CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
@Vegard Pompey I saw that you gave You Were Never Really Here a perfect rating, man I can't wait to see that shit! Coming in the mail this week, so I'm busting out the big screen and the popcorn maker.
The Official Movie Thread
- Thread starter Manic Ferocity
- Start date
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
RadicalThrasher
Active Member
Satanstoenail
My Larpstyle determines my Derpstyle
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
My thoughts on Mandy (very mild spoilers):
That was a pretty great experience. The obvious analogy for me is that it plays out like a bad acid trip, or a nightmare. It's heavy on the symbolism and aesthetic, the music is a driving force, Cage is a damn maniac in the film and plays the perfect embodiment of revenge, it was also quite violent when it needed to be but ultimately is subtle and low on the dialogue. It's kind of hard to put it into words but the thing that kept coming to my mind was that it was like a modern adaption of a pagan mythological tale or something, told by way of a comic book formula.
It also tapped into the idea that the forest is the border between reality and something else, like Twin Peaks did, but which stretches all the way back to folk tales. I don't think it was an accident that the film opens with the destruction of the natural temple (the forest being harvested for lumber) and closes with the destruction of a man-made temple (made from lumber, for whatever that might add to the symbolism). Still wrestling with the closing scene of him driving away with two suns hanging in the sky above, which was an obvious reference to a book Mandy is reading earlier in the film, but beyond that I dunno.
I think Mandy also has many connections to Carl Jung. For example, Cage's character's name is Red which could be a homage to The Red Book, which is a manuscript he wrote during a period in his life of huge upheaval and madness. This manuscript basically detailed his journey into imaginative experimentation between 1913 and 1916. From Wiki:
Jung referred to his imaginative or visionary venture during these years as "my most difficult experiment." This experiment involved a voluntary confrontation with the unconscious through willful engagement of what Jung later termed "mythopoetic imagination". In his introduction to Liber Novus, Shamdasani explains:
"From December 1913 onward, he carried on in the same procedure: deliberately evoking a fantasy in a waking state, and then entering into it as into a drama. These fantasies may be understood as a type of dramatized thinking in pictorial form.... In retrospect, he recalled that his scientific question was to see what took place when he switched off consciousness. The example of dreams indicated the existence of background activity, and he wanted to give this a possibility of emerging, just as one does when taking mescaline."
Then there's the obvious Christian Gnostic symbolism that comes especially from references to Abraxas and connects to Jung via his book Seven Sermons to the Dead, which has been described as "summary revelation of the Red Book."
Mandy might be the first Jungian horror film ever made?
On a side note, the visuals are so rich that I think I developed a slight headache by the end of the film, which was actually kind of appropriate since Cage and Cosmatos take you on a trip from Eden to Hell, lmao.
PS: Did anybody get the idea behind the scene with the tiger?
It also tapped into the idea that the forest is the border between reality and something else, like Twin Peaks did, but which stretches all the way back to folk tales. I don't think it was an accident that the film opens with the destruction of the natural temple (the forest being harvested for lumber) and closes with the destruction of a man-made temple (made from lumber, for whatever that might add to the symbolism). Still wrestling with the closing scene of him driving away with two suns hanging in the sky above, which was an obvious reference to a book Mandy is reading earlier in the film, but beyond that I dunno.
I think Mandy also has many connections to Carl Jung. For example, Cage's character's name is Red which could be a homage to The Red Book, which is a manuscript he wrote during a period in his life of huge upheaval and madness. This manuscript basically detailed his journey into imaginative experimentation between 1913 and 1916. From Wiki:
Jung referred to his imaginative or visionary venture during these years as "my most difficult experiment." This experiment involved a voluntary confrontation with the unconscious through willful engagement of what Jung later termed "mythopoetic imagination". In his introduction to Liber Novus, Shamdasani explains:
"From December 1913 onward, he carried on in the same procedure: deliberately evoking a fantasy in a waking state, and then entering into it as into a drama. These fantasies may be understood as a type of dramatized thinking in pictorial form.... In retrospect, he recalled that his scientific question was to see what took place when he switched off consciousness. The example of dreams indicated the existence of background activity, and he wanted to give this a possibility of emerging, just as one does when taking mescaline."
Then there's the obvious Christian Gnostic symbolism that comes especially from references to Abraxas and connects to Jung via his book Seven Sermons to the Dead, which has been described as "summary revelation of the Red Book."
