I've been having difficulty lately trying to choose a film to watch. After the let down that was The Descendants, I have been reluctant to go and see any of the rest of the big films of the year so far which really is a shame because I love the cinema! The other day a friend asked me if I wanted to go and see Martha Marcy May Marlene and I agreed to go, partly to avoid working on my thesis but mostly it was because I had heard nothing about it. All of the hype surrounding The Descendants is probably why I thought it wasn't great so I figured this would be a nice change seen as I couldn't even remember the name of this film!! I couldn't be happier with my decision.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is definitely the best film I have seen this year, and one of the best I have seen in the last 10 years. First time writer-director Sean Durkin won the Directing award in Sundance last year for Martha Marcy and he really deserved it. I still can't believe its been completely over looked for the Acadamy Awards but anyway...The film is a psychological thriller about a girl who escapes from a cult and her attempt to settle back in to normal life, staying with her sister only 3 hours away from the farm where the cult is situated. The only other film about a cult that I have ever seen was a painfully boring video we were shown in school that was subconsciously meant to teach us how to recognize a cult and stay away from them. The idea was that we were to think we were just getting to watch a video instead of class, completely unaware that we were in a way being brainwashed! Needless to say, Martha Marcy is a far cry from that so called film.
The psychological thriller is a difficult genre to master but Durkin has hit the nail on the head here. To explain the title Elisabeth Olson plays Martha, a young girl who due to unexplained circumstances has wound up in a cult in upstate New York where she is renamed Marcy May by the leader Patrick (played by John Hawkes) and Marlene is the name all of the girls in the cult use when in contact with the outside world. The confusion between the names and personalities might seem unnecessary before seeing the film, but Durkin has expertly and purposefully confused the audience so that we almost feel every emotion, thought and fear that goes through Martha's head. Things she cannot remember are left unexplained, if she doesn't know what happened well then neither do we. The story is non-linear and sometimes we don't know where or when the things we are seeing have taken place but rather then being a direction mistake, this is to pull is further into Martha's mind. Although she has physically removed herself from the cult but mentally she doesn't seem to know where she most of the time; shifting between reality, dreams and flashbacks in a heart beat.
Martha Marcy May Marlene is on limited release only so if you can go and see it then definitely do. Its not for the faint-hearted as there are scenes of rape and violence and it's extremely disturbing but it is BRILLIANT
10 outa 10
No comments:
Post a Comment