The Holy Girl

The movie, The Holy Girl, or as it is called in Spanish, "La Nina Santa," (I know there is no accent over the second "n" in Nina because I have no clue how to do it) was very boring. I know that this is not about our opinion, but it was just boring to me. Anyways, on to the prompt of this movie blog. I believe that the reason why this movie was important was because of the theme of sexuality and the coinciding of their spiritual life. That is what I believe is the biggest motive of importance of the movie. I think it is important because we all have sexual impulse, let's be honest here. Most of us actually believe in something as well, which is the spirituality part. It is kind of the saying of "You can't have your cake and eat it too." It also shows how people can use sex as a sort of weapon or use it as sort of a justifying force, depending on whose hands it is in. I just read that and it could be misconstrued as a pun, so pun definitely NOT intended. In this case, the main character of the movie, Amalia, was being hit on by one of the doctors at her mom's (who is pretty good looking) hotel. She thinks that she needs to save the doctor from the inappropriate behavior he portrayed towards her. She kind of got over it and fell in love with him and desires to be married to him. Oh yeah, and she also starts stalking him. This movie felt sort of like some significant book or play made in the 1800's or something. I can't pinpoint it, but it sort of feels like that, much like the 1983 movie Scarface wort of reminded me of Macbeth (actually it was the other way around because I saw Scarface first.) The reason why I believe the movie was selected is beyond me. If I had to guess, it was because it was a very significant movie that has a very significant message about sexuality. That is just a guess, though because I really don't know.

The Babadook

First off, all I have to say is wow. This movie was great! Not my favorite movie ever, but it was pretty good. It sort of started out slow but then got suspenseful real fast. Honestly, this movie is the best movie that we've watched in this class so far (at least from my perspective.) You kind of felt for the mom, since she was a single mother with an annoying son that got into a bunch if mischief at school. I kind of related her sort of like Jack Torrance from The Shining because of the hysteria she was in when the Babadook possessed her breaking down doors and trying to kill her son, like Jack Torrance tried to do in The Shining and whatnot. There were plenty of differences within the two movies, but it could be closely compared to The Shining, which I thoroughly enjoyed throughout the movie. Anyways, on to the topic of gender and the horror genre. Most of the time in horror movies, the villain is a man, but we really don't know if the Babadook is a man or a woman. I personally wouldn't give it a gender, it was just sort of a beast. Women in horror movies are also stereotyped and are the victims (in this case it was true to an extent,) but Amelia was the victim AND the hero because she tamed the Babadook and sort of made it her bitch, with a little bit of help from Sam, her son. The gender roles were sort of reversed in this movie, which definitely intrigued me since Amelia wasn't like the typical woman in the horror movies. To conclude, I believe that this movie was really well put together and lived up to the label of "psychological thriller."

Dogtooth

Alright. I thought that this movie would have been much more...dark. It wasn't really dark, it was just weird. The movie was a lot like Eraserhead. It is probably a good movie, but it just gets weirder and weirder as the movie progresses. There was no real shock value, at least to me, because if I'm going to be shocked, I have to be psychologically. Now I know when the older daughter knocks her right "dogtooth" out it was supposed to be very thrilling, but it didn't do anything for me. Overall I didn't mind it, but it wasn't the best. I know that for a fact that they definitely made it weird for the Greek Weird Wave, but it just got progressively weirder throughout the movie having me question why they were doing stuff, like when they were doing the, I guess, scavenger hunt? Can you call it that? Anyways, the part where the kids are blindfolded and are walking around in the yard to the wooden platform where their mother was. Anyways, the scene that I was going to analyze was the ending five minutes or so. The oldest daughter went to the bathroom and then knocked her right canine out and then hid in her father's Mercedes Benz's trunk. The youngest daughter went to the father's room and started licking him, to what I assume is to wake him up. He got up and started searching for the oldest daughter outside of the boundaries of their house. The kids and the mom started barking like dogs and the youngest daughter also called out Bruce, since the oldest daughter said that she would respond if the youngest daughter called the older one Bruce. They couldn't find her, so they stopped looking. Later, the dad and mom were at their table and he told her to drink the orange juice, for some reason. As an aside, I don't know what it is about the recurring theme of the orange juice, but whatever. Anyways, the dad went to his job and the camera shot to the trunk and just ended with that. It was not really the ending that I thought, but it is what Lanthimos wanted. I was expecting the ending to be the oldest daughter getting out of the trunk and running away Rocky style and whatnot, since she watched Rocky when the girl that was banging the son gave her the VHS tape for *ahem* service downstairs (if you know what I mean.) I wanted it to be really stereotypical modern movies where the main character gets away free and clear. It of course didn't happen like that. The movie also lived up to the hype of being "weird," so Lanthimos should be proud of that. The younger daughter was also pretty good looking, which was pretty nice.