Love in times of heterosexism — Carol, a film review
December 21, 2015
In his latest film, director Todd Haynes brings to life a love story between a wealthy housewife and a 20-something department store clerk in 1950s Manhattan. Although a portrayal of forbidden love between two women in the ’50s may seem like a familiar trope, Haynes’ portrayal in Carol, which is based on a The Price of Salt, Patricia Highsmith’s second novel, makes it fresh. The script, written by Phyllis Nagy goes beyond clichés and shows a deep connection between two women that transcends social class, age barriers and even adds a layer of complexity by making Carol a mother of a young child.
Rooney Mara plays Therese, a young, unaffected store clerk, who wants to become a photographer. She’s quiet and unsure of herself, with a bare bones life that includes a cold apartment and a boyfriend, Richard (Jack Lacy), with whom she has reticently made plans to travel to Europe. It is in the department store where Therese first comes in contact with Carol, a glamorous middle-aged woman who commands attention played superbly by Cate Blanchett. She is wearing fur and expensive leather gloves and carries herself with an aristocratic air. When she chats with Therese, Carol sets a flirtatious tone, listening to Therese’s recommendations for a Christmas present for her daughter. When Carol leaves her gloves behind (by mistake?), Therese takes it upon herself to return them. There is an instant attraction between both women, so when shy Therese calls Carol to return her gloves; Carol quickly follows up with an opportunity to meet face-to-face and Therese agrees.
The affair takes place when Carol’s marriage is falling apart and her controlling husband, played by Kyle Chandler, is trying to keep her in line by using their young daughter as a bargaining tool. In the midst of the drama, Carol not only falls deeply in love with Therese but also cares for her in a motherly way. Carol is also alluring, not only as a beautiful woman, but also in her mysterious and needy qualities.
Haynes’ details include a misè-en-scene that creates an environment of unbridled passion that seeps from the screen. The dialogue is sparse but profound, as are the detailed shots that suggest oppression, love and the high stakes of this affair. Therese seems undaunted, at first, leaving her boyfriend behind to follow Carol in her world, head on. The chemistry between the two women is electric, although the repercussions could be especially high for Carol, who has settled in the heart of suburban New York as a mother to a young girl she deeply loves. Nonetheless, Carol puts it all on the line and unravels onscreen only to reveal that the only great sacrifice is lying about who you are and who you love.
To be sure, Haynes does not mince the film’s message with Carol. In fact, the dialogue is sparse with lots of subtext, conveying the hidden-in-plain-sight nature of being gay in hetero-sexist 1950s America without ever using the word lesbian. But even more importantly, Haynes does not mince images either. Carol’s powerful imagery oozes into the audience, delivering a mood that unfolds slowly, yet 
it is quite potent. The all-knowing glances exchanged between young Therese and the haughtily beautiful Carol, along with loving gestures, speak volumes of the fine acting coming from Mara and especially Blanchett. The camera lingers enough to let the audience catch up and inhabit this secret world that can only exist indoors in a sexually repressed America. When Therese, the budding photographer, shoots Carol with a camera she received as a gift from Carol, we can see how much she cares. The photographs are telling of the depth of feeling and the caring eye Therese has for the somewhat broken Carol.
Within the confines of the small domain of a patriarchal society with strict class boundaries, enforced dress codes and morality clauses; Carol shows that love is one of the ways through in which challenging these power structures is not only possible but inevitable. After fleeing with Therese in a road trip, Carol returns to the fold as her husband pulls her back in by using their daughter. The sequence shows a desperate mother, willing to do whatever it takes to gain back her daughter. But after the first encounter, it becomes obvious that the marriage and Carol staying within that framework is an unsustainable deal. As Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” In that vein, Carol decides to let her own story be told, making sacrifices along the way to be able to gain herself, in her own terms.
Carol runs 118 minutes and is Rated R. It opens in our South Florida area, on Dec. 25, at the following theaters, but let’s start with the local indie art house: Coral Gables Art Cinema. Other theaters in Miami include:
AMC Aventura
Regal South Beach
AMC Sunset Place
In Palm Beach County, it shows at the following theaters:
Carmike Parisian 20 at City Place, West Palm Beach
Cinemark Palace, Boca Raton
Regal Shadowood, Boca Raton
It opened several weeks ago in the U.S. in other locations, check here for local listings. The Weinstein Company invited us to a preview screening for the purpose of this review and provided all images for this post.
Zero Dark Thirty hits theaters in limited release tomorrow riding a wave of critical buzz but also controversy. Having had the opportunity to attend a preview screening early last month by the invitation of Sony Pictures, I can understand why both the hype and concern would crop up. The film opens with 20 minutes of the intense and persistent torture of a prisoner by CIA operatives that had me noting the duration of these scenes when they finally ended. Media analysts and even political figures have protested that the film endorses torture. The filmmakers, director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal have been on the defensive ever since.