Mandy might be the first Jungian horror film ever made?
On a side note, the visuals are so rich that I think I developed a slight headache by the end of the film, which was actually kind of appropriate since Cage and Cosmatos take you on a trip from Eden to Hell, lmao.
PS: Did anybody get the idea behind the scene with the tiger?
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Einherjar86
Active Member
Great comments--and interesting thoughts on Jung.
re. the tiger--I'm not really sure, although it echoes the mythic trope of testing the worthiness of epic heroes. In a way, Mandy's like an inversion of an epic quest narrative.
Loved your thoughts on the forest and the church; and I agree, there's something very purposeful about that opening paired with the conclusion at the church in the ravine (which I also thought was an amazing shot, situating the church of man foundationally within the church of nature/the earth).
Also, re. the final scene--it could be read as a nod to meta-narrative, i.e. what we're seeing is a story within a story (potentially even the story within the book that Mandy was reading; postmodernist metafiction is known for producing "impossible" texts, e.g. Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler).
Loved your thoughts on the forest and the church; and I agree, there's something very purposeful about that opening paired with the conclusion at the church in the ravine (which I also thought was an amazing shot, situating the church of man foundationally within the church of nature/the earth).
Also, re. the final scene--it could be read as a nod to meta-narrative, i.e. what we're seeing is a story within a story (potentially even the story within the book that Mandy was reading; postmodernist metafiction is known for producing "impossible" texts, e.g. Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler).
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CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
I hadn't considered the existence of the ravine and the symbolism therein, good eye. The film is so visually rich it's almost like a purposeful assault on the senses that I'm surprised I remember anything at all. But the church within the earth being burned to ashes almost feels like a returns to the earth from whence it came kind of idea. That might seem cliche and in a way it is but if this film can be taken as any kind of statement on religion it could be that religion is man-made and therefore can be man-unmade and returned to nature from which humans also come from.
I liked your insistence that one of the film's qualities is that it emphasizes the cosmic scale of things, but more than that it isn't just that it emphasizes the cosmic scale of existence, but that it also more purposefully de-emphasizes the scale humans attribute to ourselves and that even our most unearthly creations like religion are really just a pile of ashes and corpses in a ravine somewhere, in a galaxy that didn't even notice in the first place. The idea of cosmic horror.
Regarding the tiger; I saw it as the tiger inside the cage (or should I say the tiger inside Cage, lmao) is a metaphor ("let the tiger out of the cage") for drugs being the means to open and expand consciousness, much like Jung's experimentations in The Red Book, and this is why the chemist who creates the drugs in the film has the tiger in a cage and releases it at the same place in the film that Cage tries the drugs that the Black Skulls take. I think this is the moment in the film that Cage lets the tiger out of himself, and this might tie into the character's past because clearly there's something to the scene where he visits Bill Duke's character in the caravan and he says something like "been awhile since I've seen you" if you remember?
We get the vital information that the tiger represents Cage in some way after the credits are done, did you watch that far?
I liked your insistence that one of the film's qualities is that it emphasizes the cosmic scale of things, but more than that it isn't just that it emphasizes the cosmic scale of existence, but that it also more purposefully de-emphasizes the scale humans attribute to ourselves and that even our most unearthly creations like religion are really just a pile of ashes and corpses in a ravine somewhere, in a galaxy that didn't even notice in the first place. The idea of cosmic horror.
Regarding the tiger; I saw it as the tiger inside the cage (or should I say the tiger inside Cage, lmao) is a metaphor ("let the tiger out of the cage") for drugs being the means to open and expand consciousness, much like Jung's experimentations in The Red Book, and this is why the chemist who creates the drugs in the film has the tiger in a cage and releases it at the same place in the film that Cage tries the drugs that the Black Skulls take. I think this is the moment in the film that Cage lets the tiger out of himself, and this might tie into the character's past because clearly there's something to the scene where he visits Bill Duke's character in the caravan and he says something like "been awhile since I've seen you" if you remember?
We get the vital information that the tiger represents Cage in some way after the credits are done, did you watch that far?
