A festive helping of alienation and demons
Judging by the heaving shops, the sound of piped carols, and the air of hysteria in the electrical department of John Lewis we are, once again, entering the festive season. All the more reason to run from that list of unbought presents and hide within the warm embrace of a darkened auditorium.
If you are looking for darkness of a metaphysical sort the Coen brothers, whose new film A Serious Man opens this week, can usually be guaranteed to sweep away any warm fuzzy feelings with an icy blast of alienation. Their films arrive with the regularity and inevitability of Christmas (fourteen so far). And, like Christmas, they can suffer from over-anticipation and the suspicion that the present one isn't as good as those that went before. During what seems like a lifetime of watching their films I have often found myself sitting in the middle of, say, The Man Who Wasn't There, wishing it was Fargo or Miller's Crossing. Such are the perils of high productivity for such distinctive film-makers; their successes raise expectations and overshadow their subsequent work. But still they keep producing exceptionally good films, and by all reports A Serious Man is destined to be one of their classics. The film is unusual for what it is not. Up until now the hardboiled crime flick has been the vehicle for their best work. It responds to their knowing, deadpan drollery and bleak view of human actions, and is elastic enough to encompass the pantomime of The Big Lebowski and the cold fury of No Country for Old Men. Their newest is, however, a campus movie set in the Minneapolis of their childhood. A personal film from the masters of alienation? Just keep an open mind...
Unless you've been shut in your house battling a demon for the last few weeks you can hardly fail to be aware of Paranormal Activity, which also opens this week. What is startling about this film is just how traditional it is. Things go bump in the night, lights flicker, ouija boards combust; these are all pure M.R. James. Similarly, the 'special effects' – objects moving unaided, mysterious winds blowing, footprints appearing – are as old as cinema itself. But the genius of the film lies in the way these are incorporated into a wholly believable 'mockumentary'. It shows the way that cinema can mix the real and the unreal to uncanny and devastating effect. The film lacks the mythology and iconography of The Blair Witch Project but matches it for unadulterated suspense and shocks. I now know what they mean by “spine-tingling”. Interestingly, one of the characters suggests that it is the act of filming that is encouraging the demon. Maybe reality TV is the Devil's work after all.
As ever at the Skinny Film Blog we want to know what you think. Which is your favourite Coen brothers' film? Which of their films do you think is overrated and which has been scandalously overlooked? Paranormal Activity seems to have left a chunk of its audience unmoved. Did it scare you or leave you cold?