No matter what anyone says, the answer to the question in a film about linking together pieces for a greater whole, comes from one’s ability to put together the film’s components. It’s a poetic notion for this episodic film that covers 10 years of investigations that led Seal Team 6 to Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan. The film sets out a clear correlation to the end result with its first narrative scenes: the torture of a man called Ammar (Reda Kateb) at a “black site” in an “undisclosed location.” Secrecy and mystery abound in this film, even though everyone now knows how it ends. But it’s all about finding meaning in associations in the selective dramatization of events, from the vivid recordings of suffering and panic during the Sept. 11 attacks against a pitch black screen in place of the opening credits to the film’s final emotive shot of the its key character played by Jessica Chastain with a concentrated potency that belies a human fragility transcending gender.
The drama of this film lies in the main character’s zeal to keep alive what she believes are credible clues in the face of countering facts and doubts by everyone around her. Throughout the film, the CIA operative Maya (Chastain) tries to keep her beliefs alive by repeating her information to any doubters. The truth lies within her repetition of the importance of a courier’s name gleaned from Ammar, the man so thoroughly tortured by Maya’s PhD-holding colleague Dan (Jason Clarke) during the film’s opening scenes.
Dan is vividly established as a genius at his craft. “In the end, everybody breaks, bro. It’s biology,” he tells a wiped out Ammar strung up by his arms in a large, cavernous cell. Maya stands in the background throughout most of these scenes that span the gamut of all torture techniques you have ever heard about. Though Dan coolly repeats lines like “When you lie to me, I hurt you” to Ammar, Maya stands back. She recoils from the beatings, waterboarding and humiliation Ammar endures.
What Maya’s face shows is put into words by a soldier who observes Dan toying with monkeys in a cage outside another black site: “You agency guys are twisted.” In the end, as Dan predicts, Ammar breaks. It looks like kindness finally does it. Maya and Dan sit with him outside in the sun, as Ammar enjoys a meal and spits out various names. But that does not discredit any contribution of the torture prior: the beatings, the degradation and sleep deprivation all build up to the relief of this meal out of the binds. Though Maya recoiled in the early scenes of torture, she is all too eager to reap the rewards after Ammar settles down to name names, including that of the courier who ultimately led the CIA to bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan: Abu Ahmed.
The middle of the film is all about keeping that name relevant. The names of Ahmed and bin Laden appear in subtitles during many other interrogation videos Maya watches (again, the association of torture and relevant information). 
However, the film also spends lots of time throwing up obstacles of relevance against that name. She is told she is “chasing a ghost” by both terror suspects and colleagues alike. Her station chief, Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler), tells her, “You’re fucking out of your mind.” However, while Bradley plays politics, Maya persists, even as her clues seem to crumble around her. This middle part of Zero Dark recalls David Fincher’s slippery use of clues and obsession that fueled his underrated 2007 masterpiece Zodiac. Though lives are lost and even her life winds up on the line, Chastain plays Maya with edgy stoicism throughout, earning the film’s closing shot powerfully. This mission is all the emotional attachment she needs, and in uncharacteristic Hollywood fashion, no love interest is involved. Women will love her for her power as a strong self-supporting female, and men will love her for the power she brings to statements like “I’m going to smoke everybody involved in this op, and then I’m gonna kill bin Laden.”
It all leads up to that grand finale when Maya’s information leads Seal Team 6 to the complex bin Laden has hidden away in. This is when the score of Alexandre Desplat swells up to swirling strings and the cinematography and editing takes over. 
Seal Team 6 becomes an extension of Maya’s fatal reach. The men are obscured by night vision goggles and heavy gear. The darkness of the scene is all shifting shadows. The distinctive voices of Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton sometimes stand out, and close up views of their eyes are some of the brief glimpses of humanity in the film’s most cold and distant yet intense scene. Little terse whispers of “Khalid” and “Osama” by the soldiers lead to fatal mistakes by those hiding inside who dare to peek around corners before precision-like shots and double taps take out the near helpless targets. It’s a brilliantly choreographed and well-earned climax to a film that has earned the recognition and buzz leading up to awards season. It should be an interesting contender for Bigelow and Boal who once again prove they are a directing/writing team to contend with when it comes to intimate war films.
Trailer:
Zero Dark Thirty is Rated R (these are some angry people throwing angry words and acting angry) and runs 157 min. It opens in limited release in only two theaters in South Florida this Friday, Jan. 4: the AMC Aventura and the Cinemark Palace 20 in Boca Raton. The following Friday the film will open wide at most theaters.
Independent Ethos 