Einherjar86
Active Member
Your recall of details is probably better than mine. A few responses:
re. religion and the church imagery, I think you're right; and if I recall correctly, Cosmatos is very critical of religion, particularly the fundamentalist strain. So I wouldn't be surprised if he was going for that. And I agree that the narrative suggests religion is merely a human blip on the radar of deep time. I also totally agree about the cosmic horror element, which is one of the reasons I was so drawn to the film.
I hadn't considered the tiger as Cage, but that makes perfect sense--and now that you say it, I can't imagine that Cosmatos didn't intend that lovely little play on Cage's name, haha. And you're right, Mandy's drawings support that angle. I was thinking of the worthiness/epic quest element because I thought the chemist said something along the lines of "If the tiger lets you live..." which I took to mean it was a test of Red's valor/worthiness/etc. Also, the chemist character lines up nicely with a kind of sage/alchemist trope from pre-modern romances.
As someone who loves exploring and examining meaning, I'll say what I tell my students: there's no reason it can't be both!
I hadn't considered the tiger as Cage, but that makes perfect sense--and now that you say it, I can't imagine that Cosmatos didn't intend that lovely little play on Cage's name, haha. And you're right, Mandy's drawings support that angle. I was thinking of the worthiness/epic quest element because I thought the chemist said something along the lines of "If the tiger lets you live..." which I took to mean it was a test of Red's valor/worthiness/etc. Also, the chemist character lines up nicely with a kind of sage/alchemist trope from pre-modern romances.
As someone who loves exploring and examining meaning, I'll say what I tell my students: there's no reason it can't be both!
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
I didn't know that about Cosmatos RE religion but that makes a lot of sense now. It's very obvious that he isn't some kind of stuffy atheist though, but rather someone trying to strip spirituality of its man-made garments and unnecessary structure. I really appreciate that for some reason.
I forgot about that line. It makes me think that if letting the tiger out of the cage means unleashing something inside yourself by unlocking the subconscious with drugs, "if the tiger lets you live" could mean if you can tame your inner tiger you'll survive letting it out, but if you become the tiger itself, a beast rather than a man, you haven't survived the tiger and have become that which you are hunting. Something like that, which could very easily be an actual combination of both of our interpretations because humanity's struggle with its inner potentiality for being a beast is the foundation for most hero myths. Where is the line when a hero on an adventure of murder and revenge just becomes the villain in the next hero's tale?
This kinda makes the final shot make more sense to me when Cage is driving off, and Mandy appears beside him and he looks back to normal, then reality clicks in and his face is covered with blood again and he's grinning like a maniac. Seems to me that maybe he lost his struggle with the tiger and became a beast in the end.
I'm just rambling at this point lmao, but what I love about films like this with super simple archetypal plots is that they can be interpreted endlessly.
I forgot about that line. It makes me think that if letting the tiger out of the cage means unleashing something inside yourself by unlocking the subconscious with drugs, "if the tiger lets you live" could mean if you can tame your inner tiger you'll survive letting it out, but if you become the tiger itself, a beast rather than a man, you haven't survived the tiger and have become that which you are hunting. Something like that, which could very easily be an actual combination of both of our interpretations because humanity's struggle with its inner potentiality for being a beast is the foundation for most hero myths. Where is the line when a hero on an adventure of murder and revenge just becomes the villain in the next hero's tale?
This kinda makes the final shot make more sense to me when Cage is driving off, and Mandy appears beside him and he looks back to normal, then reality clicks in and his face is covered with blood again and he's grinning like a maniac. Seems to me that maybe he lost his struggle with the tiger and became a beast in the end.
I'm just rambling at this point lmao, but what I love about films like this with super simple archetypal plots is that they can be interpreted endlessly.
no country for old wainds
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you guys should watch beyond the black rainbow, i feel like that actually went down better than mandy but way less people saw it. it’s also pretty metal.
TechnicalBarbarity
Poser Disposer
Einherjar86
Active Member
It’s on my list. Been reading about it, very excited to see it eventually.
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
Oblivious Maximus
I am the worm
no country for old wainds
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rms
Active Member
i like that movie which makes me feel like a little bitch
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
When Brad Pitt turns around again while crossing the road I was hoping a car just slammed into him.
no country for old wainds
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i thought it was an edit at first, but no, it actually happens in the movie and looks that awful lol
Einherjar86
Active Member
CiG
Approximately Infinite Universe
It felt like a fucking parody, like they were taking the piss out of romance films. Oof.
