OF DREAMS AND MONSTERS... "MARNIE"

Ok, I know you guys kinda prefer me writing about the newer things out on the cinema screen. I respect that. This is why this week is about compromises. Something old and something new. Nothing borrowed but my pyjamas are blue so that should count for something. Ehm. Moving on.  Now I picked this film because it has a little bit of something for everything I think. You may have seen the name “Alfred Hitchcock” and automatically assumed “crime and gore” well, here’s some good news for you : Not every film Hitchcock did was a derivative of Psycho. Oh no. Mr Hitchcock was a man of many, many talents not a one trick pony. So this is, in fact, a top notch psychological thriller with some romance and drama thrown in. You’ll like it. I know you will.

Marnie (Tippy Hedren) is many things for many people. She is not a “lady of the night” nor is she a special agent – she is, in fact, a secretary. But she is not exactly content with the life or salary of a secretary. She makes her “real” living changing identities and moving from job to job, robbing the safes of the companies she works for as she goes. And she has got quite a nice little side line going in this way until she stumbles into Rutland Coop. Now the dashing young owner of the company, Mark Rutland (Sean Connery) takes a shine to her. He takes a shine to her in a big way. So much so, not only does he want to “make her his” – which is easier said than done, believe you me – but he also wants to cure her of her thieving and lying. What starts as something cross between a love affair and an interesting project for him and a minor inconvenience for Marnie will end up taking the couple on an eventful journey, both psychological and physical, that will lead to more and greater discoveries than either of them could possibly imagine.

Now this is an interesting one. Firstly, it’s a Hitchcock classic as far as suspense goes. This is undoubtedly a voyage of adventure and discovery. And the added benefit? No blood or gore. That’s good news for those of you who are weaker in the stomach area. Mom, yes, that means you too. The chase this time takes place largely in the human psyche. And I have always said, our minds can dream up monsters and horrors greater than anything the “real” world can provide. Of course the construction of the story is picture perfect and you are just chomping on the bit trying to figure out where the whole thing is going, not least because Mr Hitchcock is not exactly renowned for his happy endings. He invented the concept of killing of the lead character mid plot, remember (yes, that was Hitchcock, NOT Game of Thrones).

But why is it, I pondered as I watched, that we get so enthralled in the fates of this typically good looking movie couple ? I am a romantic at heart, but it takes more than “beautiful people” and some /any premise that they are together for me to root for them. Then I did a bit more deep thinking and worked it out, well I worked out my perspective at an answer anyway. See, the film taps into what we all really, deep down inside want in life. At a certain age, we have all got hang ups, old wounds, battle scars… Things that have hurt us, that makes us suspicious or over-protective or whatever your own particular Achilles heel might be. Now, we may or may not voice it openly, as we know this is a rare occurance, but deep down, yes we would love a beautiful stranger of the gender and sexual preference of our choice to sweep us off our feet, fall madly in love with us, face up to all our excess baggage, not shy away or be daunted by it at all, and “cure us” of the baggage. Thus we emerge, perfectly healed, at peace with our past and madly in love. I mean yes, in this particular piece the couple are very “typical Hollywood” – blond beautiful woman with a set of problems clearly (and unabashedly) taken straight from Freud’s own textbooks (at least Hitchcock has the integrity to slip Freud in there too) coupled with a tall dark and handsome Sean Connery who just happens to be a millionaire and an amateur scientist (and thus in possession of the means and knowledge to cure her). I mean the premise is as unrealistic as they come, yes, bosses fall for their secretaries but it is rare that they actually stick around to “cure” them. In fact, like most people, they probably shout “excess baggage” and bail if they have as much baggage as Marnie. Then again, you are so enthralled in the story you can easily put yourself in Marnie’s shoes and have your own “dream relationship” for two hours. This, my friends is the beauty of cinema. Maybe not therapy per se, but catharsis guaranteed… 

THE NAME OF THE ROSE

Confession time. This is one of the rare cases where I actually decided to watch the film instead of reading the book. Umberto Eco is a great writer. The book is a great book. I just couldn’t read it for some reason. My mother faithfully proclaims I probably was not in the mood for it. It could be true. And I should probably try and read the book again someday if only because it is such a classic. Oh, and because I enjoyed the story so much. With a director like Jean Jacques Annaud (whose filmography is short but consists of films like L’amant, Seven Years in Tibet and my particular favourite, Ennemy At the Gate) and starring Sean Connery no less, the film is a fine substitute. But I come from a family of academics you see so… Ehm. Moving on.

It is the year 1327, and the political atmosphere is tense. There is a rift between the catholic church and the various religious orders, especially the Franciscans monks, on the matter of whether or not the church should actually rid itself of wealth or not. The matter will be decided in a debate between representatives of both sides in a Benedictine monastery – neutral ground as it were. The thing is, the monastery is playing host to rather more sinister happenings than the debate. Days before the debate is about to take place, a murder, which turns out to be the first of a series of murders, takes place in the monastery. As the unexplained, violent deaths pile up, the monks are convinced that true evil roams the monastery and that the end of the world is nigh. One monk, William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) one of the Franciscans who had arrived for the debate disagrees. He is pretty sure the murders can be explained in a lot more worldly and logical fashion, however proving this – without causing a massive political scandal in an already tense atmosphere – is going to be tricky. Very tricky.

Now, as I said, I am not sure about the book. The film however, has a “double layer” thing going on. There is a very interesting debate about religion and the church, although this does not become evident in the film until the second half, when more of the Franciscan order and the representatives of the Vatican get together. It will ultimately tie into the finale of the film and play a large part in the conclusion but it is not first and foremost. I think this is a good thing, especially in this day and age when religion is such a touchy subject. The film reels you in, in the first half, with a good old fashioned murder mystery, with a good old fashioned protagonist /detective at the helm, looking for the murderer. And the whole mystery is so well set out that honestly, by the time you get to the religion part of things you are just too curious about the whole story to get completely disinterested with it. William of Baskerville is my favourite kind of detective. I admire him especially because, unlike the CSI’s of present day murder mysteries, he is NOT armed with a plethora of technical gadgets, just his mind, his rationality. And the explanations he finds make complete rational sense. They are actual things you could see with your own eyes. Unlike, for example, the modern adaptation of Sherlock Holmes (the Benedict Cumberbach – Martin Freeman version). Now, there as well Sherlock Holmes uses almost only his mind. But he has to be a genius and a bit of sociopath to achieve what he achieves. Martin Freeman’s Watson sets this off very nicely, you cannot be a normal person, no matter how bright and well educated, and achieve what Holmes achieves, you have to be special. Not so with William of Baskerville. He is observant, yes. Intelligent, yes. Well read, definitely. But by no stretch of the imagination is he “superhuman” like Holmes. You could actually aspire to be him. And this makes him far more approachable and easy to identify with. We even have the character of Adso – his novice (a very young Christian Slater!). Adso is learning, a bright lad with faults like the rest of us. He serves the purpose of “being explained to” in our place from time to time, but also, we can easily identify with him too. And aspire to be like Baskerville one day.

Lastly, can we see this as “the victory of the mind and the rational over the superstition of religion” as it were? Why yes. But what is the fun of a philosophical debate if it isn’t meaty enough to chew on? And I mean, come on, there’s a juicy murder mystery thrown in too! How can you possibly resist?