After Dark: Physical media follow-up, Vacation Destinations, Keeping Track of Time, The Rehearsal Ep. 4, Resurrection
Added 2022-08-11 12:00:00 +0000 UTCDavid, Devindra, and Jeff talk favorite vacation destinations, then discuss The Rehearsal Ep 4 and dive into Resurrection.
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I don’t know if people read the comments here a week or more later but here goes anyway. I watched Resurrection last night after hearing the recommendation here (I listened to the first part of the discussion up until spoilers, then watched the movie, then listened to the spoiler discussion last). I have some thoughts on it that I didn’t hear voiced in your discussion: *spoilers for Resurrection* I think that Rebecca Hall’s character Maggie suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and that Tim Roth’s character is a representation of her disease. I don’t want to get too far into the discussion of whether he was “real” or not because I don’t like to treat movies like this as a puzzle to be solved, and post-Fight Club I think the “invisible friend that’s just in their head” thing is a bit trite, but I do think that David at least serves as a metaphorical representation of Maggie’s OCD. Early in the film Maggie says to her lover that she’s started drawing again after a very long absence of it. This shortly precedes our first glimpse of David. When we do finally see Maggie’s drawings later in the film, they are composed of thousands of tiny geometric shapes repetitively drawn in rigid patterns, it’s not casual sketching but clearly a meticulous, obsessive process. Interestingly there are numerous shots centered on a very large piece of art hanging prominently in Maggie’s home, an abstract charcoal drawing that’s loose and fluid and in sharp contrast to her obsessive pattern-making. Perhaps this is to symbolize her attempts to make a comfortable home and suppress her compulsive behavior. Maggie’s daughter is soon to be 18 and is already showing signs of independence and rebellion, rejecting Maggie’s motherly care, and going out and drinking with her friends, and soon to be moving away from home to go to university. When Abbie gets injured after drinking with her friends, we see a lingering shot of her wound (from Maggie’s POV) and I think that is the trigger for her emerging OCD to then fully reappear - embodied by David. Maggie feels terror and shame that she “allowed” her daughter to get hurt, and wasn’t even aware because she was doing something (in her mind) selfish and neglectful - she misses Abbie’s texts from the hospital because she’s engaged in a tryst with her lover. Now, as powerful as Maggie’s monologue to the intern is, I’m not entirely certain that it’s reliable, as we have several indicators that she is suffering from mental illness. But what I do think we are to take from it that she feels an enormous amount of guilt from the death of her first child, however it happened, and she feels a powerful compulsion to keep Abbie safe and protect her from the harms of the outside world. She then starts seeing David around town who casually starts making her perform the “kindnesses” - physical tasks which she must perform, under threat that David will do some harm to her or Abbie. People who suffer from extreme OCD often perform ritualistic behaviors because they feel compelled to do them, because it gives them some level of anxiety reduction. The compulsive behaviors are believed to ward off something bad happening. Consider David instructing Maggie to walk to work barefoot every day, and vaguely threatening something bad might happen to Abbie if she doesn’t, and view that through the lens of an OCD sufferer succumbing to their compulsions. The climax of the film is a metaphoric representation of Maggie summoning the strength to fight her compulsions, and resolve the guilt of her baby’s death. The final scene is an idyllic fantasy of what her life would be - her two children alive and home safe with her, until that final moment when she gasps and it is suggested that it is only a fantasy and that her disease still lurks. Again, I don’t want to say definitively that “it’s all in her head” - there are a couple of complicating factors like David’s tooth, and David visiting Maggie’s office (there’s one “objective” POV shot that seems to suggest other people can see David), and I do think that much of her monologue is true (I think she was in an abusive relationship with David when she was 18 and she did flee after her baby died - though not by being eaten), but I think that the story exists just outside of being taken completely literally. Anyway, I really enjoyed this movie and hope that this sparks some thoughts of your own!
Cameron Stewart
2022-08-22 11:10:48 +0000 UTCI see the purpose of The Rehersal to just give confidence to the rehearsie to do what they clearly have a strong desire to do. I see confessing a lie or being prepared to take on a child as a success despite if the execution doesn’t go to plan. This was described as “the point is that it will fail”, but to me the success is simply following through with doing something you want to do but have deep anxieties about.
83sharpe .
2022-08-14 05:05:28 +0000 UTC
