of my favorite current actresses.

I had no idea who she was, my wife had to point out the Olsen twins connection

she's a good actress and also gifted with abundant physical beauty
i forgot about this movie but i liked it

my wife wanted a more dramatic payoff, some kind of confrontation either between her and her sister/bro-in-law or her new family and her old family. I get why they didn't do that but it might've made for a better movie.

it was sort of a fashion shoot of a horror movie iirc

lol yes

Saw the trailer for this tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcR-X9Ji6mQ

Jude Law--one of our finest actors--well, okay. But I'm sure Caroline Coon's great.

Carrie Coon, not the punk writer...Weird film. Held my attention the whole way, a much better marriage-in-peril film than Coppola's. It's not even remotely a Trump film, but one line registered that way (it's set around 1987, with fortunes made and lost overnight). A cab driver asks Jude Law, at his lowest moment in the film, what he does for a living; long pause as he tries to formulate an answer, then "I pretend to be rich."

I liked this quite a bit, notwithstanding the rather flat (ir)resolution. It feels like a film in which there will be a shocking event or a reveal that changes everything and that doesn't happen. The mood of it is really quite unique though. The taxi driver conversation is a definite highlight but my favourite moment was the camera lingering on Alison dancing in the nightclub.