Capital Celluloid 2019 - Day 187 : Sat Jul 6

safe (Haynes, 1995): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 8.40pm


This 35mm presentation, also being screened on July 18th and 26th, is part of the Nineties season at BFI Southbank. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
An unsettling work (1995) by subversive American independent Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven), his first film in 35-millimeter and best film overall. It's been described as a movie about "environmental illness," but don't let that fool you: the alienation of one suburban housewife in southern California, effectively captured by Julianne Moore, may take physical form, but its sources are clearly spiritual and ideological. Haynes does a powerful job of conveying his hatred for the character's Sherman Oaks milieu (where he himself grew up) through his crafty and at times almost hallucinatory layering of sound and image. (Though Haynes's methodology is his own, you may be reminded at times of Michelangelo Antonioni and Chantal Akerman.) He also offers a scathing (if poker-faced) satire on New Age notions of healing. This creepy art movie will stay with you.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.

No comments: