This film, directed by Todd Haynes, is one of my all time favorites. I think the pandemic heightened my appreciation for the film, as the film itself is based on illness. I found the isolating cinematography, synth-heavy score, and discomforting use of familiar locations to capture the isolating tone and message of the film. What also fascinates me about the film is its multiple angles of interpretation: the director himself said the film could be seen as an allegory for the AIDS epidemic, and while I find that angle to be quite telling, I see it also as a film about mental illness or as a critique of gender roles in suburban life.
I was watching an interview the with director, Todd Haynes, where he says Jeanne Dielman and 2001: A Space Odyssey influenced the message and tone of the film, and I was surprised by 2001: He says the symmetrical framing creates a sense of inhuman-ness, sterility, and fragility, a world on the brink of rupture. To me, the direct reference borders between allusion and subversion, placing the ominous and “big” tone of 2001 in a suburban Californian environment, adding to the soap opera-y satire whose melodrama can be oddly amusing at times and heartbreakingly honest in others. On the polar opposite of the genre spectrum, Jeanne Dielman’s subversion of traditional narrative was also an influence. I think intertextuality can create a sense of unity, familiarity, and connection to what’s already in the “zeitgeist”; I also find it interesting that intertextuality can be used to either pay homage to the source material or question it, or do both, which I find to be the most common.
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