Martha Marcy May
Marlene
A Film By Sean Durkin
USA
If you go
see the independent thriller, Martha
Marcy May Marlene, which you most definitely should, I want you to sit as
close to the screen as possible. Not because I want you to hurt your neck (in
that case, go a few rows back), but I want you to be engulfed by this film full
of intense close-ups that will put you in the most uncomfortable position
possible. I want you to really feel each loud sound that disrupts this film full of silences. I want you to feel as
paranoid as its main character, feeling that any moment of calm can be
instantly destroyed by unknown forces creeping just outside the frame.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is the latest
in a series of independent features from the United States that appear to be
ushering in a new wave of smartly composed films that reject the DIY mumblecore
genre in favor of a cinema of haunting compositions and dynamic narratives, but
still at the independent level. Although the film is directed by newcomer Sean
Durkin, some of the other names in the credits show the evolving filmmaking
collective: a producer of the film is Antonio Campos, who shot the haunting surveillance
thriller Afterschool, and that film’s
director of photography Jody Lee Lipes also create haunting work here (as well
as in the coming-of-age comedy Tiny
Furniture). But here it is Mr. Durkin, as well as his impressive cast led
by Elizabeth Olsen, that leads what is an intensely intimate character study in
the guise of a mystery that does less conventional scares and more spine-tingling
chills.
The four
names of the title sound confusing but become quite clear as we meet Martha
(Ms. Olsen) as she walks out of a strange group of young people she has been
living with and back into the life of her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), a more
conservative woman with a British husband (Hugh Dancy) with no tolerance for
antics. Martha is obviously scarred and mentally damaged, unable to speak about
her two year absence, bordering on the line of uncivilized as she attempts to
readjust to something similar to a normal life.
What happen to Martha, or was her
name Marcy May? Mr. Durkin, who also wrote the script, plays loose with his
mystery as he edits back and forth through Martha’s shattered mind to her time
at the cult-like institution she left at the beginning of the narrative. What
exactly the family she joined is kept to a minimum but involves cleansing the
body, separation of men and women, and some disturbing elements better left to
the film’s quiet reveals. The men and women spend their time taking care of
house work all under the auspicious of their leader Patrick, played by John
Hawkes, who decides Martha will now go by Marcy May (the name Marlene is one of
the subtle and haunting reveals in the film). Mr. Durkin is not really making a
condemnation of cults, but instead exploring a psychological portrait of a
woman broken by trust throughout her life attempting and then fearing any sort
of sense of opening up.
It’s more than appropriate that Mr.
Durkin films this all through his intense use of close-ups throughout, which shove
the characters to the sides of the widescreen frame. Mr. Durkin understands how
to create fear in Martha as she can’t see outside her limited perspective, and
his compositions of the frame uses negative space to create a haunting sense of
paranoia throughout. The film lets small moment of dialogue and sounds repeat
as the film shifts back and forth (through an excellent series of match cuts by
editor Zachary Stuart-Pontier) that slowly reveal the terrible saga Martha
become inducted to and why she still fears for her life in a place of safety (Lucy’s
home is appropriately open and full of
glass windows that make Martha terrified of what can see in as much as what she
can see).
None of this would particularly
work if the young Ms. Olsen couldn’t translate to the audience her fear at
every moment needed for this film. While a very pretty young woman, Ms. Olsen
makes Martha into a statement of discomfort, unable to handle the world outside
and attempting to cower into her body. She does this all quite subtlety as she
quietly lets the fear build inside that she must escape whatever situation she
is in, that the idea of safety is simply a pretty idea. Mr. Hawkes, coming off
his terrifying performance in Winter’s
Bone, swings between his open charming side and his controlling symbol of
fear, though never through screaming. “You need to trust us, Marcy May,” she
quietly explains to her at once point, but the calmness in his voice is less of
a plea and more of a command.
Martha
Marcy May Marlene infects so deeply though because it never cheats on its
scares, which are so simple and naturalistic, and only hinted at by Mr. Durkin
rather than spelled out. The details of Martha’s emotional collapse are often
left in the small, quiet silences in which her mind wanders into the land of
possibility. What could be out there? Will they come back? Do they know where I
am? Mr. Durkin, using a minimalist score, provides only the slightest of
answers that could be interpreted either way (the film could make an excellent
paranoia double feature with Take Shelter).
But through its infective filmmaking and quiet and haunting narrative, Martha Marcy May Marlene will leaves
chills down your spine as you turn each corner, not sure who is out there,
waiting for the chance to take you back under their control.
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